Just beyond the parking lot at Wolff Stadium, where the San Antonio Missions play professional baseball, sits a magical field where all children can play the game, regardless oftheir special needs.
Here, children with challenges ranging from Down syndrome to autism, from spina bifida to blindness, from missing limbs to deafness play America’s pastime.
In the Miracle League of San Antonio every child gets to bat, to hit a home run and to be safe at home.
Attorney Michael Miller founded San Antonio’s Miracle League in 2008. When his wife, Yvette, was pregnant with their first child, prenatal tests indicated a high probability of the baby having Down syndrome. While their daughter, Sydney Faith, was born perfectly healthy, Miller’s perspective on life had been forever changed. He searched for a meaningful way to help special needs children, their parents and caregivers.
Inspired by an HBO Real Sports story about a Georgia man who built the first Miracle League field, Miller decided to bring the idea to San Antonio.
The highly specialized field required a minimum of $750,000 to construct, in addition to yearly operating costs. Former world boxing champ Jesse James Leija stepped in to help solicit investments from San Antonio’s business and charitable community.
The (Bill) Greehey Family Foundation, AT&T, H-E-B, Tesoro and others came onboard with donations. Clear Channel founder Lowry Mays and his family donated $250,000 for the field’s naming rights, the “Mays Family Field of Dreams.”
For the children and parents, there is never a charge for playing. The uniforms are free, as are the T-shirts worn by the volunteer “buddies” who help the children swing the bat and round the bases.
While other Miracle Leagues across the country enforce an age limit, Miller is adamant that everyone is welcome here.
“The average age of the players is about 8 or 9, but we have players as young as 3 and as old as 24,” Miller says.
Maury Vasquez, the public information officer for the Somerset ISD, spends his Saturday mornings as the voice of the Miracle League. A former television sportscaster at KENS5 and KSAT12, Vasquez roams behind home plate with a handheld microphone, filling roles as public address announcer, play-by-play voice and cheerleader.
“I try to give each Miracle League kid that big league feel, as if they are being introduced at Yankee Stadium,” says Vasquez, who dubs each child with a playful nickname as they step up to bat. “I just want them to feel big time because it’s their time, it’s their turn at the plate.”
WOAI-TV Sports Director Don Harris has been the local media’s biggest supporter of the Miracle League, providing coverage and also sponsoring his own team, the Harris Cubs. “To see these kids get into a uniform and swing a bat, to see the smiles on their faces—even if they are pushed around the bases in a wheelchair or a bed—is so emotional that all of the parents and spectators are crying their eyes out with tears of joy,” Harris says.
