League gives people with special needs a place to play

Wild applause erupts every time Ronnie Anderson gets a hit.

The 8-year-old ballplayer has a perfect batting average and an impossibly small strike zone: Ronnie isn’t much taller than the bat he wields. Whenever he connects with the ball — and he connects every time he’s up to bat — cheers resound from the stands, the dugout and even from the opposing team on the field.

Every time he steps onto the field, Ronnie is an all star.

That’s just the way it works in the Miracle League.

The league, which is open to children and adults with special needs, recently wrapped up its third season at the Kidsports Miracle Field. Seventy players on six teams played this summer, more than have ever played before.

But Kidsports President Dan Johns knows there is plenty of room for more.

“We’re growing and we’re pleased with that,” he said. “But there are certainly more players or prospective players out there.”

Giving special needs players a place to play was Johns’ dream for years. He and Roy Beekman, Kalispell Babe Ruth district commissioner, tried to accomplish that goal in the 1990s, but many potential players couldn’t navigate rough, dusty Thompson Field, so the “Challenger League” soon died.

Then Johns heard about Miracle League. The Conyers, Ga., organization had a field with a rubber top to prevent injuries, wheelchair-accessible dugouts and a completely flat surface with painted lines and bases. With help from Rotary Club of Kalispell, which raised about $260,000, Kidsports installed its own Miracle Field. It opened June 27, 2009, with two teams in the league. Five teams played last year.

The rules of the league are simple. No one is ever out. Batters may take as many swings as necessary to hit the ball. Infielders and outfielders are encouraged to make plays, but even if players are tagged out, they keep running the bases.

An inning ends when each team has run through the batting order once. Every hit is a single, except when the final batter of the team steps up the plate. That hit is an automatic home run. Actual home runs count as such, too.

No one keeps score, and the players celebrate every hit and tag.

It’s that joy that Johns loves.

“After spending 50 years — well, more than that — hanging around baseball fields, it’s like, what took me so long? I just really enjoy them,” he said.

“They’re happy. They’re delightful. They’re so pleased with improvement. They try.

“They’re just delightful to be around. I guess that’s why I coach two teams.”

Johns’ teams, the Cubs and the adult Yankees, managed to avoid playing one another this season, but Johns did coach his teams in back-to-back games. Even though they didn’t go head-to-head, his players made sure Johns showed where his loyalties lay.

“Last night the Yankees played first,” he said in a mid-July phone interview. When the game was finished, “the Cubs players made sure I went to the pickup to change hats.”

The players all wear Major League replica jerseys and caps. In addition to the Cubs and youth and adult Yankees teams, the Cardinals, Athletics and Angels played this season.

The Angels, the team from Lighthouse Christian Home for Developmentally Delayed Adults, took on the youth Yankees in mid-July.

Seven-year-old Tristan Dishon led off for the Yankees. His wheelchair might have prevented him from playing in another league; in the Miracle League, it didn’t make a difference. Coach Jennifer Johnson pitched as many times as it took for Tristan to get a hit; when his bat connected, teammates and competitors alike cheered.

Ronnie, who has Down syndrome, got the same applause when he stepped up to the plate. His aunt, 17-year-old Adrienne Carroll, jogged alongside him as he ran to first base.

Carroll, who plays softball for Flathead High, has volunteered at Miracle League practices and games for the last two seasons. She got involved because of her nephew and found she loved the experience.

“It doesn’t matter what the score is or if they’re winning or losing,” she said. “I love watching them have fun and learning to play.”

Several volunteers faithfully show up to their teams’ weekly practices and games. Many, like Carroll, have relatives who play in the league.

“Quite often, the ballplayers are at games watching their brothers and sisters play. Now we flip it, and [those siblings] come out on the field and help. It’s their special needs brother or sister who is in the center of the action,” Johns said.

“It’s just a neat turnaround.”

Jena Willis, whose mother, Shirley, is executive director of Lighthouse Christian Home and an Angels coach, doesn’t have family in the league but loves helping the players. The 16-year-old plays for Glacier High School and the Glacier Emeralds and has volunteered with the Miracle League for three years.

“I feel like I’m letting them do something that they love,” she said.

Willis sometimes can’t help coaching; she offers encouragement and tips to players throughout the games. The players don’t always listen, Johns said.

“She’ll assign these Lighthouse residents where to go, and they’ll just run to wherever they want to go,” he said, laughing.

That’s because playing a particular position isn’t the point of the league, as Angels player Amie Bartell explained.

“We’re not professionals. We’re just having fun,” she said.

That’s why Bartell, who played third base against the Yankees, high-fived players from the opposing team as they reached her or hollered encouragement at players who occasionally forgot to leave second. She waved Ronnie — who giggled as he ran — to third and cheered as he ran home. When he touched the plate, Ronnie paused to grin at the cheering fans behind the backstop.

“If you’ve had a bad day, go the Miracle Field. It’ll cure it,” Johns said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.