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by Michael Froomkin
Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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Reminds me of when Paolo DiCanio was playing for West Ham v. ManU. The keeper’s leg gave way suddenly, way out of position– his ACL went, IIRC — and he fell to the ground helpless, and hopeless. DiCanio put the ball out of play by grabbing a cross from a teammate and just holding the ball. Could have scored an absolute sitter. All in the space of five seconds.
FIFA Sportsman of the year, and Fascist dick. Same guy. What did Whitman say? “I contain multitudes”.
Too bad it was a manufactured predicament. The umps got it wrong: under the rules, a substitute runner could have been inserted to complete the home run trot. 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.” (MLB has the same rule.)
See http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/story?columnist=hays_graham&id=3372631
Eck, perhaps that is true. I’m not going to try to interpret the softball rules. But, lets assume for the sake of this discussion that you are right.
That doesn’t change the fact that this was a stunning show of sports”man”ship. The girls on the Central Washington squad didn’t know that. There is no reason to take anything from them. Imagine if they had simply taken the umpire’s ruling and made the pinch runner wait at first base. Imagine if Central Washington had then won the game.
Then the story would have been that a bad call led to a tainted victory.
The fact that it didn’t really change the outcome of the game is a detail of such minor significance that there is no sense in repeating it. These girls have more class than the entire professional sporting world combined.