FIELD OF DREAMS
Long-awaited Miracle League baseball field opens
PEARCY — After a soft opening earlier this year, the Miracle League for Garland County baseball field at the Donald B. Trantham Park held its grand opening last Tuesday and has already had around 60 people using it.
The flat, soft playing field was designed for use by any person with a disability. Ron Magby, president of Miracle League of Garland County, said the field will be able to accommodate players with a wide range of disabilities, from the blind to people in wheelchairs.
Plans for the ball field started around late 2012. League Vice President Darin Beckwith said he first starting thinking about bringing a Miracle League field to Garland County after he visited one in Little Rock. Beckwith said he went to that
field so his son could be a buddy — a volunteer who helps the players.
“On the drive back I thought about this area not having one … and the struggle just to get” people with disabilities to the Little Rock field, Beckwith said.
Beckwith, former superintendent of Fountain Lake School District, said the district held an event called “The Very Special Pageant” where he realized “we had kids from the Murfreesboro, Glenwood area that would come, even Kirby, but again, they’re not going to travel to Little Rock due to distance.”
Beckwith told Verna Taylor, a parent with a student at First Step Arkansas, about his thoughts of the area needing a ballfield for people with disabilities. The two started working toward bringing the idea to life in northern Garland County. Taylor became the first president of the local Miracle League.
They got land deeded to them for the project, formed Miracle League of Garland County, and started raising money, but their efforts didn’t result in a ball field. In May 2017, two things stopped them: money and weather.
“We finally got enough money to pour the surface and we got an access road built to an old soccer field, and then all funding kind of just stopped. And we were like ‘OK, we have enough money to do the field and nothing else, where are we going from here?’” Taylor said. “And then the weather was so bad it pushed us back like four months, and that’s when we got a call from Ron Magby.”
Magby, who is also on the Optimist Club board, said he, too, had seen the benefits of a Miracle League ball field.
“My son went to school at Arkansas State University Jonesboro, and he was involved with being a buddy … he helped on game day being involved in the games,” Magby said. “The wheels start turning, as my son was greatly impacted by this, how special of a project this is and how meaningful it is to all people involved … we’ve got eight fields at the Optimist Club … surely we can release one of those fields and do a long-term lease and we can create a Miracle League field.”
Beckwith said joining the two projects “made sense to us.” Taylor agreed, noting their ball field didn’t have the support needed to come to fruition.
“To us, it’s about getting this facility done and giving these kids a chance to get out there and experience baseball,” Beckwith said.
While many people and companies helped bring the project to completion, Magby said those that deserve credit for funding are First Step, American Termite and Pest Control, Window Mart/Windows USA, Thomas and Misty Dickson, and Clay and Holly Trantham.
“Those five total, we wouldn’t be here without them,” Magby said. Beckwith noted the project cost over half a million dollars total.
Another person heavily involved with the project is Mikala Koller, who is lead director of Miracle League, Taylor said.
In May, the field had a soft opening that went well not only for the people playing ball, but also for the parents, Taylor said.
To explain how the field makes a difference for the people who use it, Beckwith pulled out a photo of a child who had hit a home run on the field, posing with members of Fountain Lake’s baseball team.
“Look how he feels like he’s part of a team,” Beckwith said. “When the kid hit the home run, he asked those guys, ‘Hey, can I pose with the team?’ The smile on those kids’ faces, you can’t replace that for anything.”
The park is also a place for the parents of the kids who will use it.
“The parents, a lot of them can be virtually 24-hour caregivers, and in this moment in time they get to be parents due to the buddies involved,” Magby said.
“They get to sit in the bleachers and yell for your child and support them from a distance,” Taylor said.
The field will not just be used by children. In May, the field hosted two youth teams and two adult teams. Now they have two youth teams, two adult teams, and two adult competitive teams. Taylor said the competitive teams will keep score.
Taylor said her 31-year-old son, Alex, loves the field. She said he has been disabled since birth and has been content to just be a spectator at games his whole life. Alex would always go to his sibling’s games and support them. Now, before a game, Alex wants to make sure his brother is there to see it, she said, noting the role reversal of player and spectator has been very good.
Beckwith also spoke about an adult he encountered at the field. “An older gentleman, he kind of teared up and said, ‘Man this is incredible … I’ve suffered from polio my entire life … I’m a baseball fan, only thing I really got to do was watch it … I just wish they had something like that when I was young.’”
“We kind of take that for granted,” Beckwith said.
To qualify for the league, Taylor said players must have been diagnosed with a disability and the disability has to prevent the player from participating in other sports.
“If we continue to fund raise, we’ve got plans for a new concession stand with handicapped bathrooms that is desperately needed,” Magby said, noting they also plan to build a disability accessible playground.