Sportsmanship

Baseball, College Sports

Posted by Russell A, May 1, 2008 - 10:47 pm

George Vecsey of The New York Times wrote a heart warming article about a side of sports that we rarely see in today’s world: Sportsmanship.

He tells of a Women’s Division II softball matchup between Western Oregon and Central Washington. Sara Tucholsky hit a line drive over the fence for her first career home run at any level of play. However, the story doesn’t end there. After all, Div II Western Oregon Softball doesn’t make the front page of the Times Sports Section unless something else happened. Vescey explains it best:

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.

Two thoughts came to mind in the form of visuals. First, it was Tom Hank’s Famous line in “A League of Their Own“. However the next thought was a rather shocking one to me, given the nature of what happened on that softball field…. “Who cares?”

It makes for a nice, warm fuzzy story suitable for a great afterschool special, or a class room video on teamwork. But I’ve grown up in a sports area that’s been dominated by competition at any costs. From Spygate to Balco, from Chopblocking to Tonya Harding, people are cheating all around. And why? Money. Sports is money. Big Money. And everyone’s out to get it.

As a casual fan, I find myself conditioned to think that way too. I’m paying my hard earned money to watch athletes compete at the highest level, not hold hands and sing “kumbaya”. I’m not trying to take away from the class and grace that the athletes on the both sides of the contest in Ellenburg showed. But I’m here to see sports. If I want to see sportsmanship, I’ll fork over 4 bucks and go rent “Rudy”.

Vecsey mentions it in his article but do you think Kirk Gibson would have been helped off the field after he stabbed all of the East Bay in the heart with his limp-off Homer in 1988? I think not.

Scouting is big business and nowhere on the stat sheet is Sportsmanship quantified. Play Virtual GM for a sec. Would you rather take the 7′3″ musclebound center with the feathery J? Or would you rather have the guy that helps opponents off the floor when there’s a collision? I’ll take the former, thanks.

Is there a place for sportsmanship? Yes, of course. Guys like Vescey, Rick Riley, and Frank DeFord have made careers out of covering the “humanity” in sports. But at the cost of quality competition? Definitely not.

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