This week marks the fifth anniversary of one of my favorite sports stories ever, and one of the best little pieces I have ever read in Sports Illustrated.
Sports Fan
One of my earliest memories is of my father pointing to a small television screen and saying “Look, son! That’s Willie Mays. He’s the greatest baseball player in the world.” For the first time, I had a hero who was not a parent.
From that moment to this, quite a span, I have been an avid sports fan. The big four of baseball, football, basketball and hockey vie for my attention – in season and off. So, it’s not just the games. There are drafts, trades, free agents, game day strategies, good-ol’-days stories, and predictions to fuel reminiscence, speculation and arguments among friends. It is particularly satisfying to predict greatness for a young player and then watch it unfold. The ones we were wrong about aren’t mentioned much.
Just as with music, I have a long, distinguished career as a fan.
The Story
This was not a typically big, splashy sports story. Here is a partial list of things the great story being recalled was NOT about: a mega-contract; choking in the clutch; a superstar’s best game; a scandal; winning a championship against all odds; bad off-the-field behavior; a game-changing call by an official.
It’s not metaphysical musings over what a “catch” is in the NFL, or hand-wringing over a hold-out. Nope, it’s about sportsmanship – and respect.
The article, written by Alexandra Fenwick, appeared on page 25 of the May 19, 2014 edition of Sports Illustrated under the banner of “Scorecard”. It was entitled “Angels In The Infield” and is available in the Vault of SI.com. It was a tiny piece that left me very glad not to have missed it.
Setting the Scene
The story was about a college softball game in a season-ending doubleheader between Eckerd College and Florida Southern. FS senior pitcher and staff ace Chelsea Oglevie had a 2 – 1 lead in the last inning with two outs and two runners on base. At the plate was Eckerd’s star second baseman Kara Oberer, who had hurt her right knee (badly, as it turned out) earlier in the game.
Softball’s re-entry rule apparently allowed Eckerd’s coach to put her best hitter back in to hit, even if on one leg. The count was 2 balls and 2 strikes.
What Happened
Oglevie threw a riser to a spot she didn’t want, getting too much of the plate, and Oberer hit the ball to a place she very much wanted it – over the left-field fence. For Chelsea Oglevie, it was, as Fenwick put it, “the last pitch of the last game of her college softball career”.
Oberer’s home-run trot was a hobble down the line. As she was reaching first base, her injured knee seized. It was apparent she could not continue. Oglevie approached Oberer, where she was quickly joined by Florida Southern second baseman Leah Pemberton.
Together they dropped their gloves and carried Oberer around the bases to reach home plate.
There’s More
As if that were not enough, the participation of Pemberton in the gesture was as remarkable as that of Oglevie. According to an article written by Graham Hays for ESPN, Oberer had broken Pemberton’s leg in a travel tournament game back in Florida high school days. A hard slide into second base to break up a double play ended up costing Pemberton months of playing time back then. (Hays’s piece, entitled “Six years later, integrity wins again” is dated 4/28/14, and available at espnW.com. The title is a reference to a similar incident assisting an injured home run hitter in college softball that had occurred six years to the day earlier.)
So, Kara Oberer was carried around the bases by opponents facing a crushing loss, one of whom was the pitcher whose career she had just ended and the other an infielder Kara had injured a few years before on a hard, but presumably clean, play.
Even Better
Thinking nothing could make me feel better than what Oglevie and Pemberton had done, I then read Chelsea’s explanation of why.
“It was a respect thing,” Fenwick quotes Oglevie as saying. “I felt she deserved it, and even though it was the end of my career, it was the right thing to do.”
Wow.
Imagine that: It’s all about respect and the right thing to do. Maybe there is hope.
Perhaps, it shouldn’t have been such a little story, then. But that’s a quibble. Thanks, Sports Illustrated, for running this. More to the point: thank you, Chelsea Oglevie and Leah Pemberton, for giving SI, ESPN, and others a story like this to write.
Ken Bossong
© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong