The Tennessee fun police just ruined something great over a technicality. In the second game of a three game playoff series, Ensworth High School’s Connor Cobb threw a no hitter to push the series to a divisive game three. The only problem, Cobb threw 121 pitches in the performance. Tennessee high school baseball has a rule that a starting pitcher can only throw 120 pitches in a game. As a result, Ensworth forfeited the game and their season ended.
This looks bad for everyone. Ensworth gets their season cut short, the team that won will have an asterisk next to anything they accomplish this year, and sports fans everywhere are punching air at the thought of this happening in a game they care about. I feel a little bad for the pitcher this happened to as well. But from what I know about Tennessee (which is admittedly nothing) he probably got laid over this because this is definitely the most important thing to happen in their town this month.
I’d like to imagine that there were three people at the game who realized what happened, and the first two didn’t say a word about it. While they were figuring out which pitch they were going to erase from the scorecard, a serial rule follower got up to point out the mistake. To want to enforce a rule like that, you’d have to be the type of person who religiously follows all speed limit signs. That extra pitch didn’t harm anybody. Hell, five years ago in Tennessee, pitchers were actually allowed to finish off the batter they threw their 120th pitch to. Not only did you take away a great moment from a kid who’s only concerns are baseball and finding a prom date, you bailed out a bunch of losers from some well-earned embarrassment.
Also, next time free wins are given out to a baseball team, I root for a professional team in Philadelphia that could really use one.
