It wasn’t quite Comiskey Park, but to the two dozen softball players who taunted each other as they wheeled onto a painted diamond, the Oak Forest Hospital parking lot came close enough.
“These guys are not gentle,” said Bob Trotter, the hospital’s wheelchair sports coordinator who has won so many Most Valuable Player awards he’s known as “Mr. Softball.”
“This is a sport, and we are out to win.”
The determination and mental preparation that’s so key to any competition are hard-won badges of honor for wheelchair softball players, many of whom have been paralyzed since birth.
Others learned to maneuver a wheelchair only months ago after a debilitating gunshot wound or car accident, but yearned to return quickly to a favorite sport.
All the men and women on the diamond were determined to show off their skills at a recent scrimmage game, a practice for this weekend’s fourth annual Miller Lite Chicago Classic tournament at Soldier Field.
It will be the second year the 16-inch softball tournament has included a category for the disabled, said Trotter, who helped found the two teams, the Fire and the Chicago Pacemakers, which faced off Tuesday afternoon.
The Fire, Oak Forest Hospital’s 4-year-old team; the Chicago Pacemakers, a community team founded more than a decade ago; and the RIC Cubs, affiliated with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, are among the half-dozen area teams competing in the Classic. The tournament begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.
“We’re hoping there will be more teams some day,” said Trotter, a University of Illinois graduate who played his first tournament in 1979. “Wheelchair softball isn’t as big as wheelchair basketball, but I have always loved it. This is the game for me.”
Like many of his teammates, Trotter has been in a wheelchair most of his life. “I had polio,” he said. “I was the guy on crutches who could hit. When I played (wheelchair softball) for the first time, I thought, this is heaven.”
Trotter, who plays third base for the Pacemakers, said his team has been mentoring Fire players in an effort to raise the sport’s competitive level.
“They’re going to kill us some day,” Trotter predicted of his proteges.
Although some players have been in love with wheelchair softball for decades, it wasn’t officially recognized as a sport until the National Wheelchair Softball Association was founded in 1976.
Except for a dozen special guidelines, the game’s rules are the same as those for 16-inch slow-pitch softball, according to the Hastings, Minn.-based group.
For example, one player must be a quadriplegic or the team must play with one less team member, and players are assigned points based on their ability.
Team members must use wheelchairs and many players prefer lightweight sports wheelchairs that have anti-tilt controls to keep them from falling backward during rough plays.
Oak Forest Hospital Fire Coach Chuck Bloom said people who aren’t familiar with the coed sport are often surprised by the game’s fast pace.
“Personally, I think 16-inch softball is boring,” he said. “But when you add the element of speed, which is what the wheelchair adds to it, you have intense movement and a lot of collisions.”
That was proved in Tuesday’s practice game, which got off to a rough start when Bob tumbled out of his chair as he took second base. He brushed himself off and eventually went on to score the first run of a 9-1 Pacemakers win.
“It’s not a game unless Bob falls out of his chair,” joked Dorothea DiGuido, director of the hospital’s therapeutic recreation department.
Another spectator, Kimberly Truss, 21, waited patiently on the sideline for her turn on the field. One of the newest Fire team members, she said she was goaded into joining after being a longtime “cheerleader.”
“The first day I played, I overdid it and had to go to the emergency room because I got short of breath,” said Truss. “All the guys were really encouraging.”
The range of skills and disabilities creates a kind of unity among the players, she added. “Everyone has a positive attitude,” Truss said.
Fire starting pitcher Theatris Vinson Jr. acknowledged it took time to develop an upbeat outlook after he was disabled after a 1992 mugging. He had been shot in the back, he explained, and “my legs just gave out on me.”
“It took a while to accept that my life was going to be different and in the beginning (of playing wheelchair softball) you compare how it was before,” said Vinson, who commutes from Chicago for the Fire’s twice-weekly practices.
“But once you start playing with people who are in the same predicament or worse, you start thinking about what you can do in this chair.”
Veteran Pacemakers player Greg Palumbo, who is also city treasurer of Country Club Hills, said he got involved because he is a “sports nut” and he wanted to educate others.
“While society has changed greatly in their attitude toward disabled people, there is still a way to go,” he said.”Sport is a universal theme people can understand. We can use it to break down the stereotypes.”
