October is Dwarfism Awareness Month. In addition to the specifics that distinguish people with dwarfism from others, awareness can be raised by drawing attention to the common bonds that make people with dwarfism just like everybody else. One of those bonds is baseball. Many young boys and girls who have dwarfism dream of playing baseball deep into their lives, just like millions of others around the world.
When I was between seven and 16 years old, I played baseball
as much as I could, both organized ball and pick-up. One day long ago, probably somewhere between
4th Grade and 6th Grade, playing street baseball in front
of my house, I stood over a manhole, which served as home plate. While waiting for the pitch, I glanced to my
right, at the catcher behind me. The
catcher crouched down. His head was at the same height as mine. I don’t
remember which one of my friends from the neighborhood caught that day, but he gave
me hope. He gave me hope because I loved
baseball, because I wanted to play baseball forever, and because he made me
think of Davey Lopes. Davey Lopes was
short and Davey Lopes played second base, the same position I played. Perhaps
most important, from where I sat on my living room couch watching baseball
games on television, it looked as if Davey Lopes, in his batting stance, stood
no taller than the catcher squatting behind him at home plate. I don’t remember how tall I was on the day I
stood over the manhole. But as a dwarf, I knew I wouldn’t grow much taller than
four feet. Because no dwarf had ever
played professional baseball, I believed height, not my slow bat speed or my
inability to judge fly balls, would hold me back from the Major Leagues. But the sight of the catcher, at eye level
with me, made me believe I had a chance.
Davey Lopes must have been a little bit taller than me, but I thought I
could make up the difference in our heights through practice and determination.
At some point, later that day, or later that year, I went up
to my bedroom to confirm my hopes. I retrieved Davey Lopes from my baseball
card collection. I stared at the
numbers printed on the back of the baseball card. Davey Lopes’ height was
listed as 5’9”. I must have looked at
the baseball card before then, but until that day, when I looked closely at the
card, I thought Lopes was shorter. I
would never grow taller than 4’5”. Grit
might have made up for a few inches, but no amount of hustle could bridge over
a foot. The next thing I remember, my parents were in my bedroom, hugging me,
talking to me, as I cried.
The 5’9” listing on the back of a baseball card dashed my
dreams of major league baseball, but I continued to play for as long as I
could. For a while, my older brother made it easy. He loved baseball more than
I did. As long as he was around, it was
not hard to find a game. But when he
started high school, he didn’t have time to organize pick-up games. The kids up and down the street, without my
brother initiating the games, lost interest.
As baseball in front of my house tapered out, I found new
games with friends from middle school.
When more than a handful of us were around, we played wiffle ball in a
park adjacent to a small pond about a half mile from my house. If only a few of
us were around, as long as we had two gloves, a tennis ball, and a bat, we
played a game called automatic. We took
turns batting, pitching and catching. Where and how far we hit the ball
determined base hits and outs. Once the
batter hit into three outs, we rotated positions.
Whether wiffle ball or automatic, my friend Murray always
played. We both, like many of our
friends, also played organized baseball.
For six years, between the ages of 10 and 15, we played in Kennedy
Little League, a league based on the east side of town in Madison, Wisconsin. We shared our triumphs together. Murray called me the day, as an eleven year
old, he hit an inside the park home run.
In the 13-year old league, Murray once caught behind the plate an entire
game, allowing just one passed ball, probably a record for the league. The summer of 1985, the year we both played
in the Senior Leagues, our teams faced each other on opening day. He was
positioned behind the plate when I came up to bat for the first time. The count quickly ran to two and oh, what I
believed to be the best hitter’s count.
“This is it Gary.
This is your pitch,” Murray said, crouching at the knees behind me as
the pitcher wound up. I ended up striking
out.
For me, organized baseball ended the summer I turned
16. With it, most of the pick-up games
died out also. I drifted away from
Murray and the other friends from that baseball group.
I didn’t play organized baseball again until my late 20’s. A group of us put together a softball
team. We joined a league in which every
other team was much better skilled than us and much better equipped than us,
with uniforms, fancy sunglasses, and batting gloves. My team’s biggest problem was scrapping together
enough players to field a team. We
either forfeit for lack of players every Saturday morning or got crushed by the
opposing team. The league organizer took pity on us. He’d call me at the end of
the season. “Gary,” he’d say. “I’ve got
great news. Every team is eligible for the playoffs.” He gave us one more chance
to stare down humiliation. Though my
memories of softball are miserable, we joined the league three summers in a
row.
Nowadays I play a game of softball about every other year at
the Little People of America Conference, a national event for people with
dwarfism around the world. At the Annual
East/West Softball Game, instead of nine position players, anyone who shows up
plays every inning. On defense, I typically stake out a place several yards
behind second base, on the grass just off the edge of the infield. Surrounded by many others, I have as much
chance of fielding a ball as a fan at a major league stadium does of catching a
foul ball. Yet, I feel the same
exhilaration I did as kid, simultaneously hoping the ball will be hit my way
and terrified the ball will be hit my way.
In my middle 40’s, I’ve reconnected through Facebook with
some people I knew when I was a kid, including Murray, with whom I played
wiffle ball, automatic and Little League.
Back in May of 2015, Murray posted on his Facebook Wall that he was
going to be a father. He wrote, “Ever since I had the realization that I was
not going to be the starting catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, all I have ever
really wanted to be is a father. That dream is coming true in early September!”
The post reminded me that my friends and I didn’t play baseball for years
because we were bored, or because there was nothing else to do. Whether organized or pick-up, we went out of
our way to play baseball because it was our favorite thing to do.
The post also reminded me of the moment I stared at the back
of the Davey Lopes Baseball Card, reality telling me that I would never be the
second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. For more than three decades, I believed
the significance of that moment was in the lesson I learned about difference. I
thought it taught me that no matter what I did, sometimes I wouldn’t be able to
bridge the physical differences between myself and others. But just as much as
the moment was about dwarfism, the moment was also about baseball. Murray’s post allowed me to see that I was
not alone when I pulled out that baseball card.
The moment I felt the world crumbling down on me is one shared by
millions of kids around the world when they understand their baseball dreams
are out of reach.
