By Bill Dickens
MaxPreps.com
When former professional baseball pitcher Mike Rupp accepted the baseball coaching position at El Cajon Valley High he made some pretty bold predictions.
A former East San Diego County pitching ace at Monte Vista High, Rupp – who pitched seven minor league seasons in the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox organizations – was forced to curtail his dreams of a major league career due to arm ailments.
Rupp probably never realized the challenge he was undertaking when he signed on with the Braves, the perennial doormats of the Grossmont Conference of the San Diego Section. Yet knowing the history of the program, he vowed to turn things around in his first season.
Call him crazy, but Rupp was a man of his word.
El Cajon Valley won its first Grossmont North League baseball game in 11 years last month when the Braves outslugged the host West Hills Wolf Pack 11-7 in Santee (Calif.). The Braves, who finished the season 9-20, had lost a state record 129 league games in a row, dating back to the 1997 season.
Ironically, the last time the Braves won a league game was over West Hills when the majority of this year’s El Cajon Valley squad was in grammar school.
“I remember meeting with these kids for the first time and telling them how much, as a player, I hated to lose,” Rupp said. “And I told them I still hate losing. Nobody is going to give us a chance this year, but I believe in you guys and I think we’re going to surprise some people.”
El Cajon Valley came close a few times and received warranted praise for their efforts, but it was little more than a pat on the head – a kind of ‘nice try, son.’
Breaking the state record for futility was no small task for the Braves at West Hills. The lead changed hands six times and the game was tied on two other occasions.
El Cajon Valley broke loose for five runs in the top of the sixth inning. Trailing the Wolf Pack 7-6, the Braves gained the leads for keeps as sophomore Efren Padilla doubled in two runs. A bases-loaded error by the Wolf Pack forked over another run for the Braves who capped the rally with Gavino Pinal’s 2-run double down the right-field line.
“Even after we got the lead in the sixth I was still pretty nervous in that last inning,” said Efren Padilla.
His senior brother, Adrian Padilla picked up for starter Matt Thomas, and opened the final frame with a walk.
“I started thinking to myself quietly “Uh-oh,” said Efren.
The younger Padilla’s concerns were put to rest when senior Adrian struck out the next batter.
That was the beginning of the end for West Hills, which made no further noise.
“When we got two outs in that last inning, we were going nuts,” said Rupp. “That’s when I told myself ‘We’re actually gonna do this.’”
Two goals that Rupp set for the Braves in his rookie season were to win a tournament and to put an end to the losing streak.
El Cajon Valley won the Lions Tournament Division A championship in March, followed by an impressive victory over Horizon (where Rupp served as an assistant coach previously) and then tumbled to 12 straight losses before sacking the Pack.
“I’ve been telling the guys all year that they have a chance to make history,” said Rupp. “And now they’ve done it.”
In the historic win, Efren Padilla paced the Braves 13-hit attack with a 3-for-4 effort. Pinal returned to the lineup to go 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI, while David Sanchez and Adrian Torres contributed two hits apiece.
Just to be able to get the final out in the record-breaking moment to Adrian Padilla, who has pitched better than his 1-8 record indicates, had to be satisfying, to say the least.
“I’m so proud of my team for pulling through,” Adrian said. “Winning the Lions Tournament gave us more confidence, and then when we lost to West Hills (two days ago) we could feel it building up – this is gonna be our chance to break that nasty old record.”
His younger brother agreed.
“The way I feel right now is such a big difference,” Efren said.
Obviously stunned, West Hills coach Chris Baum refused to be negative.
“Of course we want to win every game,” he said. “But you have to tip your hat to Coach Rupp and his guys – they got the big hits with the bases loaded, and we didn’t. And you have to credit their pitchers too, because we only had 12 guys come to the plate in the last three (shutout) innings.”
For El Cajon Valley, getting the monkey off their backs should provide smooth sailing for the final four games of the season.
“This is something these kids will never forget,” said Rupp. “And they worked hard to get it and deserve all the credit for it. It takes a lot of weight off our shoulders, for sure, but we’re not satisfied – we want to win a few more.”
When word spread that El Cajon Valley had ended the dubious skid, it no doubt created a collective sigh of relief among the other three members of the league.
“Even though we’d lost all those games, in kind of a strange way, nobody in our league wanted to play us,” Adrian Padilla said. “They didn’t want to be the team that we beat to end the streak. Every league game we went into we had nothing to lose, and all the pressure was on the other team.”
According to CalHiSports.com the dubious record was previously held by Sacramento Grant, which suffered 107 consecutive league losses from 1996 through 2002.
“Nobody wanted to be the one that El Cajon ended the streak against,” said Baum. “But that’s why you play the game. If El Cajon Valley was supposed to lose all 12 games, then why should they play?”
“It was bound to happen to somebody because they’re not that bad a team. Now you hope they can go out and knock off somebody else.”