DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia — Six consecutive seasons without a victory would sink most high school baseball programs. At Dartmouth High School, it has done the opposite: the Spartans keep lacing up their cleats, pulling on their jerseys, and painting their cheeks black, treating every game as a reason to celebrate rather than a verdict on their ability.
The team's losing record is not a matter of bad luck. Most defeats arrive by the mercy rule, which ends a game early once a side falls behind by 10 runs within a set number of innings. Team captain Curtis Snelgrove estimated to CBC News that roughly 80 percent of the Spartans' losses unfold that way, with the remainder decided in the conventional fashion at the bottom of the ninth.
"Even through those large defeats, everyone has a blast on the team, we have a great time!" Snelgrove told CBC News. He attributed the squad's enduring morale to its makeup: many of the young men on the roster had never before had the opportunity to play organized baseball.
That open-door philosophy is deliberate. With no performance standards serving as a barrier to entry, players who might otherwise never touch a diamond can join, even if it means staring down a 10-run deficit by the third inning. The result is a roster of newcomers learning the game in real time — and enjoying it regardless of the outcome.
Alex Ansems, one such team member, said he had never played baseball before joining the Spartans. Rather than let his inexperience in hitting, pitching, and fielding hold the team back, he embraced a different role: serving as the squad's self-described "vibes guy," keeping energy high in the dugout and on the bench.
Those good vibes have survived all six winless seasons, and they were not even dented by a development that might have stung a more conventional program. The Spartans originally fielded a co-ed team; when the female players broke off to form their own squad and joined the women's league, they promptly delivered the first-ever game victory for the high school.
There was no trash talk at Dartmouth about playing ball like a girl. The still-winless boys were delighted. "It was pretty awesome to see that Spartans baseball won a game, even if it wasn't my team," team member Benjamin Boehner told CBC News.
The players may struggle on the field, but they are not naive about what their record represents. The lesson that losing is a part of life has not been lost on them, and it is precisely why they keep taking the field year after year — hoping that one day an opponent will arrive that is, in the end, worse than they are.
Until then, the Spartans remain what they have always been: game. And as any baseball purist will attest, there is no crying in baseball.