Coppin State Baseball Victory; The Gods Rejoice

Victory!

Coppin State's baseball team snapped a 55-game losing streak tonight with a doubleheader sweep of North Carolina Central. This was the longest losing streak in Division I baseball history.

Three outs from the Eagles’ first win of the season, [CSU starting pitcher] Cothiere allowed a lead-off single to Oliver Jenkins to start the seventh. After he hit Justin Goodson with a pitch, head coach Harvey Lee replaced Cothiere with freshman Moses Muldrow. Working in a save situation with the tying run on deck, Muldrow got Kurt Wilson to ground out and Wesley Brown to pop up. With two outs and runners on second and third, Kyle Davis reached safely on a ground ball to third base, but the home plate umpire ruled that Goodson had interfered with the fielding of the play, ruling him out and giving Coppin State their first win of the 2008 campaign.

How about that! In the second game Coppin State showed off their fearsome resolve by rallying from a six run deficit, finally taking the lead on a walk-off wild pitch.

“I finally got the monkey off my back,” said [hitherto victory-less] head coach Harvey Lee after the game. “The kids deserve this. There have been a few games where calls didn’t go our way, but I wanted them to see they really are a good team.”

Well, not exactly a "good" team, Harvey, but enjoy the victory nonetheless. Obviously, this blog is a slump-busting good luck charm, and the really amazing thing is the turnaround time. From the minute we first featured Coppin State to their first victory was less than 24 hours. We're basically insta-karma, and expect a thank you card from the Eagles ASAP.

Coppin State Baseball: CWATCF Official Team Update

Coppin State plays a doubleheader against North Carolina Central University today. This may be the Eagles' best chance for a victory this season, as NCCU is, well, horrible. So far this season, NCCU has a 1-7 record, receiving within-an-inch-of-your-life poundings from baseball powers like Norfolk State, Savannah State, Chicago State, and something called Alderson-Broaddus. We will, of course, keep tabs on the results for you.

GO EAGLES!

Worst. Athletic. Team. Ever.

While playing around tonight with last year's college baseball statistics, I noticed something that had to be a misprint: 2007 Coppin State had team EqA of .106. To put that in perspective, Christian Guzman's offensive (pun intended) 2005 season clocked in at a disturbingly anemic .205.

Again, as a refresher, EqA basically translates in batting average terms -- a .400 season in MLB ranks as one of the top 15 seasons of all time. A .200 season means you'd better be a pitcher. Coppin State's team was on my spreadsheet at .106!?!?!! Roughly speaking, a .106 EqA is what Christian Guzman would hit if he lost an arm, blew out both knees ... and went blind.

So I assumed I'd made an error, looked it up, and holy crap, this team was 0-44 last season. 0 and f'ing 44.

By the numbers:

"Hitting"

• .161 team batting average.
• 7 regulars hitting under .150
  
• .202 team slugging percentage.
  
• 18 shutouts against.
• 3 no-hitters against.
• 4 times scoring 4 runs in a game.
• 0.78 opponents' WHIP.
• 7 times Archie Scott was picked off or caught stealing. Archie reached base 17 times on the season.
  

"Pitching" & "Fielding"

• .445 opponents' batting average.
• .538 opponents' on base percentage.
• .679 opponents' slugging percentage.
• 16.67 team ERA.
• 38 times allowing more than ten runs.
• 6 times allowing more than twenty runs.
  
• 3.30 WHIP.
• 1 player with a sub-10.00 ERA (he only pitched 3.2 innings).
• .908 fielding percentage (this is not good).
• 126/136 opponents stolen bases/attempts.

The scary part of the team batting stats is that Coppin had a player, Harry Williams, who was legitimately good. Harry put up a more-than-respectable .339/.380/.441 line. Unfortunately, he was nicely counterbalanced by Marcus Robin, who started every game and hit .057.

So I was going to write a nasty little piece making fun of this team ... but then I felt something [my girlfriend tells me that what I experienced was "sympathy"]. How awful must it have been to lose -- and to lose like that -- 44 straight times? To have your coach suddenly quit before the season started, taking a number of players with him? To end up with 11 players on the roster, some of whom "hadn't played baseball before"? And to show up every day to take your beating? Sounds like the type of crap Dante would have come up with.

The 2008 Coppin State team is 0-10 on the young season, but is actually scoring runs and playing (semi)competitive games -- last weekend's game at Hofstra ended in a "wild" 9-7 loss. Still, you add those ten losses (and the final-game loss in 2006) to last year's total, and Coppin State is on a 55-game losing streak.

We hereby dub Coppin the official team of CWATCF, and we'll follow them for the remainder of the season as they soldier on in search of that elusive victory. Go Eagles!