Sports: Roll of the dice comes up snake eyes

Roll of the dice comes up snake eyes

By JOHN C. COTEY

TAMPA -- John Carpenter had two choices Monday afternoon at Legends Field -- start his best pitcher or not.

Make sure you get into the final or gamble that your No. 2 can get you there and, once there, the ace can win a championship for you?

Carpenter's choice -- his No. 2.

This is the way it goes for a high school baseball coach, who makes countless decisions all season and then has it come down to a roll of the dice.

Most coaches won't even bother rolling the dice; like Miami Archbishop Carroll's Lazaro Llanes.

"A no-brainer," said Llanes, whose ace, Mitch Del Castillo, delivered the Bulldogs into tonight's Class A championship game with a marvelous outing in a 4-3 win over Carpenter's Winter Haven All Saints'. Llanes said he was surprised Carpenter went with freshman right-hander Dustin Bamberg and not lefty Bubba Ingram, a USF-signee coming off of a one-hitter. "Tomorrow is tomorrow," he said.

Not for the Saints. For the Saints, there is no tomorrow.

Poor Carpenter. One of the nicest coaches in the business can't buy a break in the state tournament when it comes to choosing his pitcher.

When he was at Lakeland Santa Fe Catholic, he reached the state tournament three consecutive times. Once, he started his No. 1 and made the final only to have the No. 2 get smacked around in a loss. And like he did Monday, he has started his No. 2 and fallen short.

"The quality of your No. 2 without a doubt is a big issue," Carpenter said. "Do you go with your No. 1 and then get killed in the final with your No. 2?

"If you've got two equal pitchers, there's nothing to think about. If there's a difference between your 1 and 2. ... "

Then you have a decision to make. Carpenter said the fact that Ingram threw 144 pitches in the regional final was enough to hold him out another day. And quite frankly, the coach was acquiescing to his senior star's wishes.

"I told him I wanted the championship game," Ingram said. "That's the one I wanted to go out my senior year with."

Ingram had his chance to be a hero, to be former Santa Fe ace Zach Diaz, who bailed Carpenter's 1995 team out in relief after the No. 2 faltered. That year, Carpenter found out the answer to 1 or 2 was somewhere in between as Diaz came back the next day to beat Miami Westminster and give the coach his only state title.

But Ingram made a mistake in the fourth inning. He gave in to his catcher and threw a changeup when he really wanted to throw a fastball. Luis Raffan hit it for a triple to drive in the tying and go-ahead runs.

"It was fat and boom!" Ingram said. "It was a terrible pitch."

In defense of Carpenter, it's the kind of decision he gets paid for, and it wasn't the easy or conventional one. He could have trotted out his No. 1 without a thought and passed Coaching 101.

Perhaps he looked at the Archbishop Carroll lineup, with just one .400 hitter, and felt Bamberg could hold it down. Perhaps he considered the fact that the Bulldogs had 11 losses or had scored just 13 runs in three previous playoff games?

Or maybe he looked at his choices for No. 2 and saw two freshmen. Bamberg admitted he was "nervous ... really nervous." And that was for a semifinal.

What chance would the Saints have then with a scared freshman in the title game?

Fact is, he was merely trying to put his team in a position to win the championship, not just get there. The high school baseball landscape is littered with state runners-up who were happy to just get there.

Carpenter wanted better for his team, failed to see the solace in second place rather than third or fourth.

Imagine the Saints playing today for the state title with Ingram rested and the opponent's No. 1 spent. Imagine the team behind him, buoyed by having their ace on the hill. Imagine, we would all be heralding their coach as a genius.

Just imagine.

That's what Carpenter did.