Posted on 05/07/2008 7:38:04 AM PDT by Kimmers
CWU players carry WOU player around bases after knee injury following
PORTLAND, Ore. - With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.
But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.
She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.
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Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.
Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.
The umpire said there was no rule against it.
So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky’s legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.
“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, ‘OK, we’re going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,’ and I said ‘OK, thank you very much.”’
“She said, ‘You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,’ and we all kind of just laughed.”
“We started laughing when we touched second base,” Holtman said. “I said, ’I wonder what this must look like to other people.”’
“We didn’t know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run,” Wallace said Wednesday. “That makes the story more touching than it was. We just wanted to help her.”
Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.
As for Tucholsky, the 5-foot-2 right fielder was focused on her pain.
“I really didn’t say too much. I was trying to breathe,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday.
“I didn’t realize what was going on until I had time to sit down and let the pain relax a little bit,” she said. “Then I realized the extent of what I actually did.”
“I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation,” Tucholsky added.
As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.
Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”
For Western Oregon coach Pam Knox, the gesture resolved the dilemma Tucholsky’s injury presented.
“She was going to kill me if we sub and take (the home run) away. But at the same time I was concerned for her. I didn’t know what to do,” Knox said.
Tucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season, and she plans to graduate in the spring with a degree in business. 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.”
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Bet you’re a friggin’ sourpuss IRS agent. What a maroon.
FWIW - “If an accident to a runner is such as to prevent him from proceeding to a base to which he is entitled, as on a home run hit out of the playing field, or an award of one or more bases, a substitute runner shall be permitted to complete the play.” MLB Official Rules, 5.10. A substitute runner should have been allowed.
Wrong Bar Bell Boy.
I was an umpire, I knew the rules, and I did my job correctly.
If that chaps your backward baseball cap, leave well enough alone and don’t reply.
Have a nice day!
Well, not exactly. The rules do stipulate that the bases have to be touched. As I said in an earlier comment, the fact that a player has to touch the bases at all after a homerun is pointless. But it is in the rules.
Wow, “Bar Bell Boy”, that’s a good one! My banking brethren and doctor/attorney pals would crack up at that one!
Actually, I prefer isometric exercises rather than bar bells and free weights—keeps me lean and strong, without getting bulky.
Maybe you need to try exercise sometime yourself. It might help you be less uptight, cranky, and IRS-agent-like... Then maybe you could enjoy life just a teensy, itsy-bitsy tad outside the rules.
Although you are correct that our culture is rapidly being feminized, neither this event nor the reaction to it serves as an example of that feminization.
As you said, this is women's sports. This is college softball. This is girls being girls, doing what girls do.
Now, if this were about college baseball players (men), then this would be yet another example of our culture going down the toilet. If (when) boys start acting like this—when that happens and people are gushing all over it—... just shoot me.
I recall this and remember thinking how unfair it was to the original record holder. When this happens the player getting the break is severely diminished and the record itself requires an asterisk next to it.
Perhaps some of your banking, medical and legal brethern can supplement your profile.
If you were a college athlete, then apparently you never understood that games have rules.
Thanks for the exercise tip, I will be sure to factor that in to my running, weight lifting, golf and softball programs when I get time.
Man...remember when sports teams played to win? I can’t believe all the touchy feely stuff going on on this thread. I remember when Boston schools stopped keeping score for their elementary school sports and how outraged freepers were at the assault on competitiveness. Thisngs have sure changed.
If I were the coach and anyone on my team helped an opponent score a run I’d kick that kid off the team so fast his head would spin.
ping
here’s an article from a different with a better explanation
Crummy writing got our knickers in a twist.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/collegesports/2004381880_vecsey30.html
the gist is, if she had a pinch runner, she would only have been credited with a single.
The 2 runs from the homer always count.
The exception:
had her teammates helped, they would have lost the homer and the 2 runs.
Being a somewhat local story, they ran the video on the local news last night.
Tremendously inspirational. Those gals are a true credit to their team, their town, their parents and coaches.
Really puts those 30 Mill a year spoiled, whinin crybabies in the NFL and NBA in perspective, don’t it?
She already HAD scored the run, according to the rules posted earlier, so it was just a question of whether she got to touch the bases herself or sit on the sidelines and watch a subsitute do it. Carrying her around to touch them herself was a generous gesture which cost the opposing team nothing.
Yes, but today, in this day and age, especially with Title IX, we're instructed to believe that women's sports are in no way different from men's sports; that competition between men and competition between women is essentially the same; that we should celebrate female athletes---and their inherent qualities---in the same way that we should celebrate male athletes, as if the only difference between the two was the plumbing. In that regard, all of us are supposed to look upon this story as something noble and triumphant; that any athlete should do this for another athlete, as if what this team did for their opponent was the pinnacle of sports itself.
You and me both. This "everyone gets a most valuable player trophy" ethos really makes me sick.
OK then lil’ fella, run along.
Gosh, and gee whiz, thanks. It’s been fun and I can’t wait to battle your wit again. Bring it the next time.
Have a really, really really nice day!!
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