Bob CollinsThe coach of the Old Rochester High School Bulldogs, in Mattapoisett, Mass., appears to have done everything right once he realized the mismatch his team had on its hands the other day in high school baseball.
After his squad scored 12 runs in the first inning, Steve Carvalho told his players to jog instead of run to first. They did. He told them to stop trying to take an extra base. They did. He told them to swing at anything and preferably miss. They did.
Your final score: Old Rochester 82 Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School 0. The game was called after five innings when it became official.
How could this have happened? The New Bedford Standard Times says Carvalho needed to fill out his team’s schedule so he scheduled Notre Dame Cristo Rey. But there are two Notre Dame Cristo Rey High Schools in his neck of the woods and he thought he was scheduling the large one; he wasn’t. Only 100 kids go to the school that went to slaughter this week.
“I was sick to my stomach then and I’m still sick about it,” he said. “The game never should have been played and, believe me, we exhausted every option within our power to keep what happened from happening. They are a very young team and seemed very content with just being out there and playing baseball but that was an experience I never want to experience again.”
The two schools are scheduled to conclude their home and home series on May 19 with a game at Old Rochester.
“I respect those kids and their coach seemed like a great guy,” Carvalho said. “Hopefully, they’ll get better and I wish them nothing but the best. But if that game is played, there is no way I’m using my varsity players. We’ll play that game with our junior varsity players.”
Saturday’s slaughter is five days in his rearview mirror, yet, Carvalho continues to beat himself up. The game remains a nightmarish memory as the “could haves” and “should haves” continue to swirl through the coach’s mind.
“I do regret maybe not bunting our way out of innings, but the team and I thought (at the time) it may have made it worse with the opponent having moving parts and trying to make plays. Striking out was fine but we probably should have taken it further and just took third strikes,” he reasoned.
As is often the case with these things, the kids from Notre Dame Cristo Rey seemed cool with the disaster. They reportedly were just happy to be playing the game.
“I don’t have a problem with Old Rochester at all, they are a program we’re trying to be like,” the Notre Dame coach told the Boston Herald. “We’re a very young team that graduated seven seniors year from last year. We have no seniors, two juniors and the rest of the team is freshmen and sophomores.”
They’ll get another chance when the two teams play again on May 19.
The high school record for most lopsided game still sits in Iowa untouched. On April 26, 1928 when Atlantic (Iowa) beat Griswold, 109-to-0.
