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CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON — School's out for the summer, and the every state in the union is putting the finishing touches on their spring sport state championships across every division for sports like baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse and more.
That means hundreds of players are celebrating state titles — and several more are suffering the calamity of defeat.
Or in the case of New York's Hornell High, both.
The Red Raiders had a 5-4 lead on Palmyra-Macedon in the championship game of New York's Section V, Class B baseball tournament on Saturday, but the other team clad in red — also called the Red Raiders, from Palmyra, New York — had runners on second and third.
Hornell threw across the plate, and the catcher dropped the ball in the dirt, but recovered to tag the batter for the final out. But watch the video here from the Wellsville Sun as the home-plate umpire never calls that final out.
That's a live ball.
So while Hornell is celebrating in the middle of the infield and jumping up and down in a celebratory dog pile near the mound, Pal-Mac rounds the bases and clinches its 20-2 season with its own 6-5 championship victory in the most chaotic fashion.
Video of the incident went viral, with more than 6 million views on one Twitter user's video that was later picked up by ESPN's SportsCenter.
The losing coach, though, has no plans to protest the call, he told the Wellsville Sun.
"I blame myself a little. Maybe I could have gone out and argued it was a dead ball and kept the runner on third and said, 'Hey it's tied now, put the runner on third and make them beat us.' But we can't blame the umpires. Everyone is running on the field and I'm not sure they knew how to handle it either," Hornell coach Joe Flint told the Hornell Sun and Wellsville Sun. "I'm not sure what else happened because I haven't watched the video. Maybe I should have called for a conference and protested. I blame myself on that piece of it, maybe I could have done a better job."
Flint also told the newspaper that he hasn't seen the nationwide viral video of his team's soul-crushing loss. He's been too busy talking to each of his players individually after two teams wearing identical red uniforms with identical mascot names were celebrating less than a minute apart within 15 feet of each other.
If nothing else, let this incident be a reminder of the wise words of the philosopher Lenny Kravitz: It ain't over 'til it's over.
Yesterday's Have You Seen This?
Whale shark visits a local buffet
According to the video caption, this is a whale shark feeding on a bait ball in the Ningaloo Reef, off the coast of Western Australia. But it might as well be one of my uncles at an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet.
