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The
Greatest Moment In The History Of Sportsmanship
It happened in the very first inning of the
Southwest Region championship. Two boys who when
they woke up this morning only cared about one
thing… get to Williamsport. Suddenly everything
changed, because in real life things happen just
like that... things change in a heartbeat.
Kaiden
Shelton is the big man on the powerful Pearland
team, their big picture, their big hitter. Isaiah
Jarvis is the shortstop on the scrappy Oklahoma
team that had through incredible perseverance made
it to the championship game . One team has already
been to Williamsport, the other has never been.
The
Pearland team scored 3 runs in the top of the
first, but Oklahoma came right back at them in the
bottom of the inning , they scored 2 runs and had
a big rally going on, there was noise everywhere,
coaches were yelling for the pitcher Shelton and
the batter Jarvis to ”Battle” “win the
battle.”
Then
it happened, a twist of fate, Shelton lost control
of a fastball and hit Jarvis right in the helmet,
and Jarvis fell in a heap at home plate
Suddenly
nobody was thinking about Williamsport anymore.
With Isaiah laying there and coaches and medical
staff rushing to his prone body, Shelton kind of
circled around the area between home and the
pitchers mound. The stadium was silent. Jarvis’s
mom stood in the stands , one hand clasped to her
face, the other to her heart. And every mom who
has ever sent their boys into these games was
right there with her.
The
Pearland players took a knee, eventually so did
Shelton. Seconds seemed like hours. On one knee,
Shelton was totally alone with his thoughts. But
going through his mind were the words of the
umpire immediately after Jarvis had gone down.
"Oh my God” the umpire had said.
Finally
they helped Jarvis to his feet, on replay you
could see how the ball had hit his helmet in a
good spot, it got more helmet then anything,
Jarvis had been more frightened then anything. He
trotted down to first, but now the trouble was
with Shelton.
Before
that pitch he had only one thought - Battle... Win
The Battle... the words of coaches... now the only
words he could hear in his mind... were the words
of the umpire: “Oh my God.”
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And
just like that he started to cry. He was standing
on the mound crying, and nobody went to him, not
his teammates, not his coaches. Then one person
did go to him... Isaiah Jarvis left first base
threw his helmet off, walked right to him and
hugged him. That hug said... it’s okay. It was
just what Shelton needed at that particular
moment, I am sure his mom had wanted to rush out
there and hug her boy, Isaiah took care of that
for her, because Shelton was a big kid with a big
heart and he didn’t want to hurt anybody, he
didn’t want to hear an umpire say “Oh my
God” over something he did.
He was there to play baseball and make new
friends, he hadn’t bargained for this... |
The
game resumed, somebody won, somebody lost, one
team went to Williamsport, the other packed their
bags for home, it will all be forgotten, but that
moment of perfect sportsmanship will live for as
long as there is human competition.
Before
the tournament Isaiah Jarvis said his biggest
dream was to make sports center. I think it’s
going to happen.
His
name is Isaiah and in the book of Isaiah there is
a famous passage about coming quickly to the
rescue “I will sustain you and I will rescue
you.” It’s almost perfectly symbolic that a
boy named Isaiah would come quickly to the rescue
and do it when it was most needed.
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