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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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THE SPORTING LIFE
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Futility? Chalk it up to
experience at Rosemont
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
You want inspiration? How about a story about a team that finished the season with an 0-25 record?
This was in The Philadelphia Inquirer recently. Joe Logan did a masterful piece about the Rosemont College women’s softball team that was so bad, the coach, Joe Long, joked “The Bad News Bears would have been a step up.”
“In its season-opening doubleheader,” Logan wrote, “Rosemont, a 400-student, all-women, liberal-arts Catholic college in the [Philadelphia suburbs] Main Line went down by 20-0 and then 15-0. The following day, at Neumann College, those same Rosemont Ramblers went down twice more in another doubleheader, by 33-0 and 19-0. In their next outing, 13 days later at Misericordia U., same story, same scores: 33-0 and 19-0.”
Thanks to the mercy rule--which decrees a halt after five innings of a lopsided score--none of the 25 Rosemont losses was allowed to go past the fifth inning.
Rosemont came off a 1-23 season last year and this season was in jeopardy when the softball team was six short of a full roster necessary to compete. The dean of students sent out a college-wide e-mail seeking recruits and two of the players went out and knocked on doors to find players. “Before long they had filled out the team,” Logan wrote, “albeit with students who hadn’t played softball in years.”
Coach Long said, “I had to start with the basics: This is a ball. This is a glove. This is a bat. That first practice I used rag balls and Wiffle balls, and we still had girls jumping out of the way when I threw them a ball.”
They celebrated small successes. A young woman who had never played before came up to the plate with two runners in scoring position and achieved the high of putting the ball in play. Another time an outfielder made a long run in a driving rain and caught a fly. Long said, “The girls were talking about that catch for the rest of the season. It didn’t matter that we lost the game.”
Long, in his third year as coach, said, “This was by far the best group of girls I’ve ever coached. They stuck up for each other, and they never once got down on each other. I have never had a team bond like this. These kids have character.”
He said, “This season was a positive for these girls and an experience they will have for the rest of their lives.”
As bad as the season was, Logan wrote,
the Ramblers cannot wait for next year to roll around. “I
know what we’re up against,” the coach said. “The
goal for next year is to get past five innings.”
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On a recent national telecast Tim McCarver had fun scoffing at Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez’ claim that he was the “best left fielder in Red Sox history.” With a chuckle McCarver mentioned Cal Yastrzemski, who was a master playing the left field wall at Fenway Park.
McCarver somehow got into talking about
Ted Williams, pointing out that Williams was a desultory fielder
and not a good base runner. I couldn’t agree more and it
inspired this mental note: If I were picking all time, all-around
outfielders, I would select Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio,
Stan Musial, Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson ahead of Williams.
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It takes a bit of class for a TV analyst to admit he was wrong in the face of a replay that shows his boo-boo. ESPN’s Joe Morgan didn’t measure up in a recent Mets-Yankees telecast.
When the Mets’ Moises Alou hit a ball to the opposite field to drive in runs, Morgan said Alou had tried to hold up on the swing and was lucky to get the hit. The replays showed Alou, a smart hitter, obviously stroking the ball to right field, but Morgan repeated his comment.
Later, when the Mets’ David Wright scored from third base on a fly ball, Morgan said he may have left the base too soon. When the replay showed that Wright had indeed waited for the catch before leaving the base, Morgan said, “Well, his body was leaning early even though his foot stayed on the base.”
He wasn’t joking; he repeated the comment.
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If Big Brown wins the Belmont Stakes, June 7, he will become the 12th horse to achieve the glory of a Triple Crown. I suggest that if you ask any occasional horse race follower if Seabiscuit ever won the Triple Crown, you will get a “yes” answer.
That’s a tribute to the power of Laura Hillenbrand’s book about Seabiscuit which was strong on dramatic story telling if weak on facts. She built to a climax of Seabiscuit winning the Santa Anita Handicap, though there was some question about whether his stablemate, Kayak II, went all out to win. Seabiscuit didn’t come into his own until after Triple Crown events. I did note with some glee the other day the name of a horse running at Delaware Park: Stevebiscuit. He lost.
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Art (Golden Boy) Aragon a colorful west coast fighter of the 1950s, died recently. Aragon relished playing the villain and enjoyed bringing the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles to its feet, not with cheering, but raucous booing.
At his funeral, a celebrant made people stand up at one point and give him a standing boo.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo of the Rosemont team is courtesy of the official Rosemont College website. This column first posted May 26, 2008.
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