Sporting Gesture Touches Them All

In May 2008, in a college softball game with playoff implications, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she’d never done, in high school or college.  Her first home run cleared the center-field fence at Central Washington University’s home field in Ellensburg.

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’d 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.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky. The umpire said there was no rule against it.  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 with her good leg. 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.

“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.”

As the three 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.” 

Holtman said she had been taught by her coach, Gary Frederick, that “winning is not everything.”  Is there something intrinsic to women’s sports that caused this generosity? Holtman, nearly 23, did not think so. “Not many people are ever in that position,” she said. “I would hope that our baseball players would do it.”  Pam Knox, the Western Oregon coach, said the act “came from character.”  “They’re playing for a coach who instills it,” she said.

“It’s amazing what they did,” Tucholsky said of the Central Washington players Tuesday, while facing what she assumes will be the first surgery of her 21 years for what is suspected to be a torn ligament.  “Mallory didn’t know it was my first home run,” said Tucholsky, whose college career will end with a .153 batting average and exactly one home run. “It just says a lot about them.”

Tucholsky’s home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.  Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.  “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.”

Carrying injured opponent around bases eliminates CWU from softball playoffs - Joseph B. Frazier; The Associated Press   http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/promos/wirepicks/story/349161.html

A Sporting Gesture Touches ’Em All- George Vecsey, New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/sports/baseball/30vecsey.html?em&ex=1209700800&en=9bbff492af3949f1&ei=5087%0A

 

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