Hey, relax there, New Mexico State. It’s not the end of the world.
But rapture had to look good to the Aggies after losing 24-3 to Hawaii yesterday. That was a college baseball game, by the way.
Apparently altitude and bad pitching cancel out deadened bats.
A great round of batting practice for the Rainbows as they head into the WAC tournament. Plus, allowing just one earned run in seven innings under those conditions must be a huge confidence builder for the pitching staff.
This game is Exhibit A for why there is a mercy rule. It made us think of other routs in various sports that should have been shortened for lack of competitive balance. Not all the wipeouts in Hawaii sports occur on the waves.
» Maui High basketball player Mike Cherry scored a career-high seven points in 1996 … in a 98-10 win over a small, new school, Kaahumanu Hou.
"I got to see playing time early in that one," says Cherry, now sports director at Hawaii News Now. "I just remember our coach telling us we better not let them get double digits or we’d be running on Monday. He didn’t lie."
» Later that year, UH football suffered the Rout 66-0 in Fred von Appen’s first road game in Wyoming. In 1980, the 45-20 defeat there provided a great anecdote, from Tim Lyons (who quarterbacked the Rainbows to seven straight wins to start the next season).
"Wyoming would shoot their cannon and run a pony the length of the field when they scored," Lyons relates. "Toward the end of the fourth quarter they scored again and we didn’t hear the cannon or see the pony. Dino (Babers) and I looked down at the end zone and saw a sign in front of the cannon … "out of ammo." Then we saw the pony, and the cheerleaders were trying to get it to run, but it wouldn’t. It was foaming at the mouth. Then we saw it sit down on its butt and refuse to run anymore despite the cheerleaders pulling on its reins to get it moving."
» PacWest Conference commissioner Bob Hogue recalls coaching a 40-0 win in a youth hoops league.
"We tried everything we could to help the other team, including tipping the ball back to them after defensive rebounds, but they couldn’t score. After a while we felt terrible scoring on them, so we pulled back. I think that in many ways it was almost more painful winning by that score than any game we ever lost."
» Take your pick from three UH football romps over BYU: 1989 (56-14), 1990 (59-28) or 2001 (72-45).
The 2001 one should’ve been called after Chad Owens ran wild and Pisa Tinoisamoa crushed the Cougars’ Brandon Doman at the goal line right before halftime and the score already 31-10. But then we wouldn’t have seen Nick Rolovich throw six of his eight TD passes and Craig Stutzmann punt one into the stands.
This must be the only game in history that led to a new playing surface and a new bowl game. Aloha Stadium switched to FieldTurf after BYU complained about being pounded into the Astroturf. And since it made the Warriors 9-3, but all dressed up with no postseason bid, the blowout also inspired the Hawaii Bowl.
» Paul Honda wishes there’d been a slaughter rule to end his misery sooner 30 years ago.
"Our league didn’t get our 13-under team into PAL, so we had to play Senior Little League against people with beards and moustaches. Lost a lot of games 16-0, 19-5, 22-1. I quit baseball after that, but I had a perfect batting average (.000) for my swan song."
» UH beat Northern Colorado 63-6 in its 2007 football season opener, the first win in its 12-0 regular season.
After going up 42-0 at halftime, Colt Brennan and most of the other Warriors starters returned to the field after intermission in street clothes.
» Kristin Leandro reminds us about a wipeout that changed the course of Hawaii high school football.
"Remember (when) St. Louis beat Damien in football 84-0? Shortly afterward they implemented the mercy rule and they went to the current Division I and II format.
"Mixed feelings on that one," adds Leandro, a Sacred Hearts grad and big Saint Louis fan. "If it had been any other school on the winning side of that blowout, I’d have been outraged."
Well, at least she’s honest.
Reach Star-Advertiser sports columnist Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com his "Quick Reads" blog at staradvertiser.com and twitter.com/davereardon.
