Keep Your Ear on the Beep: Visually Impaired Players Find Their Game

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Story by Chris Rotolo | Photos by Alex Nazath

COLTS NECK – The National Beep Baseball Association is a little different from anything fans of the game have experienced before.

For starters, silence is the golden rule. Any cheering for a batted ball may result in a penalty against your team and time-outs are taken for crying children, barking dogs or in the case of Saturday’s Beast of the East Tournament at Dorbrook Park, low-flying planes passing overhead.

“The noise can be distracting for a lot of players, so we have to wait until everything dies down to continue play,” explained New Jersey Titans standout Marvin Morgan.

Morgan, like his teammates, is a visually impaired athlete who lost his sight when he was struck in the left eye and temple by bullets fired by two carjackers during a 2006 incident in Irvington.

Photo by Alex Nazath

Morgan said the situation was devastating, but that anger and frustration were quickly replaced by a motivation to get back on the field.

“I was a pretty high-level athlete when I was growing up. I played football at Rutgers and made it up to the NFL with the Giants during the strike year (1987),” Morgan said. “Just because you have a physical obstacle doesn’t mean you lose that feeling. You still want to compete.”

Since 1976 the National Beep Baseball Association has offered a coed environment for athletes of all ages to do just that. Currently there are 36 sanctioned beep baseball teams, 32 of which are spread across 17 different states. Two regional teams are composed of players from around the northeastern and southwestern parts of the country, while two international clubs from Toronto and the Dominican Republic also travel to the U.S. to compete.

And like any sport, beep baseball has its unique quirks.

The ball is outfitted with a device that lets out a constant chirping or beeping noise. Players at bat and in the field must concentrate on that noise to track the ball’s movement.

Photo by Alex Nazath

Each team has two sighted participants who act as pitcher and catcher. The pitcher will toss to their own teammates, so giving up the most runs means a positive outcome for your club.

Regardless of their level of visual impairment, all players besides the pitcher and catcher are required to wear blinders – think blacked-out ski goggles – to ensure the playing field is level.

When the ball is put in play, players who sense the ball is near will dive to the turf to try and smother it and hold the ball up high for the umpire to see. If the ball is collected before the batter reaches base, an out is recorded. If not, the offense earns a run.

There are only two bases in beep baseball, located 100 feet from home plate down the left and right field lines. Batters who put a ball in fair territory must listen for one of the two bases to let out a high-pitched beep, indicating which base they must run to.

Saturday’s event was a warmup for the National Beep Baseball Association World Series, an event running from July 28 – Aug. 4 in Tulsa.

While in Oklahoma, Titans slugger Scott Hogwood is set to battle it out at the association’s home run derby.

Photo by Alex Nazath

Hogwood was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at the age of 3. The hereditary eye disease caused him night blindness at an early age, and has made his peripheral vision disappear gradually over time.

Though his vision is failing, Hogwood, a Philadelphia native, said beep baseball has fulfilled his life in ways he never dreamed.

“I’ve been in the league for 10 years now and I’ve been able to travel and do things that I wasn’t able to when I was sighted. I’m going to Chicago and Tulsa and Ames, Iowa, with my family, and my daughter Cameron, who volunteers with the team. I’m truly thankful for this game because it’s helped keep my family close. It’s also helped me gain family members, because that’s what this team is.”

If Morgan and Hogwood are experienced veterans then Damien Gonzalez, 10, Tyler Cashman, 16, and Zak Turner, 29, represent the future of the Titans family and the National Beep Baseball Association.

After joining the team last season, Gonzalez, who was born without eyesight, delivered his first hit-and-run on Saturday.

Photo by Alex Nazath

Cashman’s diagnosis is still undetermined, but his gradual loss of vision hasn’t hindered the pursuit of his passion for baseball, or from giving back to his community. A student at Voorhees High School, Cashman founded the Points for Pain basketball game, a fundraiser founded in 2016 that has raised about $125,000 for children living with chronic pain.

Turner is a former football star at Bergen Catholic High School who went on to play at the NCAA Division I level for Sacred Heart University. In 2016 he noticed his vision was blurring and getting worse by the week. He was soon diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a degenerative retina disease.

Though frustrated at first, Turner said finding beep baseball and his Titans teammates helped heal his mind, something he hopes to help others with.

“I was a little frustrated, because I wasn’t able to throw a football or play basketball anymore. But when I found beep baseball, it was like it all came back to me. I missed the team camaraderie. We push each other. We make fun of each other when we mess up. It’s just like any other sport and any other team. These guys push me to get better and to have fun and I want the same for those coming up behind me,” Turner said.