Bourne Puts Up 45 Runs in Cape Cod League’s Biggest Scoring Output in 1963

The 95 total runs scored on the evening of July 28, 2023, had historians and statistic buffs running for the record books to see if such an offensive explosion had ever occurred in the Cape Cod Baseball League previously.

The short answer is, probably no.

While there have been some high-scoring games in the past, it’s doubtful that so many ever occurred on the same day.

For the record, the scores from July 28, 2023, were as follows:

The next question asked was whether the 27 runs scored by Falmouth were a single-game record.

Once again, the short answer is no – not even close.

The biggest onslaught in Cape League history occurred on August 11, 1963, when Bourne topped the Otis Air Force Base team by a score of 45-1.

Keep in mind that this was the first year of the so-called Modern Era of Cape Cod Baseball and many of the squads were dominated for the first time by college players.

On that Sunday afternoon, the 18-10 Bourne squad traveled to face the Otis AFB team that was coming into the fray with a 12-15 record. Otis had already served as a veritable punching bag earlier that season to Chatham when on June 22 the Airmen lost by a score of 33-3.

Otis was led by player-manager Sgt. Clarence Merritt, who was the team catcher and utilityman, often hitting third in the lineup. He was a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, rising to the rank of master sergeant. He later would serve as an umpire in the Cape League and lived in Buzzards Bay.

The Otis team would return to the league in 1964 for one more season, compiling a 3-28 record before disbanding altogether. The August 11 game started out rather uneventful with Bourne grabbing a 2-0 lead after one and upping the lead to 5-0 after two innings.

Then the roof caved in.

Bourne plated 13 runs in the third, followed it up with six runs in both the fourth and fifth innings. Then, after Otis cut the lead to 30-1 with a run in the top of the sixth, the Braves exploded for 15 more in the seventh before the game mercifully came to an end.

Otis pitcher George Baker became a sacrificial lamb for his squad when he was tagged for 27 runs in his three-inning stint. Meanwhile, Bourne’s Wayne Upton set a record for runs batted in for one game with 8; it was later eclipsed by Brewster’s Wade Wass (9 RBIs) in 2014.

The first five batters in the Bourne order scored five runs each. Also, the 15 runs scored by Bourne in the seventh were one less than the 16 scored by Chatham in the third inning of that 33-3 game on June 22, 1963.

Another amazing fact from a game that produced 46 total runs, 36 hits, a combined 20 bases on balls, and 12 errors – it was played in just 2 hours and 47 minutes.

Records that were set that day and still exist over 60 years later are:

 

MIKE RICHARD has been the historian of the Cape Cod Baseball League since 2018. He spent 35 years in public education, both as an English teacher and later a guidance counselor before retiring from Gardner (Massachusetts) High School in 2013. A longtime columnist for the Gardner News, he also wrote sports columns for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the Barnstable Patriot, and the Cape Cod Times. He has authored two sports history books: Glory to Gardner: 100 Years of Football in the Chair City, and Super Saturdays: The Complete History of the Massachusetts High School Super Bowl, as well as contributions to many SABR publications. Also known for his exhaustive research of Massachusetts high-school sports history, he is historian of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association and is responsible for all records and statistics for the annual state tournament programs. He and his wife, Peggy, live in Sandwich on Cape Cod and are the parents of two grown children, Casey and Lindsey, and two grandchildren, Theo and Grace.