Tap ’er Light

By Bill Foley - 05/29/2007

Bill Foley

A few weeks ago, I was watching the Red Sox play with my daughter on my lap.

Laney looked back at me and said “Girls don’t play baseball.” Since Laney doesn’t know the difference between playing softball and baseball, these words nearly broke my heart.

I don’t want my daughter thinking like that for even a second. But since the spring weather is rarely suited to take a 3˝-year-old girl to watch the local high school teams, it was hard to prove her wrong.

Finally, the weather cooperated so I could take Laney to see a little bit of the Butte High playoff series, and last week I took her to Polson to watch Butte Central play in the state tournament.

In Polson, I’m glad to say Laney was there first-hand to see that girls not only play softball, but they also can be heroes to grown men.

While the effort put out by all the Butte Central players was admirable, junior pitcher Kelli O’Leary was nothing short of amazing.

I didn’t get a chance to see the Butte High girls play in Kalispell, but I know the Big Boss was damn proud of them, too.

O’Leary pitched 25 innings Friday, and that is not a typo.

Since I keep track of pitches while scoring a game, I noticed that O’Leary threw 377 pitches in about an eight-hour stretch. She also threw 100 pitches the day before.

O’Leary and the Maroons went 1-2 over those eight hours, but that was mostly due to luck. The Maroons had none.

After the game, I tried to tell O’Leary how impressive she was that day, and probably didn’t do it justice. Not only have I never seen anybody pitch that many innings, I said, I have never heard of it happening.

That’s because it probably never happened before. Until this year, Montana high school rules prohibited a pitcher from throwing more than 14 innings on one day. (Any innings over the regulation seven didn’t count against the 14.) That’s a rule invented to protect players, and it should have never been removed.

I know they say that pitching a softball is easier on the arm than pitching a baseball. But it takes a violent underhand motion to pitch a softball, and it has to take a toll on the body.

Yeah, 377 softball pitches isn’t the same as 377 pitches in baseball. But it has to be close to 200.

There’s only one other softball performance I’ve seen that ranks in the same John Wayne-like toughness category as O’Leary.

In the 2000 state tournament, BC pitcher Alicia Wheeler took a line drive off her cheek. After a trip to the hospital, Wheeler pitched in the championship game in Billings. Between pitches, Wheeler pulled down on her cheek because it was swelling her eye shut.

Saturday morning, O’Leary was likely wishing she just had a black eye. Still, I bet she would have gone another 25 innings if it meant her team had a chance to win, even though her neck, shoulder, arm, knee and hand were killing her.

Looking back, Wheeler and O’Leary probably should have never been put in those situations. The same goes for gritty BC catcher Brook Pokorny, whose hand was black and blue from the beating the hard-throwing O’Leary gave her all day. Squatting to catch 25 innings can’t be good for your body.

But all that is easy to say after the fact.

The reason it’s so easy to second-guess is because second-guessers can never be proven wrong.

If a freshman pitcher had See PITCHING, Page B4 Pitching ...

gotten lit up in an elimination game, there would probably be calls for the coach’s head. If you’re going to get beat, you’ve got to go out with your best. That’s the prevailing logic, at least.

The difference between Wheeler and O’Leary is O’Leary’s story doesn’t end with a happy ending — not yet anyway.

The reason for that is sometimes good players have to be lucky, and a champion’s heart isn’t always enough to win a trophy.

Unfortunately, Laney, who is just as impressed with a foul ball as she is a home run, is too young understand what she saw.

It certainly wasn’t lost on the rest of us who were lucky enough to watch, even though it was a little painful see.

‘Speedy’ Beatty A week earlier, Johnna Beatty teamed with Molly Bentley to win the Class AA state doubles tennis title.

I’ve worked at this paper with Johnna’s proud parents for the better part of 10 years now. So, I’ve watched Johnna grow up between trips to visit mom and dad at work.

Now Johnna is state champion, and I don’t have the words to say how incredibly awesome that is. I feel like a proud uncle.

Cotton-Eyed Tony Butte High senior Tony Cunneen had a monster weekend on the track for the Bulldogs. Cunneen winning seven medals — four of them gold — ranks very high on the list of great Mining City sports performances.

But Cunneen’s talents aren’t limited to the track or football field.

During the basketball season, Cunneen showed that he’s also quite the dancer, as the Butte High cheerleaders can surely attest.

At breaks during basketball games, public address announcer Chris Fisk played the song Cotton-Eyed Joe a lot.

The season started with Cunneen dancing a little bit to the tune in line with the Bulldog cheerleaders and their choreographed moves. At first, Cunneen struggled a picking up the moves. He was a step behind as he had to learn the routine without a dress rehearsal.

But he kept working at it, and by the end of the year, Cunneen, thankfully not in uniform, was right in line with the girls It was quite impressive, and funny, to watch Cunneen’s progression. But there’s some things a guy just shouldn’t do.

Every time Cotton-Eyed Joe blasted over the Civic Center speakers I cringed a little.

“C’mon, Tony,” I’d think, speaking softly to myself out loud. “Don’t do that.” Unlike last week in Polson, there are some things I wish my eyes would have never seen.