Springtime has finally arrived, and with it warmer temperatures and outdoor team sports. Major League Baseball started last month, and all over the region, kids are picking up bats and balls and getting ready to swing for the fences. But the kids aren’t the only ones excited to round the bases.
As the general manager of New Jersey’s Camden County Miracle League, Arthur Aston is pumped for the spring season, too. The Miracle League is a nationwide organization dedicated to making baseball adaptable for people of every ability and disability.
Adaptive leagues such as these are important because they grant access to one of the most familiar and beloved pastimes kids participate in to bond with peers: sports.
Aston and Philadelphia sled hockey coach Brian Olsen explain what accommodations parents can expect from these local teams and what makes them special.
Take me out to the ballgame
“We have players who are 5 years old and players who are in their 60s,” Aston says of his local Miracle League. Children up to the age of 13 are in the minor league, and older players are in the major league.
Each athlete is matched with a volunteer who’s 13 or older and is called a buddy. “We have a lot of middle school and high school students who volunteer with us,” he says.
In addition to a one-on-one pairing, every player has the individual adaptive equipment and accommodations they need. For some, that means a batting tee, and for others, someone pushing their wheelchair around the bases. The league even provides large beeping balls for seeing-impaired or blind athletes. “We have one player who uses it every game, and they are so good at identifying where the ball is…they’re able to hit it just about every time,” Aston says.
The games, which last about an hour, do not keep score, and every player is guaranteed at least two “at bats” and once around the bases. “Every player gets a hit, and every game ends in a tie,” Aston says enthusiastically.
Sit down, suit up and glide on by
The diamond isn’t the only local place where kids can get into the adapted sports world.
Olsen, the coach of the junior team and president of Philadelphia’s Hammerhead Sharks sled hockey organization, has been immersed in the world of sled hockey ever since his son Jacob discovered the sport 11 years ago at an event for the Spina Bifida Association held at the Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell, New Jersey. Jacob was 4, and he saw a sled hockey team practicing. “My son got in the sled, and two hours later we were leaving and he was crying,” Olsen remembers with a laugh. “The next week, we were at practice.”
The Hammerhead junior league is for children ages 5 to 18, with some players transferring to the adult league as early as 16 or 17.
In addition to traditional hockey equipment, the players need specialized sticks and sleds, which can cost more than $1,000 each. “We try and supply everything,” Olsen says. “We can even cover travel [and] ice fees.”
One of the ways Olsen works to make the sport more accessible is through fundraising. “My vice president and secretary have gotten really good at reaching out to various companies and sending them information about the team, and just asking if they’re willing to help,” Olsen says. While they hear no a lot, Olsen says “every once in a while, you get that ‘yes.’”
Families in the stands
Aston, who himself uses a wheelchair, loves to see how Miracle League players succeed both on and off the baseball field. “It affects them in such an amazing way,” he says.
One of his favorite parts of game day is seeing the families in the stand cheering on their loved ones. Because of the buddies, “families actually get to sit on the bleachers as any other parent is able to do at any other sporting event,” he says.
Olsen sees the same joy on the ice, too. “It goes beyond the disabled community,” he says. At one of his son’s recent games, “the stands were packed! There was so much family and friends. Teachers will show up for some of these kids, their aides from school…they’re all coming out and watching.”
One thing the Hammerheads particularly like is when a local stand-up hockey team accepts an invitation to get in a sled and give it a whirl. “We use it as a kind of mini fundraiser type thing,” Olsen says.
While Olsen and his family are all in on hockey, he says it doesn’t matter what sport a child does. “If you’re disabled, give it a shot. If not hockey, do something. I have [met] people from track and field, archery, swimming, wheelchair basketball. There’s so much out there.”
Learn more about these adaptive teams at ccnjml.org and hammerheads.hockey.
