Quoting from When Running Was Young and So Were We:
"I knew somebody who knew him well. And one year, when Pre didn't make the baseball team his friends were on, he was so disappointed. I was visiting our mutual friend up the coast up the coast in Reedsport, about 15 miles away. "Why don't you run down and say 'Hi' to this kid?" I didn't even know who he was but apparently her had heard of me.
"So I ran down and knocked on his door. He answered and said, "Hi, you're Gerry Lindgren." I said, "Hi, you're Steve Prefontaine." He says, "I'm going to beat you. I'm going to beat you someday." Lindgren laughed . . . ."
". . . You can never judge courage," Lindgren offered. "I taught Pre you have to be aggressive from the beginning of the race. And your aggression doesn't come in the race, it comes in the training. You can prepare for the opponent's tactic, but not the aggression he bring to that tactic. I could break everybody but Pre. Awesome his aggression. I used to get butterflies when I first ran against Pre. I used to hate his courage. I'd love it and I'd hate it."
So, no, it wasn't softball, it was baseball. Sounds as though Lindgren had a tremendous amount of respect for Pre.
The excerpt above is quoted with the permission of Jack Welch. If you want to know more about the greats, his book is an excellent start. Somewhere on the board is a post linking to an interview I did with Jack.