>> Winning at all cost <<
Following the rules is a given. If its a clock game, fine, if you are fortunate enough to be in an 7 inning game, then whatever it is, you use those rules to win. The coaches dont make the rules - its our job to work the rules to our favor. "At all costs" to me means diving for the ball - it means nothing drops, it means know the situation and the count, it means knowing everything you can about the hitter and using that to defeat her, it means knowing everything you can about the pitcher and using that to defeat her, it means that the base coaches have to do their jobs and not get stupid, it means dont piss off the blues unnecessarily, it means make sure the blues have their heads in the game and focused.
And to me, the biggest victory of 2008 was that scene up in Washington when the defensive kids carried that injured hitter around the bases. Talk about a 'win at all costs', those ladies did it. Unbelievable class. In 20 years, I wont remember who won the CWS this year, (well maybe I will), but I will never forget what those kids did.
TX
You are right i also will remember that girl getting carried around and it made me very proud and felt good for her, that is the pureness of this sport. The team that did carry that girl eventually won the game.
Now have your team step on home or change your catcher out, see what people remember of that team including the coach.
THAT IS MY POINT AND THANKYOU DONNIE FOR HELPING ME PROVE IT.
Now have your team step on home or change your catcher out, see what people remember of that team including the coach.
THAT IS MY POINT AND THANKYOU DONNIE FOR HELPING ME PROVE IT.
- Fastpitch360
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:40 am
>> The team that did carry that girl eventually won the game. <<
Are you sure about that? I thought that the team of the girl that homered won the game - on the scoreboard.
Are you sure about that? I thought that the team of the girl that homered won the game - on the scoreboard.
-
DonnieS - Premium Member
- Posts: 3694
- Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:27 pm
Sorry I thought you were talking about the girl that blew her knee out after hitting her first homerun as senior in college. Beings she could not touch all the bases the umps were going to call her out. 2 girls from the opposing team picked her up and carried her around the field so she could touch all the bases..Very good story I will copy it on here..TRUE SPORTSWOMANSHIP
- Fastpitch360
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:40 am
Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.
[+] EnlargeStephen Katin/WOU
Sara Tucholsky got a lift from the opposition in scoring her first homer.
Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday's conference doubleheader at Central Washington's 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.
It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.
"I just remember trying to block them out," Tucholsky said of the hecklers. "The first pitch I took, it was a strike. And then I really don't remember where the home run pitch was at all; [I] just remember hitting it, and I knew it was out."
A part-time starter in the outfield throughout her four years, Tucholsky had been caught in a numbers game this season on a deep roster that entered the weekend hitting better than .280 and having won nine games in a row. Prior to the pitch she sent over the center-field fence, she had just three hits in 34 at-bats this season. And in that respect, her hitting heroics would have made for a pleasing, if familiar, story line on their own: an unsung player steps up in one of her final games and lifts her team's postseason chances.
But it was what happened after an overly excited Tucholsky missed first base on her home run trot and reversed direction to tag the bag that proved unforgettable.
"Sara is small -- she's like 5-2, really tiny," Western Oregon coach Pam Knox said. "So you would never think that she would hit a home run. The score was 0-0, and Sara hit a shot over center field. And I'm coaching third and I'm high-fiving the other two runners that came by -- then all of a sudden, I look up, and I'm like, 'Where's Sara?' And I look over, and she's in a heap beyond first base."
While she was doubling back to tag first base, Tucholsky's right knee gave out. The two runners who had been on base already had crossed home plate, leaving her the only offensive player on the field of play, even as she lay crumpled in the dirt a few feet from first base and a long way from home plate. First-base coach Shannon Prochaska -- Tucholsky's teammate for three seasons and the only voice she later remembered hearing in the ensuing conversation -- checked to see whether she could crawl back to the base under her own power.
Rule clarification
As one of the umpires involved in the game between Central Washington and Western Oregon confirmed in an e-mail to ESPN.com, the rule in question was misinterpreted on the field after Tucholsky's injury and later clarified by the NCAA.
According to page 105, rule 8.5.3.2 of the NCAA softball rule book, "If an injury to a batter-runner or runner prevents her from proceeding to an awarded base, the ball is dead and the substitution can be made. The substitute must legally touch all awarded or missed bases not previously touched."
-- Graham Hays
As Knox explained, "It went through my mind, I thought, 'If I touch her, she's going to kill me.' It's her only home run in four years. I didn't want to take that from her, but at the same time, I was worried about her."
Umpires confirmed that the only option available under the rules was to replace Tucholsky at first base with a pinch runner and have the hit recorded as a two-run single instead of a three-run home run. Any assistance from coaches or trainers while she was an active runner would result in an out. So without any choice, Knox prepared to make the substitution, taking both the run and the memory from Tucholsky.
"And right then," Knox said, "I heard, 'Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?'"
The voice belonged to Holtman, a four-year starter who owns just about every major offensive record there is to claim in Central Washington's record book. She also is staring down a pair of knee surgeries as soon as the season ends. Her knees ache after every game, but having already used a redshirt season earlier in her career, and ready to move on to graduate school and coaching at Central, she put the operations on hold so as to avoid missing any of her final season. Now, with her own opportunity for a first postseason appearance very much hinging on the outcome of the game -- her final game at home -- she stepped up to help a player she knew only as an opponent for four years.
"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."
Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky's left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game's history hit all three players.
"We all started to laugh at one point, I think when we touched the first base," Holtman said. "I don't know what it looked like to observers, but it was kind of funny because Liz and I were carrying her on both sides and we'd get to a base and gently, barely tap her left foot, and we'd all of a sudden start to get the giggles a little bit."
Accompanied by a standing ovation from the fans, they finally reached home plate and passed the home run hitter into the arms of her own teammates.
Then Holtman and Wallace returned to their positions and tried to win the game.
[+] EnlargeBlake Wolf
Sara Tucholsky got a lift from Central Washington's Liz Wallace, left, and Mallory Holtman.
Hollywood would have a difficult time deciding how such a script should end, whether to leave Tucholsky's home run as the decisive blow or reward the selfless actions of her opponents. Reality has less room for such philosophical quandaries. Central Washington did rally for two runs in the bottom of the second -- runs that might have tied the game had Knox been forced to replace Tucholsky -- but Western Oregon held on for a 4-2 win.
But unlike a movie, the credits didn't roll after the final out, and the story that continues has little to do with those final scores.
"It kept everything in perspective and the fact that we're never bigger than the game," Knox said of the experience. "It was such a lesson that we learned -- that it's not all about winning. And we forget that, because as coaches, we're always trying to get to the top. We forget that. But I will never, ever forget this moment. It's changed me, and I'm sure it's changed my players."
For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.
And she appreciates the knowledge that while the results of Saturday's game and her senior season soon will fade into the dust and depth of old media guides and Internet archives, the story of what happened in her final game at home will live on far longer.
"I think that happening on Senior Day, it showed the character of our team," Holtman said. "Because granted I thought of it, but everyone else would have done it. It's something people will talk about for Senior Day. They won't talk about who got hits and what happened and who won; they'll talk about that. And it's kind of a nice way to go out, because it shows what our program is about and the kind of people we have here."
[+] EnlargeStephen Katin/WOU
Sara Tucholsky got a lift from the opposition in scoring her first homer.
Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday's conference doubleheader at Central Washington's 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.
It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.
"I just remember trying to block them out," Tucholsky said of the hecklers. "The first pitch I took, it was a strike. And then I really don't remember where the home run pitch was at all; [I] just remember hitting it, and I knew it was out."
A part-time starter in the outfield throughout her four years, Tucholsky had been caught in a numbers game this season on a deep roster that entered the weekend hitting better than .280 and having won nine games in a row. Prior to the pitch she sent over the center-field fence, she had just three hits in 34 at-bats this season. And in that respect, her hitting heroics would have made for a pleasing, if familiar, story line on their own: an unsung player steps up in one of her final games and lifts her team's postseason chances.
But it was what happened after an overly excited Tucholsky missed first base on her home run trot and reversed direction to tag the bag that proved unforgettable.
"Sara is small -- she's like 5-2, really tiny," Western Oregon coach Pam Knox said. "So you would never think that she would hit a home run. The score was 0-0, and Sara hit a shot over center field. And I'm coaching third and I'm high-fiving the other two runners that came by -- then all of a sudden, I look up, and I'm like, 'Where's Sara?' And I look over, and she's in a heap beyond first base."
While she was doubling back to tag first base, Tucholsky's right knee gave out. The two runners who had been on base already had crossed home plate, leaving her the only offensive player on the field of play, even as she lay crumpled in the dirt a few feet from first base and a long way from home plate. First-base coach Shannon Prochaska -- Tucholsky's teammate for three seasons and the only voice she later remembered hearing in the ensuing conversation -- checked to see whether she could crawl back to the base under her own power.
Rule clarification
As one of the umpires involved in the game between Central Washington and Western Oregon confirmed in an e-mail to ESPN.com, the rule in question was misinterpreted on the field after Tucholsky's injury and later clarified by the NCAA.
According to page 105, rule 8.5.3.2 of the NCAA softball rule book, "If an injury to a batter-runner or runner prevents her from proceeding to an awarded base, the ball is dead and the substitution can be made. The substitute must legally touch all awarded or missed bases not previously touched."
-- Graham Hays
As Knox explained, "It went through my mind, I thought, 'If I touch her, she's going to kill me.' It's her only home run in four years. I didn't want to take that from her, but at the same time, I was worried about her."
Umpires confirmed that the only option available under the rules was to replace Tucholsky at first base with a pinch runner and have the hit recorded as a two-run single instead of a three-run home run. Any assistance from coaches or trainers while she was an active runner would result in an out. So without any choice, Knox prepared to make the substitution, taking both the run and the memory from Tucholsky.
"And right then," Knox said, "I heard, 'Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?'"
The voice belonged to Holtman, a four-year starter who owns just about every major offensive record there is to claim in Central Washington's record book. She also is staring down a pair of knee surgeries as soon as the season ends. Her knees ache after every game, but having already used a redshirt season earlier in her career, and ready to move on to graduate school and coaching at Central, she put the operations on hold so as to avoid missing any of her final season. Now, with her own opportunity for a first postseason appearance very much hinging on the outcome of the game -- her final game at home -- she stepped up to help a player she knew only as an opponent for four years.
"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."
Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky's left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game's history hit all three players.
"We all started to laugh at one point, I think when we touched the first base," Holtman said. "I don't know what it looked like to observers, but it was kind of funny because Liz and I were carrying her on both sides and we'd get to a base and gently, barely tap her left foot, and we'd all of a sudden start to get the giggles a little bit."
Accompanied by a standing ovation from the fans, they finally reached home plate and passed the home run hitter into the arms of her own teammates.
Then Holtman and Wallace returned to their positions and tried to win the game.
[+] EnlargeBlake Wolf
Sara Tucholsky got a lift from Central Washington's Liz Wallace, left, and Mallory Holtman.
Hollywood would have a difficult time deciding how such a script should end, whether to leave Tucholsky's home run as the decisive blow or reward the selfless actions of her opponents. Reality has less room for such philosophical quandaries. Central Washington did rally for two runs in the bottom of the second -- runs that might have tied the game had Knox been forced to replace Tucholsky -- but Western Oregon held on for a 4-2 win.
But unlike a movie, the credits didn't roll after the final out, and the story that continues has little to do with those final scores.
"It kept everything in perspective and the fact that we're never bigger than the game," Knox said of the experience. "It was such a lesson that we learned -- that it's not all about winning. And we forget that, because as coaches, we're always trying to get to the top. We forget that. But I will never, ever forget this moment. It's changed me, and I'm sure it's changed my players."
For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.
And she appreciates the knowledge that while the results of Saturday's game and her senior season soon will fade into the dust and depth of old media guides and Internet archives, the story of what happened in her final game at home will live on far longer.
"I think that happening on Senior Day, it showed the character of our team," Holtman said. "Because granted I thought of it, but everyone else would have done it. It's something people will talk about for Senior Day. They won't talk about who got hits and what happened and who won; they'll talk about that. And it's kind of a nice way to go out, because it shows what our program is about and the kind of people we have here."
- Fastpitch360
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:40 am
Thats exactly the story - down in the article was this quote " the story of what happened in her final game at home will live on far longer "
It sure will with me.
360, dont know who you are but understand that I am not a nice guy coach or any of the warm and fuzzy crap. When my team gets on the field, I expect us to win and I expect the girls to dive, slide, head first, feet first, butt first, whatever the heck it takes to win the game.
It sure will with me.
360, dont know who you are but understand that I am not a nice guy coach or any of the warm and fuzzy crap. When my team gets on the field, I expect us to win and I expect the girls to dive, slide, head first, feet first, butt first, whatever the heck it takes to win the game.
-
DonnieS - Premium Member
- Posts: 3694
- Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:27 pm
I would rather be part of a team like this that shows this type of sportsmanship than 3bsnag kicking the crap out of you.
- Fastpitch360
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:40 am
Once again Donnie players playing hard and working hard is diffrent than some Big beer belly dad wearing blue jean shorts teaching girls how to cheat and maipulate
- Fastpitch360
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:40 am
Fastpitch 360,
Don't you think you are being a little extreme? Saying coaches are liars, cheaters, manipulators, etc.. just because they are trying to use the rules to their team's advantage? That's what a good coach should do; put their team in the best position to win. I think you have some valid points in what you are saying, but you are going a little overboard. JMO!
Don't you think you are being a little extreme? Saying coaches are liars, cheaters, manipulators, etc.. just because they are trying to use the rules to their team's advantage? That's what a good coach should do; put their team in the best position to win. I think you have some valid points in what you are saying, but you are going a little overboard. JMO!
- texasfastpitch
- Posts: 40
- Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:42 pm
fastpitch360 sounds like you have been on the "being kicked end "one too many times or you have a vengance against this coach Flan.,team ,parents,organization or you are new to select ball. I have been at the ball parks for 48 years and all coaches have used these tactics ( step off base,step on plate,time out to tie shoes,talk to pitchers,talk to umps,talk to batter and on and on and on).This is stratagy. It is not cheating.It may be your oppinion but with you saying that what i read in your post, there are no good coaches!They all use these tactics! That being said this is my oppinion. And to the Glory coach keep doing what you do and Texas will be well represented. And remember, the old saying "ITS LONLY AT THE TOP". Oh and I am not from the Glory organization or the north.I am from the South and proud of it! I am also proud of all our Texas teams and thrilled we have teams like the Glory that can compete against the other states.
- Flash4
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:03 pm
Main Menu
User Menu
Login
