When I was a senior in high school my baseball team tried to "reload" for the season after losing 9 seniors. I went to a 1A school in Utah which is the lowest classification school in the state, meaning losing 9 seniors (all who played vital roles on the team) was not an easy problem to overcome. Between the other senior and I we patched together a rag tag team that featured one junior, two sophomores and three freshman. After we recruited a couple of people who got cut from the track team, we rounded out with 11 players for the season. The diamond was not kind to us that season, we were blown out game after game and most of us began looking to a brighter day when the season would be over. Our saving grace to most games was that a mercy rule had been in place. The closest game we had was 7 runs. We didn't mind that the final two innings would happen, because it was 5 (or more) less runs we didn't have to deal with.
My opinion on the mercy rule in high school sports is torn, because I think that it does damper the life lessons that high school athletics teaches. When you are an adult there is no mercy rule in life, however my experience in baseball helped me see another light. We all wanted to play baseball and we worked really hard, we just weren't any good. In high school I would say that the rule has a place. At a time where young minds are being formed, the frustration of failure can have a huge negative impact on student athletes. It also promotes sportsmanship, by not running up the score, which is a huge aspect of high school sports (at least in thought, maybe not deed).
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