By Barb Arland-Fye
Editor
Thomas steps up to the plate with confidence, swings his bat and it connects with the lime green softball that the coach, my husband Steve, has just pitched. Another hit for Thomas! Sitting in the stands of the Miracle Field stadium last Saturday — a hot, windy day — I felt blessed to witness the progress that Thomas and his teammates, including my son Colin, have achieved participating in the Davenport Challenger League.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that making contact with the ball eluded Thomas but he and his parents and older brother continued to show up and persevere. His family and coaches worked patiently with Thomas and then one season, he began hitting the ball consistently.
Some other players and their families experienced the same small miracle. What a privilege to watch it unfold! For our family, Colin’s challenge has been attentiveness. If the wind was blowing and the leaves on the trees were rustling or the contrails of passing jets etched a white line in the sky, the baseball game didn’t have a chance of maintaining his interest.
Little League Baseball established the Challenger League in 1989 as a separate division for children with physical and mental disabilities ages 4 on up (no upper-end age limit) “to enjoy the game of baseball along with the millions of other children who participate in this sport worldwide” (davenportchallengerleague.com). One year later, caring adults established the Davenport Challenger League.
We parents and caregivers are grateful for the welcoming attitude of the Challenger League toward players of all ages. Some, like Colin and Thomas, are well into adulthood. Players come and go through the years but each one benefits in some way from the joy of participating in one of America’s favorite pastimes. Colin, who is in his 30s, has been playing in the Davenport Challenger League since the summer before first grade and anticipates each season.
Among the players I enjoyed watching last Saturday was a boy who wore a look of bliss on his face as he zipped up to home plate in his electric wheelchair for his turn at bat. A parent or caregiver helped him hold and swing the bat, which resulted in a hit. The boy sped off to first base. Another player, a tall, thin man also had help at bat. With that assist, the player got a hit and walked ever so slowly to first base, accompanied by a reassuring parent or caregiver.
The traditional rules of Little League baseball are mercifully flexible in the Challenger League, which requires a little extra patience on the part of the coaches and the spectators, too! The Davenport Challenger League acknowledges the “wide range of abilities of Little League Challenger participants.” That reality necessitates “variations in not only the rules, but in the philosophy of conventional baseball.”
Challenger League also fosters strengthening of participants’ self-esteem and the disciplines of teamwork, sportsmanship, fair play and the opportunity to mainstream into other divisions of play.
The late Pope Francis spoke of our calling to “recognize in every person with disabilities, even complex and serious disabilities, a unique contribution to the common good through their original life stories.” We are to “recognize them as persons of equal dignity, as brothers and sisters in humanity” (National Catholic Partnership on Disability).
We witness to the miracle of their life stories in the Church, at home, at school, and on the ball field.
(Contact Editor Barb Arland-Fye at arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org)
