Play Ball! Miracle Style

By: Brendan Epps

I recently learned about Miracle League of Greater Dayton and immediately fell in love with the concept. Miracle League is a growing national baseball league with fields accessible to children with diverse abilities (motor skills, mental capacity, mobility, etc), leveling literal playing fields specifically designed with “...an all-weather rubberized surface and is handicap accessible. There are no raised surfaces to interfere with crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs.”

The Miracle League of Greater Dayton 2022 season has two age groups (10 and under & 11 and up) beginning April 23rd, with games weekly through June. Some of the volunteer positions needed are announcers, pitchers, batting coaches, mascots, grill duty, student ambassadors and others. A key volunteer role is Miracle League Buddy, assigned a player for each game to protect the player from balls, helping with batting and running to bases, and interacting with the players on and off the field.

The Dayton Metro YMCA plays a key role with supporting the Miracle League of Greater Dayton at the Springboro Miracle Field, which is completely donor-supported and all-volunteer run. Bill Hackett, Maintenance Director with the Coffman YMCA, has volunteered as the main POC for Miracle League Dayton for the past 5 years.

The Miracle League concept began in 1992, when Eddie Bagwell invited an unexpected 7-year-old to play baseball with his team.  At the time, he was taking a chance on the child who happened to rely on a wheel-chair. The following year, more children played in the Rockdale Youth Baseball Association with 35 players adding diverse abilities to four teams in the first year. Rotary clubs of Rockdale and Conyers saw the value and potential of expanding the opportunity to even more children and established a non-profit to build the type of inclusive facilities needed and to help with “...outreach for Miracle Leagues across the country.”

By the 4th season, the league had nearly 10 times the number of players. In the founding years, the program supported the then 75,000 children around Atlanta with disabilities. Today, 300 Miracle Leagues have welcomed over “a million smiles and counting.”

Bagwell’s actions are a reminder to each of us that we don’t need to wait for the “rules” to make a difference. He started Miracle Leagues without a framework. It seems fitting to quote from the 1989 baseball film, Field of Dreams,"If you build it, [they] will come."