Thursday, May 11, 2006 Alameda Sun
Field of Dreams Closer to Reality
If Alameda builds it, Roberta Rockwell knows they
will come.
She wants the city to build an even-planed, rubberized
baseball field for athletes with disabilities. It would be the only one in
Northern California.
The baseball diamond would be a field of dreams for the
more than 11,000 children in the Bay Area with physical or mental disabilities,
Rockwell said.
Rockwell, a 47-year-old Alameda resident, briefly explained
the program to the Alameda Unified School District’s board of education Tuesday
night.
Rockwell concluded by asking for the board’s endorsement of
the project.
“ I see no reasons why we wouldn’t support this,” said
board member Janet Gibson.
The board members were shown a television clip that told
the stories of disabled athletes in another part of the country, and how the
league has allowed them to play baseball and given them a new outlook on life.
Board member Tracy Lynn Jensen said the board of education
would put a resolution on the next agenda.
The field would be part of the Miracle League Organization,
a baseball league that began in Georgia in 1998 and now has 143 chapters
nationwide. The league pairs handicapped athletes ages 3 to 19 with able-bodied
partners during a game, which always ends in a tie.
There are 41 Miracle League fields in the country and 61
being built, according to the league’s Web site.
Finding space for the field is the biggest obstacle,
Rockwell said.
Rockwell and her longtime friend John Newton, 49, have been
canvassing for support since January, when Rockwell first came up with the idea.
On her way to work as a speech therapist at Earhart
Elementary School, Rockwell heard about Miracle League on the radio.
Rockwell thought of a client, Nicholas, a second grader in
the district who is handicapped. Nicholas told Rockwell many times that his
dream is to be a professional baseball player for the San Francisco Giants. But
first he needed to make a Little League squad.
The possibility of Nicholas and other children with
disabilities not being able to participate in sports inspired Rockwell to begin
a grassroots campaign to drum up support for the league.
Rockwell sent out e-mails and called people, receiving
overwhelmingly positive feedback from just about everyone.
Assemblywoman Wilma Chan and the city’s Recreation and
Parks department have endorsed the project.
“ I work with kids with multiple disabilities and I am
constantly amazed that they are willing to work as hard as they do,” Rockwell
said. “They have the courage to try to improve.”
“ They are the invisible kids and they don’t have the
normal opportunities to interface with other kids,” she said.
Rockwell said the league allows children with disabilities
to get outside and hang out with other kids.
Having the field built would be a way for Rockwell and
Newton, who both have children at Encinal High School, to give back to the
community, she said.
About one acre is needed to build the baseball facility,
which would include the field, bleachers and restrooms. Rockwell said she has
been looking at Alameda Point, public school yards and private land to build the
field but there is no formal list of sites.
The cost of the field could be more than $700,000.
But Rockwell said fundraising would be the easy part. She
expects to receive money from local philanthropists and professional athletic
teams.
“ We plan to build Miracle League park,” she said.
Contact Jonathan B. Opet at jbopet@gmail.com