[Ohio-talk] Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Wed Mar 30 15:38:29 UTC 2016

Ditto from Cleveland, lol! Cheryl

On 3/28/16, Sheri Albers via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Eric, I absolutely loved your story. You always have, and will continue to,
> live the life you want; blindness does not hold you back!
> Play ball!
> Sheri Albers
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ohio-talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Eric
> Duffy via Ohio-talk
> Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 2:47 PM
> To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List
> Cc: Eric Duffy
> Subject: [Ohio-talk] Take Me Out To The Ballgame
>
> I wrote this story for our Kernel book series   twelve years ago.
>  One week from today baseball is back in Cincinnati. This story appeard in
> Lessons of the Earth.
>
> Take Me Out To the Ball Game
>
> By Eric Duffy
>
> I am one of eight children, the only one with a disability in my family. My
> parents were devastated to learn that I was blind. They had no hope for any
> sort of a future for me, but as a child I never thought of myself as
> particularly different from sighted kids. I couldn’t do some things very
> well, and I knew that, as we grew older, some of those things would be more
> significant.
> 	From an early age I knew that I would never be able to drive a car for
> example, so I always looked for things in common with my sighted siblings
> and friends. Sports was one of these.
> True, I could not catch a football or hit a baseball the way others could,
> but I could learn everything possible about the games that I loved. There
> was a time when nothing was more important to me than baseball. I studied
> the game; I knew something about every major league team, something about
> every player, and everything about the Cincinnati Reds. Those great ball
> players of the early ’70’s—Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez,
> and many others—were my heroes. Cincinnati Reds broadcasters Marty Brennaman
> and Joe Nuxall brought the game to life for me as for thousands of others.
> With their vivid descriptions of the game and my insatiable desire to learn
> all I could about the sport, I could hold a conversation about baseball with
> anyone—my parents, my brothers, or my parents’ friends—it simply didn’t
> matter.
> I knew the game, and I could hold my own with anyone who wanted to talk
> baseball. I showed no mercy to anyone who challenged the vast superiority of
> the Big Red Machine to all other teams in the major leagues. No other
> catcher (living or dead) was in the same category as Johnny Bench.
> At the time I was a student at the Ohio State School for the Blind, and
> although the doctors said I was totally blind, I had some usable vision
> through most of junior high school. Some of my friends had no vision at all,
> some just met the legal definition of blindness (20/200), and others were
> somewhere between the two. We wanted to find a way for all of us to play
> baseball together. We began by rolling a kick-ball on the ground. That way
> we did not have to worry about upper and lower strike zones. We stipulated
> that the ball must be on the ground before reaching the plate. If it went
> over the plate without being hit, it was a strike. If it did not touch the
> plate and the batter didn’t swing, it was a ball.
> The standard rules of baseball applied—with the exception of having to roll
> the ball on the ground. Of course, as I have already said, we used a
> kick-ball rather than a baseball. First base was at the sliding board.
> Second base was a tree. Third base was a jungle gym. Home plate was a
> merry-go-round. Of course each of these objects had the appropriate base
> marker in front of it.
> Someone at the base would clap or shout to guide a totally blind base
> runner. I was not fast, so I would hit the ball as far as I could, then
> slide headfirst into base because that’s the way Pete Rose often did it.
> Some plays resulted in physical altercations. I remember talking about our
> games with my older brother, who was also playing informal games at school.
> We both expressed frustration at trying to get our teammates to understand
> that they could not run as fast as they could throw the ball. This is an
> important concept to understand when trying to put an opponent out. An
> accurately thrown ball reaches base long before the runner can.
> At that time I did not know about the National Federation of the Blind, but
> it was then that I began to understand part of the NFB philosophy. I knew
> that, although my sighted brother and I were playing baseball under
> different conditions and different rules, the fundamentals of the game were
> the same. We enjoyed and loved the game in much the same way.
> At home we used the same system, but the bases were orange cones. These were
> easy for me to see, and since my father worked construction, they were easy
> to get. As we got older, almost everyone got tired of this game. Those with
> enough vision to do so wanted to hit the baseball. The ball had to be in the
> air: no more rolling it on the ground. I, however, was determined not to be
> left out. I began pitching. I was taking a chance that the ball would hit me
> on a line drive, but it was a chance worth taking. I was still in the game.
> The game of baseball has changed a great deal in the last thirty years. I
> don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I once did. My own life is now very
> different as well. I now have two little boys, who are beginning to learn to
> play. I can throw the ball so they can work on their fielding skills. I can
> help teach them the fundamentals and history of the game. I go to practices
> and to games. I pay attention to the sound as the bat hits the ball, and I
> listen to the comments of people around me and on the field. When
> appropriate, I say, “Good hit, son.” And at the end of the day, it never
> hurts to say, “Hustle a little more.”
> Whether we’re talking about the game of baseball or the game of life, blind
> people can find ways to be successful. A very small percentage of the
> population earns a living in professional sports. So blind people aren’t at
> much of a disadvantage with our lack of skills on the ball field.
> As a blind person I know that, if I approach life in the same way that I
> approached baseball as a kid, I can be successful. But the key to success
> for blind people is good training and opportunity. Although good training
> can be hard to get, it is available. Equal opportunity is harder to win.
> More than 70 percent of working-age blind people are unemployed. Commitment
> to the dream of changing this prospect is one reason why I am a member of
> the National Federation of the Blind. In this as in many, many other ways we
> are changing what it means to be blind.
>
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