Sara’s First Home Run

In a small town in the mid­dle of Wash­ing­ton State, in a field inside a chain linked fence, in a game fewer than a 100 peo­ple saw, a home run was hit — not mem­o­rable for the dis­tance it trav­eled or the game it decided, but for the mean­ing it car­ried. West­ern Ore­gon senior Sara Tuchol­sky had never hit a home run in her career. Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton senior Mal­lory Holt­man was already her school’s career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee lig­a­ment brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their play­ing days, they com­bined on a home run trot that cel­e­brated the col­lec­tive human spirit far more than indi­vid­ual ath­letic achieve­ment. ESPN reports on an unfor­get­table expres­sion of sportmanship.