Field a miracle for kids who want to play
Published: October 29, 2007
Mike Sherry says he remembers playing Little League baseball like it was yesterday.
“I can remember how lousy I was in Little League, how we lost games. But the memories are still happy,” Sherry, a radio executive, said of his youth baseball experience in Indiana, Pa.
Everyone should have the same memories, he said.
Not long from now, all young people will have the chance for such memories in Cranberry, where one of the country’s 45 Miracle Fields opens next year.
“This is the most exciting thing in the whole park, as far as I’m concerned. Everyone will have the opportunity to play,” said Dan Porter, president of the Cranberry Township Athletic Association, which oversees Little League baseball, softball and adult leagues.
Miracle League baseball allows children with mental and physical disabilities a chance to experience playing in a league-based setting. The rubber turf field accommodates wheelchairs and crutches.
The Cranberry field, which opens in the spring, is the only such field in Western Pennsylvania. The closest is in Altoona.
Sherry first became interested in Miracle League baseball while working at a Moody, Ala., radio station. He says he became determined to add a Miracle Field in Cranberry after his 3-year-old daughter was diagnosed with autism.
“This is something we can really be proud of. There are not that many of these fields in the country and this will be the only one within two-hour drive,” Sherry said.
The Cranberry field will be in Graham Park, a 115-acre parcel off Rochester Road that will be built in phases over the next decade and features four distinct “campuses” — with three focused on playing fields for specific sports.
The football and lacrosse campus will have three full-size football fields. Four full-size fields are planned for the soccer campus. The baseball/softball campus will include six fields of various sizes for different types of league play.
“This field belongs in Graham Park, with players in uniforms, lights, noise and the concession stands,” Porter said of the Miracle Field.
Because the field is in a park that’s already planned, its cost of $300,000 is considerably less than the $1 million required to build a field, Sherry said.
More than 25,000 children and young adults with disabilities participate in Miracle Leagues across the United States. According to 2000 Census statistics, nearly 90,000 disabled children reside in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Lawrence, Mercer, Westmoreland and Venango counties.
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