What if I told you that French Camp had a baseball game this year in which the Panthers committed five errors and their pitchers walked nine batters, resulting in 19 Sebastopol runs?
Surely French Camp lost the game, probably a victim of the 10-run mercy rule.
Not hardly. French Camp actually won 20-19. Sounds like a football score, with the difference being that French Camp was successful on two extra points and Sebastopol only one.
But the game was played on a diamond, not a gridiron, and in a shortened baseball season it was a wild and unforgettable game.
“Somehow at 20-19 it was just a three-hour game. I've been part of four-hour ones,” said French Camp head coach Nathan Wright.
It was a see-saw battle with four lead changes. French Camp jumped out to a 7-1 lead with two runs in the first and five in the second before Sebastopol went ahead with eight runs in the third.
That was not the end of the big innings. French Camp scored seven runs in the fourth and Sebastopol had five-run rallies in both the fifth and sixth for a 19-18 lead. French Camp went back ahead with two in the bottom of sixth, then held on as Holt Barlow blanked the Bobcats in the seventh.
Seth Box was the hitting star for French Camp with two homers and five RBIs. He was also the most effective of the game's seven pitchers, allowing one run, with three strikeouts, in an inning and third.
Jacob Williams had a single, double, homer and four RBIs for Sebastopol.
It was a matchup of two of the state's best 1A teams. When the season ended, French Camp was 6-0 and top-ranked in 1A by the website MaxPreps. Third-ranked Sebastopol was 6-2. The other loss was also to French Camp by one run, but by a more conventional score of 3-2.
These types of games are extremely rare, but have been known to happen even in the major leagues. In a 1979 game at Wrigley Field, the Phillies pushed across a run in the 10th to edge the Cubs 23-22. The wind was probably blowing out.
