A Home Run That Truly Touched Them All

Here's the deal, If you're one of the many people that check the Digg home page on a daily basis. Or if you've seen SportsCenter in the last couple of days. Most likely you've heard about this. It's a story about a college softball game between Western Oregon and Central Washington. It was the second game of a double header and it started just like any normal game. After Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game, Central Washington wanted to show they were better then that. So with the game still scoreless in the top of the second inning, and with two runners on, Sara Tucholsky came up to the plate. After taking the first pitch for a strike, she swings away on the next one and hitting it straight to center. As soon as she made contact, she knew it was going out. She had never hit a home run in her entire college career, and with her standing at only 5'2", no one ever expected her to do so. So you can understand her excitement when she forgets to touch first base. She immediately turned around to touch the bag, but something was wrong. While turning around to go for the bag, her knee gave out. She didn't know what was wrong, she just crawled to first base where she laid hugging the bag.

Sara didn't know then, but she had torn her ACL. All she knew was that she was in pain and couldn't walk. Her coach Pam Knox quickly ran to her side, but she knew she or any other member of her team couldn't touch her. Doing so would be an automatic out. Knox knew there was no way that Sara would be able to run the bases. So she went up to the umpire to find out what her options were. she asked if she could substitute Sara with a pinch runner. Sadly, she found out that doing so would negate the home run, making it a two run single. How could she do that, how could she take away Sara's first home run. With it being her senior year, it would also be her last. Left with no other choice but the well being of her player, coach Knox was getting ready to make the change. That's when an idea came from an unlikely source. That source being Mallory Holtman of Central Washington, the opposing team.

Mallory is a four year starter who owns almost every major record in Central Washington history. She knows what it's like being injured having dealt with it early in her career. Mallory was also dealing with an injury at the time on both her knees, but decided to put off surgery until after the season. With her going through that, she knew what that home run meant to Sara. That's when she asked the umpire if it was OK for them to carry her around the bases. After giving her a funny look, the umpire said that there is no rule against that. So Mallory, with the help of her teammate Liz Wallace walked over to Sara and asked if she was OK with it. Sara of course said yes and thanked them so much. They picked her up and slowing started their trip around the diamond, stopping at every base to touch Sara's left foot on it.



While rounding the bases, the girls said that at one point, it starting to seem a little silly and they all laughed. They wondered how this looked to the crowd. When the girls looked up, they didn't see thousands of fans cheering. They saw maybe less then 100 people giving them a standing ovation. Some were smiling, some were crying, but all were filled with emotion. When they got to home plate, Mallory and Liz handed Sara over to her awaiting teammates. They then went back to their positions to continue the game. Central Washington went on to score two runs in the bottom of the second inning, but Western Oregon was able to hang on with a 4-2 win. Western Oregon later when on to clinch it's league title. It's the first conference championship in school history. Though some might say that the story doesn't end there. When asked why she did this, Mallory said "she hit the home run so she deserved for it to count." Even though people see this as a great act, Mallory doesn't. She believes that if she was in Sara's position, Sara or anybody else for that matter, would've done the same thing. Even though this was her final season, Mallory says she is very happy knowing that it ended this way. "It's something people will talk about for Senior Day" Mallory said. "They won't talk about who got hits and what happened and who won; they'll talk about that."

I'd be lying if I said that this story didn't get to me. I've heard it over and over, but it still gets me every time. It's stories like these that show the good in the world. That's why I wanted to share it with everybody. I read a comment about this story that really sums it up. Fellow Digg user Jeff Shininger said,

"I read this the other day and realized that good sportsmanship means you can still have rivalries and competition, but when it comes down to situations that require you to be human, you answer the call."