Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
May 7, 2009, Washington Post

Without Support, the Stars Don't Shine

The Washington Nationals are off to a slow start this season. One of the big reasons is their bullpen.

Those are the pitchers who come into the game after the starting pitcher gets tired. These "relievers" usually pitch for an inning or two, but sometimes they face only a single batter. The job of a bullpen pitcher (and any pitcher) is to keep the other team from scoring. That way, if their team has the lead, it can stay ahead. If the team is behind, a good bullpen pitcher can keep his team in the game by not letting the other team get a bigger lead. The Nationals' bullpen pitchers have not been doing a very good job so far. The Nationals have lost a bunch of games in which they were leading or tied because the bullpen didn't do its job.

Bullpen pitchers are some of the unsung heroes on a baseball team. They might not be as famous as the starting pitchers, but, as Nationals fans now know, if the bullpen pitchers mess up, it's hard to have a winning team.

There are lots of unsung heroes in team sports. In football, quarterbacks get all the attention and do most of the television ads. The offensive linemen are big and sweaty, and hardly anyone knows them. But the quarterbacks can't throw many touchdown passes if the big guys up front don't do their jobs.

In soccer, hockey and lacrosse, everyone pays attention to the scorers, the players who put the ball or puck in the net. But teams are only as good as their defense, the players who do the tough, thankless job of stopping the other team from scoring.

Think about the Washington Capitals. Their chances of playing for the Stanley Cup got much better when the Caps' defense, including their sensational 21-year-old goaltender, Simeon Varlamov, started keeping the other team from scoring.

It's the same thing in basketball. Years ago I interviewed Morgan Wootten, the Hall of Fame coach whose teams at DeMatha Catholic High School won more than 1,200 games. Wootten said: "I always tell my players that if you have a beautiful garden, you will need someone to weed it. Every team needs players who will do some of the dirty work: the players who will dive for the loose balls, set the picks and make the hustle plays that win games."

That's good for kids to remember. Everyone who plays sports would like to be the hero: the quarterback, the goal scorer or the starting pitcher. But teams need everyone, not just the stars.

So if the coach asks you to pitch to a few batters, block for a runner or take a turn trying to stop the other team's top scorer, do it. Because there's no such thing as an unimportant job on a team.

Fred Bowen writes KidsPost's sports opinion column and is an author of sports novels for kids.

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