T-BALL AND SAILING

by Pam

One out, runners on first and second. The batter waits with baited anticipation. The umpire places the ball on the tee; the pitcher makes a throwing motion, and the batter swings with all of his might. The ball flies between the shortstop and third baseman, hits the ground on the edge of the dirt and rolls into the outfield grass between two five year old outfielders who watch the ball pass by before realizing they need to give chase. The runners take off as the crowd yells with excitement. The runner from second scores with ease. The runner on first stops at second and smiles. His coaches and fans yell for him to run and he takes off for third. By this time, the two outfielders have fallen down, and begun wrestling for the ball. Finally, the left fielder comes up with the ball and heaves the ball toward the infield. The ball doesn't make it to the dirt and the shortstop runs to the ball. The batter has reached first and is headed for second. The runner who started on first, stops at third and smiles. By this point his coach is red-faced and about to pass out from a lack of oxygen as he "encourages" the five year old to head home. He takes off for home. The shortstop throws the ball toward home. The batter stops on second base and raises his hands to the sky in triumph. The ball hits the dirt and rolls right to the catcher at home plate. The runner heading home sees the ball, turns around and runs safely to third base. Time is called.  (read more)

I read this and laughed out loud.  On the face of it, this has nothing to do with sailing ... or does it?

How cool is Facebook?  I re-connected with my old friend, playmate and neighbor of 18 years.  When he was Speed Racer, I was Trixie and when he was Batman, I was Batgirl and on and on the adventures went for years and years.  Great memories!  Low and behold, I find that after all these years, we’ve both been blogging about sportsmanship.

These days he’s into the ball sports and I’m into the water sports but our observations are strikingly similar.  Reading his post made me realize that bad sportsmanship appears to actually be a simple loss of perspective.  Could it really be that basic?

Ben Ainslie, a three time Olympic Gold Medalist, recently exited his boat and boarded a media boat at the Finn World Championships in Perth, Australia to speak his mind about the boat’s interference in his race  (Ainslie disqualified; photos).  Ultimately, he forfeited a World Championship win that was easily his for the taking.  Perspective.  He was right but he was also wrong.  The media boat was doing its job (although, it could be argued, unsafely).  Is Ben a bad sport?  Doubtful.  He just lost his perspective for a brief moment.  It happens to us all.  So perhaps bad sportsmanship is a persistent loss of perspective. 

I am going to put watching five year old t-ball on my list of things to do next time I lose my perspective and need a little reality check on what’s really important.