The Darien Times Opinion: Darien baseball program challenges 'norms' of our youth sports

As published in The Darien Times June 13, 2023

The little boy up at bat has missed at least five consecutive pitches but he’s still swinging — and game officials are letting him — a look of determined focus driving his bat forward. He finally makes contact with the ball, sending it in a straight line back to the pitcher. Today, that’s the best he can do, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

No one watching the game from the bleachers is frustrated or anxious as this little boy — mine — makes his way, slowly, to first base. His run looks more like a walk, but the only voices to be heard are encouraging cheers, generously celebrating my son as he advances.

After 10 years in Darien, our older son cycling through enough organized youth sports to offer ample context for this perspective, we have discovered the happiest place on any field in town. We have found Darien Little League’s Challenger Program.

The program, in its 25th year, enables differently abled players to enjoy America’s pastime for themselves with a structure designed to meet every player where they are, developmentally and physically. 

In my son’s case, that means modifying expectations of speed or endurance to accommodate his ability, limited by his Duchenne muscular dystrophy diagnosis. The fact that he is playing a team sport at all feels like a small miracle. Tears well at the simplicity of his accomplishments: a decent throw, connecting bat to ball, a full (albeit more tortoise than hare) trip around the bases, a celebration at home.

Another small miracle? The eagerness of the high school-age volunteers who get out there on the field with our players as their “Buddies,” how naturally they fall in line with these children who come to the field with a wide range of challenges, seen and unseen. 

The speed at which Charlie developed trust with his Buddy — a rarity for boys like mine, whose condition also presents with some neurodiversity — is evidence enough that he and his peers on the field are pretty special human beings too. These older athletes have scores of options when it comes to how they choose to spend a Saturday morning, and they have chosen to share their gifts with little kids who, for that time on that field, transcend their differences. 

It's heartwarming to know that the program is always looking for dedicated students to apply, and that aspiring Buddies find their way to the program through word-of-mouth from peers. The kids, as they say, are alright. 

Charlie’s childhood is not the one we imagined for him; to say his disability has been life-altering is akin to calling the pandemic a mild inconvenience. Everything about it does, in fact, challenge our perception of “normal.” Accommodations must be made in every corner of our family life, especially when it comes to Charlie’s growth and development.

But as I watch my boy on the field getting out there, participating, developing pride in his own unique ability and belonging in his team, I can’t help but think that this is actually what being a kid is supposed to look like. In a world that is so quick to “other,” this little corner of Darien youth sports says, “Come as you are.”

It turns out that when you remove the pressure of expectation, the unrelenting drive toward winning in a traditional sense, the projection of parents on the sidelines and a fixed idea of what a play “should” look like, what’s left is the one true essential of youth sports: the joy of the game itself.