Battlefield of dreams: Amputee veterans rule diamond
By Meghann Myers - Medill News Service | May 23, 2012
When Sgt. Matt Kinsey hung up his cleats, dropped out of college and joined the Army in 2006, he never imagined that just a few years later he’d be spending his weekends back out on a ball field, traveling the country, and playing softball in front of thousands.
What started as a one-week amputee sports camp at the University of Arizona sponsored by the Wounded Warrior Project has grown into a full-fledged ball club, complete with sponsorship deals, a booked 2012 schedule and a legion of adoring fans.
The Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team is the passion project of Army veteran David Van Sleet. After two years in the service, he completed a certification in orthotics-prosthetics and immediately went to work for the Veterans Affairs Department, where he spent his career fitting injured troops with prosthetic devices.
After working at the disabled veterans sports camp at the University of Arizona in 2011, Van Sleet suggested to the Wounded Warrior Project — which sponsors programs to help veterans improve their education, job skills and physical skills as well as reduce stress — that it add softball to its lineup of adaptive sports.
They said, ‘Do you really think we can get that many wheelchair athletes to play softball?’ ” Van Sleet says. “I said, ‘I’m not talking about wheelchairs. I’m talking softball, able-bodied.’ ”
When the camp was over, the players wanted more. Seven went on to join the team, which filled out the rest of its 15-man roster through word of mouth.
Cut to a year later and the team is booked for the entirety of 2012 and fielding “a dozen or so” requests a day that will eventually shape up into the 2013 schedule.
Van Sleet says it costs about $7,500 to accommodate the team for the weekend, funded by donations. All of the team’s equipment comes from sponsorships: They sport Louisville Slugger bats, gloves, bags. They even have Louisville Slugger stickers slapped on their prosthetics.
Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals also stepped up to provide the team with branded uniforms for game days, so they now have a choice of Nationals red in addition to a couple of camouflage jerseys.
“We get spoiled,” says 27 year-old Kinsey, who plays shortstop.
They’ve been featured on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” ESPN and the “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” as well as Sports Illustrated and the cover of Softball magazine.
Coming back from an injury
It’s a welcome change from the way they pictured their lives after war. The players all served in the Army or Marines; each saw his military career cut short.
Some lost limbs to IEDs, others to land mines. Outfielder and retired Army Staff Sgt. Greg Reynolds was run down on his motorcycle at home two weeks before his second deployment in 2008.
But each of them woke up in a hospital bed following the accidents with similar thoughts.
“I bought a stick shift car before I left, and I’m like, how am I supposed to drive a stick shift without my feet?” says first baseman and retired Marine Lance Cpl. Josh Wege, 22, who lost both of his legs below the knee in 2009 when his Humvee rolled over an IED in Afghanistan.
“How does a guy with no legs live a functional life?” he wondered from his hospital bed. “But that was just me being dramatic.”
Kinsey stepped on a land mine in 2010 during a routine night patrol in Afghanistan.
“I was on top of the world doing what I did. Then you get injured and you’re not the same as you were before,” Kinsey says. “Everybody stares at you and even if they’re not, you think they’re staring at you. And then it’s like, who’s going to want me? I’m missing a foot, somebody’s going to have to take care of me.”
Kinsey says, however, that he had no idea back then just how normal he could be minus one foot. Six weeks after his surgery, he took his first step at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. From there, it was on to recovery.
“I hit my therapy as hard as I possibly could. I mean, I lived in the gym,” Kinsey says. “Once they gave me my first leg and cleared me to do stuff, I was: breakfast, go work out. Lunch, take a break, go work out. And I’d stay in there all day long.”
Several months later, Kinsey met Wege at Walter Reed, where they dominated an obstacle course that was part of their rehabilitation. Wege mentioned to Kinsey that he was going to Arizona to try out for an all-amputee softball team.
“David asked me all these questions, like how hard I threw, had I ever played softball before,” Kinsey says. “And I was like, ‘No, it’s a chick sport.’ And he’s like, ‘No, actually, it’s not.’ ” The rest, as they say, is history.
“Now they go and travel around and visit each other, do things socially. They’re the best of friends,” Van Sleet says. “I think what happened is they found someone in their life that’s just like them, not only physically, but that they can get along with as very good friends.”
‘One big family’
Playing for the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team isn’t just about nine innings and a free bag of bats. At least two weekends a month, the guys hop on planes from all corners of the country for a weekend-long extravaganza. Often their families and significant others will make the trip out to see everyone.
“It’s like one big family. They’re all really great guys. They’re always trying to look out for us,” says Heidi McMahon, girlfriend of outfielder and retired Army Sgt. Brian Taylor Urruela.
“I think this whole organization has really helped the guys come back to normal life and get used to their amputations,” she adds.
On a recent visit to Washington, Pa., local businesses and the town’s mayor got together to put on a program that included two catered dinner parties, a game against a team of local corrections officers and a tour of State Correctional Institution Greene.
Not only did the officers lead the team through the facility’s cell blocks and dining halls, the team took batting practice on the prison’s ball diamond. One of the inmates pitched, another caught. Every time a ball cleared the fences, a security alarm erupted, unable to tell the difference between a home run and an escaping inmate.
“No, prison’s not a usual thing,” says retired Army Cpl. Saul Bosquez, 27, who lost his left leg below the knee near Baghdad in 2007. “Usually they’ll tour us around town, but it’s kind of the landmarks in that area.”
The evenings out before and after the game are a tradition, though, and they go down like most nights when professional athletes hit a town.
“I hate all the attention. Well, not girl attention,” Wege says. “The female attention’s nice. I mean, who’s going to turn that down?” Women ask for pictures with them, buy them drinks at the bars and occasionally keep in touch long after the guys leave town via Facebook and text message.
“We have groupies,” Wege adds.
It’s not at all what most of the guys were expecting when they imagined getting their lives back.
“It has bumped it up. I get a lot more attention, and it’s in a positive light. Yesterday several of those young ladies came up to me saying, ‘Oh, you’re my favorite player, we love watching you catch the ball,’ ” Reynolds says of the Washington, Pa., game.
“I think the push-ups usually win them over,” he adds, explaining that when the Warriors lose a game, he challenges the strongest player on the other team to a pushup contest, and in 20 matchups he’s never lost. His record is 100.
Reynolds is missing his right arm, shoulder and collar bone, or as he explains it, “a fifth of my body.”
Working harder but just as well
Still, the Wounded Warrior lifestyle isn’t all handshakes and photo ops. Like any other players, they have to be good to be taken seriously. And because they play only able-bodied teams, they have to be as good as players with all of their limbs.
“Especially when you’re wearing a prosthetic device, you’re working harder than an able-bodied person,” Kinsey says. “You burn more energy carrying one of these things, so that makes it harder. It’s heavy.”
While each injury comes with its own challenges, the players with prosthetic legs experience the most discomfort during games. Major league players spend their dugout time dumping water over their heads and spitting sunflower seeds at each other; the Warriors are usually popping off their limbs, wiping down their stumps and rubbing any sore spots.
Coach Van Sleet has also worked their positions around their limitations. Wege’s two prosthetic legs don’t lend him a ton of speed so first base is an ideal choice, because the position is mostly about scooping up ground balls or gloving throws.
“The muscle memory’s still there, I’ve just had to adjust with pivoting my foot,” Bosquez says of playing with a prosthetic leg. “I’ve lost a little bit of my power, but I think I’m at the same place I was the last couple of years I was playing baseball. I just can’t do squats.”
Retired Marine Lance Cpl. Nate Lindsey and retired Army Sgt. Kyle Earl make great outfielders because their lower arm amputations don’t have any effect on how quickly they can run down a ball.
Despite the adaptations, the Warriors have proven themselves to be as good as any other competitive softball team, or so their 19-18 record in late May would suggest.
“We just want people to see us as ballplayers and that’s it,” Bosquez says. “I understand it’s a good story, but we just want to be viewed as ballplayers and not kind of like, ‘Aw, that’s cute.’ ”
Kinsey echoes that sentiment.
“I’m back doing what I love to do. I’m back on the ball diamond,” he says. “There’s no reason to feel sorry for me — I’m living out my dream.”
Gannett Government Media Corporation
@ http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/05/military-wounded-warrior-amputee-softball-team-battlefield-of-dreams-veterans-rule-diamond-052312w/
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