A Great Sports Story

There are occasional reminders that the sports section is not a daily wasteland of steroid users and whining overpaid athletes.  This women's softball story from the Great Northwest is on its way to iconic status.

Here is George Vecsey of the Times:

A Sporting Gesture Touches ’Em All

By GEORGE VECSEY

Something remarkable happened in a college softball game last Saturday in Ellensburg, Wash. At least, I am conditioned to think it was remarkable, since it involved an act of sportsmanship, with two players helping an injured opponent complete the home run she had just slugged.

Why this generous act should seem so unusual probably stems from the normal range of bulked-up baseball players, police-blotter football players, diving soccer and hockey players and other high-profile professionals.

The moment of grace came after Sara Tucholsky, a diminutive senior for Western Oregon, hit what looked like a three-run homer against Central Washington. Never in her 21 years had Tucholsky propelled a ball over a fence, so she did not have her home run trot in order, gazing in awe, missing first base. When she turned back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

Pam Knox, the Western Oregon coach, made sure no teammates touched Tucholsky, which would have automatically made her unable to advance. The umpires ruled that if Tucholsky could not make it around the bases, two runs would score but she would be credited with only a single. (“She’ll kill me if I take it away from her,” Knox thought.)

Then Mallory Holtman, the powerful first baseman for Central Washington, said words that brought a chill to everybody who heard them:

“Excuse me, would it be O.K. if we carried her around and she touched each bag?”

The umpires huddled and said it would be legal, so Holtman and the Central Washington shortstop, Liz Wallace, lifted Tucholsky, hands crossed under her, and carried her to second base, and gently lowered her so she could touch the base. Then Holtman and Wallace started to giggle, and so did Tucholsky, through her tears, and the three of them continued this odd procession to third base and home to a standing ovation.

OK, this does represent a violation of the "No crying in baseball" rule, but we will allow it this once.

ESPN has picked it up, and this background from the AP is interesting - apparently the losing team lost a shot at the playoffs (although one might argue that the extra run did not make a difference:

ucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season. Her home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.

“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run.”

I think that is terrifically cool.  However, I will have a different opinion if I ever see Jeter and A Rod helping Big Papi around the bases, thereby knocking themselves out of the playoffs.

ABC News/ESPN has more details:

Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday's conference doubleheader at Central Washington's 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.

It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.

And more on Holtman:

"And right then," Knox said, "I heard, 'Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?'"

The voice belonged to Holtman, a four-year starter who owns just about every major offensive record there is to claim in Central Washington's record book. She also is staring down a pair of knee surgeries as soon as the season ends. Her knees ache after every game, but having already used a redshirt season earlier in her career, and ready to move on to graduate school and coaching at Central, she put the operations on hold so as to avoid missing any of her final season. Now, with her own opportunity for a first postseason appearance very much hinging on the outcome of the game -- her final game at home -- she stepped up to help a player she knew only as an opponent for four years.

"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."

I bet she'll be a great coach.

 

 

Comments

[Jane]

I saw the video on Fox this morning. There is A lot to be proud of about those kids.

[John Thacker]

Unfortunately, part of the story is that the umpire blew the call. The rules of baseball and softball both address this issues, amazingly enough. If a player is injured in the middle of a dead ball situation, a substitute is allowed to come in and advance any bases recorded. The ump was completely wrong to say that a pinch runner would stop at first.

Colby Cosh has the story. Note that this has happened in MLB; here's a list of examples from Retrosheet that Colby points out.

[John Thacker]

Sorry, closing tags.

[DebinNC]

How does one close the tags after posting? I'm sure I'll leave them open at some point, if I haven't already, but don't know how to undo the mistake.

[vnjagvet]

Apparently these women understood the spirit of the rules, even if the officials did not.

Girls are great, aren't they?

While I can't say guys would never do such a thing, as a father of five grown daughters all of whom actively participated in sports, I am confident that it would be much more likely that girls would do something like this and feel that it was just part of the game.

This type of sportswomanship was totally foreign to me until fatherhood opened my eyes to the profound differences between the sexes in competitive sports.

Male coaches in female sports must adjust to more than physical differences between genders or they will be totally unsuccessful.

[Jim Glass]

"The umpires ruled that if Tucholsky could not make it around the bases, two runs would score but she would be credited with only a single... Then Mallory Holtman, the powerful first baseman for Central Washington, said words that brought a chill to everybody who heard them:

“Excuse me, would it be O.K. if we carried her around and she touched each bag?”

The umpires huddled and said it would be legal...

Why does everybody so praise this blatant use of a technicality to defeat the clearly stated intent of the rules?

First the Rules of Baseball, then the Commerce Clause*, then the whole dang Constitution.

And all right, so it wasn't against the rules of baseball -- everybody involved thought it was, and isn't that what matters as to the ethics of the situation?

Next we'll all be praising people who bribe judges into giving illegal verdicts that seem kind hearted and that they don't know are correct. Woe unto us all.

* OK, it was the Commerce Clause first...

[bgates]

I'm surprised to see you say that, vnjagvet. I don't know how anyone in Holtman's situation, and unaware of the rule John Thacker pointed out, could act differently.

[bgates]

No, Jim, nobody involved thought it was against the rules. The player asked the umpires if it would be ok, and the umpires ruled it was legal. Go yell at people doing 58 in a 55 zone.

[clarice]

I agree with vnjagvet. It's a girl thing.Boys do sweet things , too--often in cases where girls would not, but NOT in competition like this.

[JorgXMcKie]

Boys playing baseball can be sweet, too. About 25-30 years ago, when my knees hurt too much to umpire any more, I began coaching boys' baseball. Now, mind you I like baseball, but I was never real good at it myself.
Anyway, for a couple of years I coached the 9-11 age group in our small town (and I let the first girl join the team when I found out the league had no rules against it). My daughter still lives there although I'm now about 600 miles away.
Anyway, last summer on a visit to see my grandkids, my daughter brought this guy up to me and said, "Dad, do you remember this idiot?" (And he was grinning like he had a certain amount of brain damage, as my grandma would have said.) I had to admit I didn't, and he introduced himself as one of my former players, now 35 or so with kids of his own.
He said he was coaching the 9-11 team and he was trying to teach them what he had learned from me. I was kinda puzzled, because, as I said, I wasn't really good at baseball, so I asked him what that was.
He said, "Everyone who shows up to every practice gets to play. No one complains about playing time or the position they play. If everyone plays as hard and as well as they can, after the game everyone gets ice cream. We don't win many games (and neither did my teams), but I want them to have as much fun and learn as much as I did."
I'm not sure I ever got a nicer compliment.