During its stop in town for an exhibition game against Robert Morris last week, the United States national softball team had a practice at North Allegheny High School.

These, for all intents and purposes, are professionals. Softball is what the women do for a living.

And, with three consecutive Olympic gold medals and as lopsided a win-loss record as you will find, they are widely considered the most dominant sports team in the world.

Yet there was an element to their North Hills workout you don't usually see in most pro sports, particularly at the top level and -- OK, we'll say it --especially with men's teams.

During batting practice, the women took turns by position and got just four pitches each. Nearly every one of them, after those four chances, thanked assistant Karen Johns, who was pitching. They all did collectively afterward.

How often do you see or hear something like that?

A far more extraordinary thing happened late last month on a softball field far removed from the mighty Team USA stomping grounds.

The story has made the rounds, including, of course, a video on YouTube, but it will take a while for it to get old.

Sara Tucholsky, a 5-foot-2 senior for Western Oregon, hit the first home run of her college or high school career in the second half of a doubleheader at Central Washington.

At stake in the game between the NCAA Division II teams, neither of which had been to an NCAA tournament, was a Great Northwest Athletic Conference title.

When Tucholsky's shot cleared the center-field fence -- just her fourth hit in just her 35th at-bat this season -- it came in the second inning of a scoreless game with a runner on.

The little kid in Tucholsky -- the same one that resides in all athletes, even if they don't always come to the surface -- took over. She was so excited that she missed first base. In turning around to go tag it, she blew a ligament in her right knee and collapsed.

Trainers and coaches couldn't help a live base-runner without her being called out.

The umpires misinterpreted the rules and told Western Oregon that if Tucholsky's teammates assisted her, she would be out, and that a pinch runner would have to take first base with the play ruled a two-run single.

No one -- and that meant no one in any part of the little softball stadium in Ellensburg, Wash. -- wanted to see Tucholsky's first home run taken away, especially since it came in what obviously would be the final at-bat of her career.

Let's say Western Oregon pursued its initial thought and reluctantly agreed to send in a substitute, erasing Tucholsky's home run but giving the team a good shot at winning the conference title.

It's entirely possible that a later review would have discovered the umpires' errant ruling and changed the call to a home run. Or, if the call went uncorrected, Western Oregon would have been satisfied to settle for the title while feeling awful about Tucholsky losing her only career home run.

Those things didn't happen because Central Washington's record-breaking slugger, Mallory Holtman, a senior, approached the umpires and asked if members of her team -- the opponents -- could help Tucholsky.

The umpires could not think of a reason to say no.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace got on each side of Tucholsky, picked her up and, starting with first, lowered the opposing player enough so that she could touch each base and home with her left foot.

Central Washington tied the score, 2-2, in the bottom of that inning, but Western Oregon eventually won, 4-2, in a game that Central Washington essentially and gladly helped give away with the selfless and sportsmanlike act of helping Tucholsky.

So, now that you're either drying or rolling your eyes, the question is, how far up the food chain do you have to go before something like that would never happen?

Big-city high school? Major college? Minor league? It's hard to picture it happening at the big league level, especially with any sort of title on the line.

Maybe it's somewhat specific to softball. It's not unusual at Division I college games to hear women on the bench chanting and clapping in unison for their teammates in an organized way not common to other sports.

And we're not talking about hey-batter-batter-batter-SWING.

Whatever it is that enveloped that dirt diamond in the Northwest, we could all use a little more of it.