Said a high school boy named Eric Fila, quoted in "High school catcher baffled by attention for his ‘simple’ act of sportsmanship" (WaPo).
Video of a walk-off single in the 10th inning of a Virginia state quarterfinal baseball game went viral last week — not because of the clutch hit but for the reaction of the losing team’s catcher in the wake of a season-ending defeat.
Mitch Maurer’s walk off single to win state quarterfinals for Herndon High School baseball! @MitchMaurer_04 @HHornetBaseball @LSBR11 @NoVAHSBB pic.twitter.com/WvhzWFY9iL
— Steven Beasley (@stevebeasleydc) June 8, 2022
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I'm also impressed by the ump, who did not respond immediately because he was watching to make sure the runner touched home, and then he turned and shook hands. There was no play. The catcher knew that and so did the ump. But the ump had a job to do and he did it first.
Gee...I wonder if that kid was raised w/ a good father in the home?
Eric Fila doesn’t read WaPo. That’s why he is different.
I’m friends with college basketball referee John Higgins. He called a tournament game involving Kentucky. I watched it in real time and thought John did his usual excellent job. Kentucky lost.
A sports talk radio guy blamed Higgins for the lost. He orchestrated a tsumani of hate on Higgins. Those hillbillies called his business and home. Real death threats. He had to get police protection.
He sued the radio station. He lost. Free Speech.
I played catcher when I played baseball in my yute. Depending on the umpire, I occasionally developed a measure of respect and friendship with the home plate umpire, because you do chat with him throughout the game.
I'm not sure if it would have occurred to me to do what this kid did under the circumstances but bully for him. It was neat to watch.
I don't know how to react to this video until I'm told whether it's a manifestation of white supremacy.
This lack of respect for umpires and other authority figures is learned by kids from adults and our terrible culture.
Last month Higgins was working a high school summer game with one of his sons. The coach verbally attacked him as a terrible ref. The coach didn’t know that Higgins has worked two or three Final Fours.
I'm with the kid.
Funny. I read this post last. After I'd already commented about chivalry and standards in two of your other posts. This- what this kid did, is what's gone today. It's almost nowhere to be seen. This simple act- classy, stand-up, professional, showing character and leadership. And to me, this is someone who would understand both chivalry and standards.
But what would sell today? What would get a million clicks on social media? If the catcher had tripped the opposing player coming in to score, then turned around and cold-cocked the ump. This video of the kid showing class has almost no retweets. It's just not a standard or way of acting that meets approval of the younger set.
I hope there's more of these guys out there than I know. Otherwise, good luck to you in your new world.
Making America great once again. MAGOA.
For the record, that is not a rare gesture in high school baseball.
This sort of behavior is commonplace among the kids my son and instruct in martial arts.
It was good to see this kid shake the hand of the ump despite his team losing on the walk-off hit (and great to see the umpire do his job of visually confirming the winning run before shaking the catcher’s hand). R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Aretha Franklin sang back in the 1960’s. Respect has to taught and reinforced in the home in these times because it doesn’t seem to be taught in public schools anymore. Hell, with CRT being taught, that erodes respect for each other. Mrs. Scott and I taught our sons to respect people and we set a great example by continually showing respect to each other. And it showed when people we know would praise our sons to us about how respectful our sons were to them. Initially, we were stunned that people would tell us this as it was something we expected out of kids until we realized that they were the exception in this day and age and not the rule. As adults, our sons are still showing respect to the people they meet. To me, this means Mrs. Scott and I did good raising our kids - mission accomplished.
The high school my daughters went to in California had a football team that had won the league championship 10 out of the coach's last 11 years. Players were coached to help opposing team players off the ground after a tackle, to hand the ball to an official immediately after a touchdown, and to avoid demonstrations in the end zone. That coach never yelled at a player on the sidelines and was always calm and reasonable. When the coach retired, his replacement was the exact opposite. The team never won another championship in my experience (stopped watching after two or three years of the "new" coach's tenure).
Character is taught. If your behavior examples are twerking, trash-talking and disrespect, you get the culture we have today.
West Springfield’s Eric Fila removed his catcher’s mask, turned toward the home plate umpire and extended his hand.
I've coached Little League in West Springfield (and softball). This has been the ethos the entire time - before I coached and after. It's something we all work hard at. We work with the Positive Coaching Alliance on this. I'm pleased to see it continues to be successful.
Affirmative action.
Handshakes all around are good. To be encouraged.
But it was a bit premature. How about wait a couple of seconds until the runner scores and the game is actually over.
I don't get why this is even noteworthy. Is this uncommon in baseball? Every cricket game I've ever watched in my life, both teams of players will shake the umpires' hands at the end. It's normal.
That is sportsmanship and proper manners.
I recall a few years ago everyone was going all ga-ga because some girls/women* in a softball game carried the opposing player around to all the bases because she'd injured her ankle, resulting in the carrying players' loss. That wasn't sportsmanship, that was cheating.
* Whatever those are. . . .
I'm not sure what I was supposed to notice. Guess I'll go back and read the comments by people who understand what happened.
I trust we can all agree on who his parents voted for. Hint - not the guys who makes fun of the disabled and grabs women by the pussy.
It's interesting that a lot of younger people have this idea that someone they don't know has to "earn" their respect. Why anyone would care about gaining the respect of a child is a bit beyond me.
I've explained to a lot of kids I've worked with that it's much better to go the other way: respect has to be lost. Be respectful of all, and if they lose your respect be open to them earning it back.
Very nice. Restores my faith in humanity, youth, respect. Back when I played baseball we’d do the two lines shaking hands after game. We reduced our commentary from “Nice game” to a single word, “Sgame.” Short, respectful, and a little fun taking a bit of the sting out of defeat.
"I trust we can all agree on who his parents voted for. Hint - not the guys who makes fun of the disabled and grabs women by the pussy."
The odds are high that his parents attend church regularly, so unlikely to be Biden voters.
"I trust we can all agree on who his parents voted for. Hint - not the guys who makes fun of the disabled and grabs women by the pussy."
One of the more preposterous comments since I've been reading this blog.
I agree with the kid that gestures like this are everywhere - thankfully. My boys played MS and HS rugby and what we saw +90% of the time was respect for refs, coaches and fans. In rugby the ref's name is "sir" and all you may say to him is "yes sir" and "no sir". Only the captain may say anything else to the ref, and he better be respectful or he'll get a yellow card. At the end of matches it's common for the winning team to offer "3 cheers" to the ref, the other team, and only then their own team. It was also common for teams to line up in front of the stands after a match and applaud the fans. Of course, rugby also teaches you that after spending 70 minutes trying to kill your opponent, you offer him food and drink and sit down with him as friends.
I have to ask parents: what is the point of having your kid play sports if this isn't what he's learning there? All the college scholarships in the world aren't going to make him a man (and scholarships are damn rare anyway). These kinds of lessons will do that.
Just here to compliment NotSure on his brilliant comment.
We dont know if the kid is a modern day Eddie Haskell.
My high school coach said something which has stuck for 45 years: in order to blame the refs for losing you first have to be a loser.
Anyone that thinks this is the norm has been away from youth sports for too long.
I coached (and was an assistant coach) for several of our last son's teams (they were better off when I was the assistant - but I was there). I saw kids cheating - and they were taught to do so. I saw kids curse their own coaches. Some refused to obey the coach.
Our teams tried to break that mold. We were largely successful, but it was a struggle. Worked great on my son because - I was there.
Bet that catcher's dad was "there" too.
I trust we can all agree on who his parents voted for. Hint - not the guys who makes fun of the disabled and grabs women by the pussy.
Is there anything you people won't turn into a hyper-partisan political statement?
Any subject at all?
I never played official sports involving adults, but at that time what was called "good sportsmanship" was expected even among scratch teams from different neighborhoods. At least, if we found other guys hinky as to approach or attitude, we didn't play with them after the first time.
My son played rugby for a year in high school. It was affiliated with the school but not part of the official athletics structure, and from my limited observation the coaches were pretty straight arrow--I would have had a problem if I suspected differently (in any aspect).
I'm not sure they won a game that season, but they played hard and had fun.
I still have only the sketchiest understanding of rugby, and I don't think he follows it.
Anthony said...
That is sportsmanship and proper manners.
I recall a few years ago everyone was going all ga-ga because some girls/women* in a softball game carried the opposing player around to all the bases because she'd injured her ankle, resulting in the carrying players' loss. That wasn't sportsmanship, that was cheating.
Your memory sucks
https://www.westernjournal.com/girl-tears-acl-running-to-1st-after-hitting-home-run-so-rival-team-carries-her-across-home-plate/
Girl Tears ACL Running to 1st After Hitting Home Run, So Rival Team Carries Her Across Home Plate
...
Tucholsky’s story has been retold multiple times throughout the years. But the fact that Western won 4 to 2 is not what everyone remembers.
No. What people remember is how those girls from Central Washington chose character over winning that day.
So no, it didn't result in their loss, and no, it wasn't cheating.
She could have crawled her way around, taking an hour to do it, and it would have been a legal score. So, if you want to be a whiny scum, you can say "it wasn't sportsmanship, they just wanted to get on with the game."
But what you said was just classless AND amazingly stupid.
I dont' know what's happened to the girl / woman who organized the carrying. But I'd be more than happy to have her coach any team my daughter was on
jim5301 said...
I trust we can all agree on who his parents voted for. Hint - not the guys who makes fun of the disabled and grabs women by the pussy.
Do you ever stop being pathetic?
1: I doubt they voted for the corrupt sleezbag who sells his services to his son's corrupt buyers, so long as he gets his 10% - 50%
2: Trump never said HE "grabbed them by the pussy", he said you COULD. Apparently you're so stupid that you thing the rest of us won't remember that the vast majority of the #MeToo baddies were democrats, including Joe Biden, rapist of Tara Reese.
3: He's a boy, playing sports on a boy's team. Not on. girl's team. So probably a Republican
I don't know what's happened to the girl / woman who organized the carrying. But I'd be more than happy to have her coach any team my daughter was on
https://www.ncaa.org/news/2013/4/26/good-sports-five-years-later.aspx
Many things have changed in five years, though. She is now in the third season as the head coach at Central Washington, is married – she is now Mallory Holtman-Fletcher – and has a 16-month-old son named Braxton. But each day is spent mere steps away from her signature moment as a player.
After her summer of national travel in 2008, Holtman-Fletcher landed back in Ellensburg where she served as a graduate assistant softball coach while working on her master of science in athletic administration. Over the next two seasons, Holtman-Fletcher learned everything she could from Wildcats coach Gary Frederick, who was the program’s coach from 1995 until 2010.
As a player, Holtman-Fletcher told Frederick that she planned on taking his job when he retired, and she meant it. When he stepped down after the 2010 season, Holtman-Fletcher indeed applied for the job, though she was definitely not a sure hire. Nearly 50 coaches applied for the position, but Holtman-Fletcher emerged on top.
So, good
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