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I was at the Outback this evening and saw a story on ESPN that intrigued me, so I looked it up when I got home. Last Saturday the Western Oregon girl's softball team was playing Central Washington, when senior Sarah Tucholsky, for the first time in her life, knocked one over the fence with two girls on base. She was apparently so excited that she missed first base, and as she turned to go back she went down with a torn ACL. She had to crawl back to first base, and if she wasn't able to complete the circuit, or if any of her teammates assisted her, her run wouldn't count. That's when the first baseman for Central Washington asked if it would be all right if they carried her around the bases. The officials agreed that it would be legal, and she and the shortstop picked Sarah up and, to a standing ovation, carried her home, pausing at second and third so she could touch the bases. Western Oregon went on to win the game 4-2, but I think it's safe to say that there were no losers on that ball field.
Here's a link to the story in the New York Times:
Comments
nice
Thanks for passing this on Scott. Maybe there's hope for us humans yet. (I keep trying convince myself otherwise but until the mothership shows up I guess I'm human too.)
hugs!
grover
Sweet, But Those Umps Were Cruel...
...or maybe not. The softball rules relating to bases are different from baseball's, so the umpires may not have gotten it wrong.
But in regard to the NY Times writer's inquiry as to whether that chain of events could have happened in the major leagues, it wouldn't have been necessary there to carry the player around the bases. Since there was no ball in play, it's all right for a substitute to enter the game and complete the circuit.
It's happened twice in the last thirty years or so, according to retrosheet.org , a volunteer organization that has posted play-by-play information for tens of thousands of major league games over the past century:
"9/7/1977 (Brewers at Angels) - In the bottom of the 6th, Bobby Bonds was on 2nd base with one out and attempted a steal of third. Catcher Charlie Moore's throw hit Bonds in the head, sending him to the hospital. The ball ricocheted out of play, but Bonds couldn't make the trip home. Instead, substitute runner Gary Nolan (a pitcher) scored the run.
"9/14/2005 (Red Sox at Blue Jays) - In the top of the 5th, Gabe Kapler was on first when Tony Graffanino hit a deep fly ball near the line in left that Kapler thought might be in play, so he started running hard. As he rounded second base, he ruptured his left Achilles tendon and sprawled on to ground. The ball went over the fence for a homer, but Graffanino wisely stopped at second base while Kapler was attended to. After many minutes, Kapler was loaded onto a cart and taken off the field. Alejandro Machado, appearing in his fourth Major League game, entered as a pinch-runner and scored his first Major League run in front of Graffanino...
"The relevant rule is 5.10(c)(1) which allows for the replacement of an injured runner in a dead ball situation before play resumes."
(Above three paragraphs (c) 2007 by Retrosheet. All rights reserved.)
Eric
I wondered about that, too.
But umps are not allowed to volunteer suggestions; that's against the rules, they are umpires not participants. If no one asked them if a substitution would be legal, they couldn't say that it would. If they were only asked if someone from her team could help her, they would have to say no. A clever ump might have figured a way to pull out the short form of the rulebook and read a relevant section aloud in it's entirety but that's asking a lot.
And besides, her first home run in her last year of play? Of course she didn't want to be substituted for.
The official softball rules (there's more than one set) are actually longer and more complicated than the rules for professional baseball. Baseball has a remarkably short and seldom changing set of field rules compared to other professional level team sports.
This wouldn't have happened at the professional level because someone would have known the relevant rule and no one would have expected a player to object to being substituted. Except ... I could see it happening in the case of an older and respected player who could set some sort of record before retiring after a career-ending injury. Well, maybe not in a Dodgers-Giants or Red Sox-Yankees game. :) But maybe so. The fans would love it. And in pro-baseball, many players have personal friends on opposing teams.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Sweet, But...
...what was the alternative? To just watch the girl painfully crawl the bases to get home? She most likely would have, too, no matter how long it took. There's no minimum speed limit, as long as she's not show-boating. I don't think anyone would have liked to see that. It would be horrible for the game, the spectators, and the sport.
It would be interesting to find out what the official rules are for that softball league regarding Eric's research on replacing runners with the ball out of play, like they do in baseball. Softball umpires don't have the depth or wealth of experience of professionals, so it's possible they just didn't know the rules well enough.
The Rub
What is notable is that the behavior of the players is the exception and not the rule.
I was a fair tennis player who grew up with the game prior to Jimmy Conners, John McEnroe, and the rest of the tennis brats who changed the game.
Do-overs were a huge part of the sport I played. If the official made a mistake on the call in your favor, you served two into the net to make that gaff mean nothing.
I stayed away from the game during the seventies and returned in the eighties to find powerful raquets with huge sweet spots and everyone trying to play mind games instead of concentrating on their tennis.
I write a column for our local paper about the woeful changes in sports. Much of it can be traced back to money. A lot of it can be blamed on people who can't discern the difference between professional sports (entertainment) and youth sports (education and recreation).
A recent survey of college scholarship players asked if sportsmanship included respecting your opponent. Only 10% responded yes.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Sportsmanship
Most of you are missing the point of this story.
This isn't about rules or interpretation of rules.
This is about two girls going out of their way to help an injured member of a rival team.
To boggle it down with ramblings as to weather or not it was "needed" detracts from the fact that they did what they belived in, even if it could cost them the game.
Not missing the point at all
That simply didn't need to be mentioned because it was obvious.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Life Imitates...
Back in the 1950's, when sports fiction for kids was supposed to cover things like ethics and sportsmanship, a book that I read illustrated this general point.
(Can't remember the title or author, but I'm guessing Marion Renick for the latter. I can remember that the book took place in Cedarville, that the good guys had a player on their team named Jack Pancake, that the 11- or 12-year old hero tended to spoonerize when excited, and that an adult in the tale expressed his pleased surprise by saying "Bully for you, Cedarville!" -- a phrase that I'd never heard or read at that time and originally assumed was negative.)
Anyway, some preteen kids have organized a football team and are hosting a team from a nearby town. It's late in the game, the score's close and the opposing team gets a player hurt, but can't call time out to substitute and get the player off the field. The hero tells the referee, "We have one time out remaining. We'll use it now."
I don't quite remember how the game comes out -- I think the opponents tied it up as time expired, and I have the vague memory that during that final drive the good guys got their own player -- the aforementioned Pancake -- dizzy and therefore useless on defense, but couldn't call time to let him come to his senses. But our hero gets the town's Young Sportsman of the Year award after the season -- the first time it's ever gone to a pre-high school player.
My point is to illustrate that in small-town America circa 1955, this sort of thing was considered the right thing to do, but people didn't expect it, especially from young players -- the reason that the "bully-for-you" adult here was surprised and pleased enough to nominate the kid for the award. (It also suggests, if I'm remembering this correctly, that small-town referees could be cruel when it came to injury stoppages.)
Earlier in the century, at least in baseball, sporting gestures WERE expected, even at the professional level. In old accounts, one occasionally finds things like home team players filling in for missing umpires, and temporary substitutions ("courtesy runners") for players with minor injuries who return to the field the next half-inning.
Eric