I find spontaneous sportsmanship inspiring

Athletes understand brotherhood better than anyone except for maybe Marines. Last Sunday at the YMCA 5-Miler it was Jamaican man Enos Benbow, 26, who is sweetness in stride, and Brian Shepherd, 42, out of Taylor University and an elementary school principal in Ligonier, Ind., which is south of South Bend, who battled over five miles on a hot morning.

“I asked Enos with a half mile to go if he wanted to sprint for it or finish together,” Shepherd said after the race.

“I told him it didn’t matter to me and so we decided to finish together,” Benbow said. Both runners - who never met before the race - said if it came to a sprint that the other guy probably would have won. During a summer where I can’t seem to pay enough attention to enough people on the sports beat, the spontaneous sportsmanship and genuine humility of these two athletes I found inspiring.

NO QUESTIONS ASKED - The Phillies were evidently entertaining trade offers for centerfielder Shane Victorino the “Flyin’ Hawaiian” up to the trading deadline whenever that is, or was, what am I, a general manager? Victorino precedes all his post-game comments with the words, ”Oh, no questions asked” and likes to talk about playing all 27 outs.

Last Sunday when he barreled over Braves catcher Brian McCann jarring the ball loose then dived back and tagged the plate Shane flashed that “boy at play” smile before coming back to McCann making sure he wasn’t hurt.

“No questions asked, he’s the best catcher in baseball,” Victorino said in the post-game interview. “No questions asked” Shane Victorino is everyone’s favorite Phillie.

FAROUT FAVRE - Every once in awhile a former student will say something nice to me and suggest I go back to teaching and that the place is not the same without me. And every once in awhile I remember being a daily starting player in the lives of so many kids, but when I visit schools, which I do every week, I enjoy no schedule and no duties and I doubt I can find a job at full salary that lasts only 25 minutes a day.

Brett Favre is crazy like the rest of us and found out he is loved and not loved at the same time. But what gets me is he retired from a job that paid him $12 million a season and when you walk away from that it’s because you instinctively knew that some 22-year-old fat tackle who never heard of your 41-year-old iconic self is about to put the Bonnie Rait “Rock me like my backbone was his own” hit on your less-than-limber self and that will be that.

Speaking of Batman and Christian Bale and people who make too much money, Bale went NFL late night linebacker on his mother and sister for trying to “shake sonny down” for a loan of 200 Gs the night before the Dark Knight premier.

I AM THE U IN CONFUSE - The Rehoboth All-Star champions of the U8 Delmar Machine Ball Tournament were Noah Brozefsky, Jake Gelof, Javon Toppin, Garret Elgin, Ian Robertson, Tre Toppin, Zach Gelof, Logan Justice, and Jordan Taylor. All the players are 8 and or under and were incorrectly listed as 9-and-10-year-olds in last week’s Cape Gazette, which is a bit of a boneheaded error on my part being as it was a U8 tournament.

The confusion set in because many of these same athletes then “played up” in the Pat Knight Tournament which has mostly 9-and-10-year-old players. Rehoboth won the Pat Knight tournament so all is well that ends well - now it’s off to third grade which is sometime called U3 not to be confused with U2.

SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE - My protégé in the business of sportswriting and casual mistakes, Tim Bamforth, forgot to pick up the authentic Philadelphia soft pretzels before Saturday’s Seashore Strider Run for Chad 5K and his pretzel peep lapsed into temporary insanity because who needs to get up early twisting like they did last summer over a pretzel oven only to have a hundred of them make a cooldown run to the YMCA five-miler a day later.

“Don’t say anything about the pretzels. Those guys at the Philly Pretzel Factory located in Midway Galleria who have their own website at www.phillysoftpretzelfactory.com are great and everybody is happy,” Tim asked me on Sunday.

I’m not saying a word.

SNIPPETS - Richard Reed played on the 1979 Cape State Championship football team. He has always been tougher than he looks as I found out when he shook my hand prior to last Sunday’s YMCA 5-Miler. And I really wasn’t surprised that the Atlantic Millwork executive ran an eight-minute pace and hung right in there with the running regulars. When the economy is slowing down why not just go out and train hard and fast - it’s a healthy adjustment that true athletes understand.

Tyler Townsend was my student and later a teacher’s aide his senior year in high school. He liked my pace and sense of humor. One spring day I kept him after class and asked him, “Tyler, what is your problem? I thought we were buddies?”
He just smiled, “We are.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me that you won the game yesterday with a grand slam in the last inning? Were you even going to mention it?”

He just shrugged because Tyler would never set up that moment for himself. That is humility of the face of great accomplishment.

Go up and shake the hand of a Delaware beach lifeguard this week and tell them “Thanks for keeping us safe.” Last weekend seven people drowned off New York beaches due to long period waves caused by southerly winds. When you hear the whistle blow look up and do what you’re told. Never swim in the ocean alone or with a friend who doesn’t have a buoy.