AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In a lot of sports, you're taught to keep your eye on the ball. But this next story is about a sport where players keep their ear on the ball. It's called beep baseball, and blind athletes rely on sound to play. The East Louisville Lions Club recently hosted the Indianapolis Thunder, an adult beep baseball team, and Louisville Public Media's Emily Chen-Newton was there.
EMILY CHEN-NEWTON, BYLINE: In beep baseball, the ball beeps...
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING)
CHEN-NEWTON: ...The bases buzz...
(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZING)
CHEN-NEWTON: ...And the pitcher and the batter are on the same team.
JARED WOODARD: All right. Here we go.
CHEN-NEWTON: Jared Woodard, pitcher and coach of the Indy Thunder beep baseball team, guides the batter with his voice. Ball set. Ready. Pitch.
WOODARD: Ball set. Ready. Pitch. Hey, there you go. There you go. So good swing. But did you notice the ball went past you before you swung? Yeah, you want to swing a little earlier. All right? Here we go.
CHEN-NEWTON: The pitcher, who's sighted, actually wants the batter to hit the ball. So Woodard pays close attention to their swing and tries to match it with his underhand pitch.
WOODARD: All right. Here we go. Me and you. Me and you. Ball set. Ready. Hit. Go, go, go. Chase the base. Chase the base.
CHEN-NEWTON: Once the batter hits the ball, they run to a base, a shoulder-high foam pillar with a buzzer inside. Hit or tackle the base...
(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZING)
CHEN-NEWTON: ...And you're safe. It's up to the fielders to catch the ball before the player makes it to the base by listening to the beeping ball in the air. Two spotters, who are sighted, help by calling out a single number corresponding to part of the field. Woodard says spotters use different inflections, almost singing to indicate how the ball is traveling.
WOODARD: Two is, like, hard hit. It's coming fast. Or two, some people, that's for, like, short, drawn-out, where you know to go in.
CHEN-NEWTON: Woodard grew up learning the game from his father, who's blind. He says beep ball requires players with and without vision to work together.
WOODARD: You're a part of it. You're not providing visual guidance after a play, and there's just blind and visually impaired players playing. You're all playing together on the same team.
CHEN-NEWTON: And they help each other off the field as well. Woodard taught one of his players, Joel Taulbee, how to use the familiar white cane when Taulbee first started losing his sight.
JOEL TAULBEE: He gave me some of my independence back, you know? I'm just - I've truly met the best people in life, I believe, through beep ball.
CHEN-NEWTON: Taulbee's been playing beep ball for five years now. But he still says, as a person with vision loss, nothing quite compares to the feeling of running freely to a base a hundred feet away. But he stops himself. There is something better.
TAULBEE: My 2-year-old saw me up at the plate, and I hit the ball and made it to third base safely. And he ran up to me, saying, congrats, Dad. I'm so proud of you. That really did it for me. I don't think I'll have any better moment this year than that right there.
CHEN-NEWTON: As the guys pack up their gear, they look forward to the 50th beep baseball world series, taking place next month in Illinois.
For NPR News, I'm Emily Chen-Newton in Louisville, Kentucky.
(SOUNDBITE OF NANCY BEA HEFLEY'S "TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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