Home Run
It’s completely out of character for this blog to post something nice, something touching.
I’ll probably get ridiculed at the next editorial staff meeting. (Note to Alex and Donna: When is the next editorial staff meeting?)
But I liked this story enough to risk their chastisement. From George Vecsey of the New York Times:
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?”
So, as Vecsey tells it, they did.
I’ve watched like a million games over the years, coached about half of them, it seems. I’ve never seen something quite like what took place up in Washington. I’ve seen plenty of the opposite, I’ve seen 10 year olds with sharpened metal cleats spike my shortstop. I’ve seen linebackers pound my 11 year old quarterback after the play, trying to knock him out. And not a weekend goes by where I don’t see kids running up the score on my current team — which is in last place.
The question is, where did it come from, this impulsive gesture by Mallory Holtman?
“She hit it over the fence,” Holtman said Tuesday. “She deserved it. Anybody would have done it. I just beat them to it.” She said she had been taught by her coach, Gary Frederick, that “winning is not everything.”
What a miserable story.
Just off the top of my head, I can think of several better ways to have handled this problem:
While she was on the ground, the other team could have attacked her for not repudiating something her pastor said when she was ten.
They could have offered her a glass of orange juice, and then ridiculed her for drinking it.
They could have challenged her to a bowling match, and attacked her as a weakling when she had to say no.
I don’t see an American flag pin on that uniform. What patriot would carry that kind of person around the bases?
I thought athletic coaches were supposed to be preparing students for adult life. They aren’t doing a very good job of it, in my opinion.
Well said, GE.
That’s a very touching story.
Now, who are you and what did you do with Paul?