Here in the great Northwest we have a softball story that is getting a lot of publicity. I have seen an article here, here and here. Let me be clear, I have seen them but have not yet read any of them. (This likely means I am missing some key facts but what good are facts when you have something good to say.) The reason I know about any of this is that I saw it on SportsCenter of all places this afternoon. Throughout the day I had seen the above links and now I am glad I did not read them. I think it is great that a girl hit a home run and somehow managed to blowout her knee. Well, the home run part is great at least. The problem with this story is that it seems more outlandish than any of the Hall of Famers dating middle and high school girls stories (see Malone, Karl and Clemens, Roger). There are two main points that give me pause:
- This point is painfully obvious: How does a girl blowout her knee hitting a home run? I am not a doctor but as far as I can tell knees are blown out when extreme force is placed on a knee. Having played baseball throughout my entire childhood I can assure you swinging a bat does not really seem to fall into that category. Maybe it does when you swing really hard, miss the ball and spin around a few times but this girl did hit a home run. Given that, I have to assume she did make contact with a ball. Plus, in the limited softball I have seen I have never seen a girl swing a bat and think, “Wow, that was an incredibly powerful cut!” Come on, the stars of the team are the ones that are running while swinging. The more I delve into this the more I find it hard to believe a girl tore up her knee hitting a home run.
- Let’s pretend I am able to move beyond the fact that the girl tore her knee. You are to tell me she could not walk the bases with a torn ACL. I witnessed with my own eyes in the worst city in America (Tucson, AZ) a quarterback run 50 yards or so for a touchdown in a Division-1A football game with a partially torn ACL. I also saw him walk around, very gingerly, for the rest of the game on the sidelines. Then another story that I am reminded of is of a girl that played softball at the UO. I do not know her name but a couple of years ago a girl played the season with a torn ACL. It was at that time that I determined softball was not a sport. (For all of you out there wondering how I define a sport that is how I define it.) If a girl is able to play the field and bat with a torn ACL then someone can walk the bases after hitting a home run.
In conclusion, it is great that the other team carried her around the bases but I think it was all an act. The story just does not add up for me. I do not believe that she could have torn the ACL hitting a home run and I have seen people do far more than walk the bases after suffering a similar injury. I commend all of the girls for doing such a wonderful job of acting. In the end they get their 15 minutes of fame. As I sign off I realize that the part of the story that may bother me the most is that the opposing team’s idea of sportsmanship makes me want to puke.
1 comment:
First of all, she missed first base. So, when she was told to turn around and return to first, she twisted her knee.
I'm not saying that justifies it. A college athlete missing first base? Hmm.
Anyway, more importantly, couldn't Geoff Schwartz and Max Unger carried Dixon around for the remainder of the season? THAT would have been worthy of some press.
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