Blacktop Gladiators

One of the major misconceptions about wheelchair softball is that it’s a sport for “special” athletes. Organizations such as the Miracle League and the Special Olympics receive millions of dollars in contributions to build fields and put together teams for kids with severe mental and physical disabilities. Some of the local softball guys resent the fact that organizations that insist “everyone’s a winner” seem to receive more attention and philanthropic money than the ultracompetitive, obsessive athletes who make up the National Wheelchair Softball Association. “No offense,” Scott Rickford points out, “but wheelchair softball isn’t about young kids in motorized chairs who are awarded first base for showing up. We’re trying to kick each other’s asses out there.”

In that vein, there’s a calculus to wheelchair softball that’s even more ruthless than the system of economic exploitation made famous by Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the book Moneyball. A classification number—I, II, or III—is given to each wheelchair player based on the player’s limitations: Amputees and lower-body muscle degenerations are usually Class IIIs, spinal injuries are typically Class II or I, depending on where and how extensive the spinal injury is. Each team is also required to play a quadriplegic at all times. In a wheelchair softball game, the total number of points on the field can’t exceed twenty-two. For years, the Rolling Twins were known as a team of Class Is, possibly because their most promising Class IIIs would end up playing for the Saints. “Most teams load their lineup with six IIIs, a II, a I, and a quad, and are set for the year,” says Twins first baseman Jeff Fischer, a slick-fielding Class I. “We've never had the ability to do that.” But in the past two years, the Twins’ makeup has changed. Rookies-of-the-year Karels and Chavez are a III and a II, respectively, and the Twins hope their new right center fielder, amputee Wyatt Halvorson, will be this summer’s top tyro. With the infusion of new talent, the Twins are on the verge of having what has to be considered a good problem, though a challenge to team chemistry nonetheless.

Chavez, for instance, is a Class II, but has the skills of a III, a net numerical benefit. The Twins’ young Class III third baseman, David (“Richie”) Richardson, despite his recent improvement as a hitter, has the chair speed of a Class I, making him, arguably, a net numerical deficit. Further complicating the situation: Richie is coach Bill Richardson’s son, and the coach—of the “not-afraid-to-chew-butts” mentality—is such an acknowledged asset Richie may still be a net numerical plus.

A team can also make points at the quad position. While an outsider could mistake the quad requirement as something akin to the old “one-girl” tokenism in intramural sports, Fischer is quick to remind me that most quads are not paralyzed. The wheelchair league rules define a quad as somebody with impairment, not paralysis, in all four limbs. The Twins’ quad is Chad O’Fallon, who, like most  teams’ quads, is the catcher. In many ways, he’s representative of the Twins’ collective identity (at least relative to the decidedly unsaintly Saints): Having sung in his Great Falls, Montana, high school chorale, he’s an actual choirboy. He’s also one of several family men on the team—a newlywed who met his wife through an Internet dating service three years ago. O’Fallon’s four limbs are impaired by a rare birth defect with one of those sinister acronyms (PFFD, for Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency), but when he’s not sitting in his chair behind the plate, he walks with the aid of crutches. Over the past three seasons, he has vastly improved as a ballplayer, especially on defense. “My most important job is to hang on to the ball during plays at the plate,” he explains. And though he currently bats tenth, he believes he has yet to reach his potential as a hitter. He concedes he’ll never hit for power; his goal is to become a situational hitter, somebody who won’t kill a rally with a double play.

While some teams can hit the ball over the fence—the Nebraska Barons are feared for this ability—the home run has been rare in wheelchair softball, and the Twins are, fairly typically, a team of doubles and singles hitters. They score runs by placing the ball and moving around the bases with their notable speed. Though they’re beginning to earn a reputation for defense, particularly for the live arms in their outfield, defense can take a wheelchair softball team only so far. In order to win, the six best players in the middle of the lineup have to excel at situational hitting and avoid making stupid mistakes on the base paths.

Jeff Gustafson believes his team has the potential to win it all. “We could have won it all last year,” he says. “And I know that at least half the team is gung-ho for it this year. With the group of guys we have right now—a core that could have a five-, six-year window—it would be a great fricking thing to win the national championship.” O’Fallon says simply, “It would be cool to finally get Jeff G. a title.”

The Twins’ competition at this summer’s nationals will include, of course, the defending champion Saints as well as the season’s powerful odds-on favorites, the Nebraska Barons. Then there are the newly formed Schaumburg Flyers, who are basically the reconstituted RIC Cubs. The Cubs finished second to the Saints last year, but their coach was busted after allegedly throwing a team party that featured strippers and midgets(!), and the Cubs were forced to fire him after their sponsor, the prestigious Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, applied heat. Chastened maybe, but not defeated, the coach promptly founded a new team, the Flyers, and, according to their Twin Cities’ opponents, most of the best Cubs went with him.

“See, there’s even the same scandals with these guys,” Chavez says of his chair-riding contemporaries. “There have been a few times at tournaments where I’ve turned around and said, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d see that again . . . but there it is.’ ” 

Associate editor Steve Marsh profiled restaurateur Thom Pham in July.