Playing Baseball One Beep At a Time
For 40 years, Jimmie Burnett literally could see the entire road of life in front of him. As a FedEx ground truck driver based in Georgia and responsible for delivering packages across the Southeastern United States, strong eyesight was a necessary component to Burnett’s job.
But after a serious trucking accident while driving from Atlanta to Nashville in 2010, Burnett’s life would change forever. After going into a coma for a month after the accident, it was revealed that Burnett had a brain tumor the size of a baseball since he was a child. The pressure of the brain tumor from the accident crushed Burnett’s optic nerve, leaving the 40-year-old completely without vision and five years worth of memory.
Now without eyesight, memory, and a job, Burnett felt hopeless about life. “I felt like my life was worthless now,” says Burnett. “It was devastating waking up and all of a sudden not being able to see anymore. I hated being in the dark.”
But, according to Burnett, it was an adaptive game of baseball called Beep Baseball that brought worth back to his life.
Since telephone engineer Charlie Fairbanks of the Mountain Bell Telephone Company designed the first beep ball in 1964 for the Colorado Springs School for the Blind, the game of beep baseball has provided blind athletes with an opportunity to participate in competitive team sports that they might not have had otherwise.
What is most extraordinary is that baseball, a game demanding exceptional hand-eye coordination, can be played successfully by athletes missing half of that combination — eyesight. Beep baseball is now being played by the blind or visually-impaired on teams around the United States and in other countries such as Taiwan, Italy, and the Dominican Republic. For these athletes like Jimmie Burnett, it is much more than a game; it is a route to more meaningful lives.
The Players
Losing his vision at 40 years old truly tested Burnett in a way he never had been tested before in life. “I’ve always been a strong person and my faith and religion have driven me,” says Burnett. “I thought my vision loss would be temporary and go away, but after a month, I realized it wouldn’t.”
According to Burnett, it was the loss of five years worth of memory that really left him scarred after the accident. “Losing my memory is like a void in my life,” says Burnett. “My family and I had just bought a new house before the accident occurred, and I didn’t even remember what it looked like or how to get around it. It was a real struggle and it really shook me.”
But Burnett believes that being blind has provided challenges in life. “I had to make some adjustments and learn how to trust myself,” says Burnett. “I found something new in me and I wasn’t going to give up and give in.”
That new thing Burnett is speaking about is in fact beep baseball. Burnett is a self-described “bookworm”; he didn’t play sports growing up and never considered himself an athlete. “I didn’t even like the sport until I started playing,” says Burnett. “It really challenged me, but I loved that it did.”
Burnett has played beep baseball for six years now. After playing his first season with the Long Island Bombers, Burnett has spent the last five years with the Atlanta Eclipse. It was with the Bombers where he learned, in his opinion, the hardest part of beep baseball: batting.
When batting, the batter is in constant communication with the pitcher and catcher. Unlike in regular baseball, the pitcher and catcher are on the same team as the batter. Rather than trying to get the batter out, the tandem is trying to get the batter to hit the ball and score a run. Most importantly, the pitcher and catcher are both sighted.
Every batter and fielder is required to wear a blindfold when playing due to the differing levels of blindness among the players. The goal of the blindfold is to keep a level playing field for all players.
To enable the batter, the pitcher and catcher are tasked with helping the batter with his or her swing and setting a target for the pitch. To begin the at-bat, often times the catcher will yell out “Set!” to alert the pitcher and fielders that the batter is ready. Upon hearing the catcher’s call, the pitcher goes into his cadence and will often say something along the lines of “Ready, pitch!” That lets both the batters and fielders know that the ball is being thrown. The pitcher, standing 20 feet in front of home plate, then goes into his stride and releases the grapefruit-like sized ball. Now, it’s up to the batter to hit it.
Here’s where the “Beep” comes in. Inside the ball is a beeping device, which was installed in the original beep ball by Fairbanks over 50 years ago. Upon the release of a pin from the ball, an audio tone is activated and the ball begins to beep. Therefore, the batter must listen for the ball as it approaches home plate.
Games go for six innings and each team gets three outs per inning. Unlike in regular baseball, batters are allowed four strikes rather than three. In addition, they are only allowed one passed ball. If the ball is hit more than 40 feet, it is a fair ball. If not, it’s foul. But if the ball travels further than 180 feet, then it is an automatic home run.
Currently working on an autobiography on his life and beep baseball, Burnett says the sport has given him the confidence to go on with his life. “Beep baseball is a Godsend,” says Burnett. “It solidified me and helped me trust myself more on and off the field. It has forced me to push myself beyond my capabilities and see what I could really do. I’m going to continue pushing harder and further than anyone.”
While some players like Jimmie Burnett have lost their vision all at once, many other players have seen their vision gradually decrease over time. Brandon Chesser, a player for the Austin Blackhawks, is one of them.
When Chesser was eight years old, he played little league baseball. One day out in right field, Chesser started blinking his eyes and couldn’t see anyone on the field. He could hear his teammates, but could no longer see them. Chesser ran back to the dugout and started crying, fearful of what could be wrong.
Chesser was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, or RP, a genetically inherited disease that causes retina degeneration as photoreceptor cells die. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, RP affects roughly 1 in 4,000 people in the United States and Europe. According to Chesser and others who suffer from RP, being able to make out details is very hard.
As his eyesight began to weaken, Chesser’s performance in the classroom declined. “I was always an A student in school,” Chesser says. “But now I couldn’t see the chalkboard or the textbook in class.”
Unwilling to accept his declining vision, Chesser had a strategy to fight it off. “I would recite and memorize the eye chart in school when we were required to get an eye test done at the nurse’s office,” Chesser says. “I would just listen to what the kid before me said and say the same thing. No on ever knew I had eye problems.”
However, when Chesser and his mother went to see an ophthalmologist in Dallas, the pretense was over. “The eye doctor had this fancy eye chart and, yeah, I got caught,” Chesser says laughingly.
After graduating college in the early 2000’s, Chesser began to notice that his vision was more rapidly declining. Chesser went to his eye doctor and asked for a strong pair of glasses, and the ophthalmologist threw the glasses in the trash.
“He told me they weren’t going to help me anymore,” Chesser says. Chesser wanted to get a second opinion. Upon hearing Chesser’s request, the same doctor grabbed the glasses from out of the garbage and snapped them in half. “He told me that was my second opinion,” Chesser says.
Along with baseball, Chesser played soccer, football, bull riding, motocross, and martial arts while growing up in Texas. But it wasn’t until 2007 that he first heard about beep baseball. According to Chesser, his girlfriend at the time and now his wife told him about the sport. Despite being an athlete, he wasn’t interested in trying it. However, after standing up his girlfriend at a date, Chesser’s girlfriend insisted he make it up to her somehow. “So I agreed to go to a beep baseball practice,” Chesser says.
From the moment he stepped onto the field for the first time, Chesser was born to play the sport. “The pitcher threw me 10 pitches at the first practice and I hit them all both right-handed and left-handed,” Chesser says. Yes, you heard that right; Chesser is a switch-hitter.
Like many switch-hitters in Major League Baseball, Chesser says that hitting left-handed or right-handed serves a different purpose. “For consistency at the plate, hitting left-handed is better,” Chesser says. “But hitting right-handed gives me more power. No matter what, it really gives you an offensive advantage and keeps the defense on edge.” Up until the 2013 season, Chesser mostly hit right-handed. But over the last four seasons, he’s been implementing his left-handed bat more often.
Chesser has been a starter since joining the Austin Blackhawks, one of the best teams in beep baseball history, in 2007. Over his 10-year career, Chesser has won two Beep Baseball World Series rings in 2014 and 2015.
The Beep Baseball World Series is an annual event held every summer since it’s beginning in 1976. Teams from around the world compete for the World Series title during a weeklong tournament in the middle of the summer. This year’s tournament will be held in West Palm Beach, Florida during the last week of July. During the 1990’s, the Blackhawks won seven straight World Series titles and were a beep baseball dynasty.
Chesser says that being on a winning team like the Blackhawks is an incredible experience. “It’s a great feeling being on a winning team,” Chesser says. “This game fuels my hunger for competition and I got that adrenaline rush back of putting on a jersey to compete. Being with players who have so much knowledge of the sport is incredible and you learn so much. It’s the drive to win that separates us from other teams.”
Similar to his baseball and football playing days growing up, Chesser says the key to beep baseball is teamwork. “We feed off each other’s energy and we have to trust each other even more so because we’re blind,” Chesser says. The camaraderie and friendship in beep baseball is so much deeper.”
When not playing beep baseball, Chesser coaches his kids in baseball and football. According to Chesser, the key to coaching without sight is using visual memories from when he had sight to picture what is going on in the field and listening to where the ball is. “I can listen for the ball in the field and know what’s going on,” Chesser says. “Being able to have visual memories helps out so much and I’m very lucky to have those.”
While a gradual decline in sight allows the visually-impaired to adjust more easily to life without sight, Chesser says it does not mean that he doesn’t have struggles in his everyday life.
“Getting around, especially in unfamiliar areas, is the hardest part,” Chesser says. “From walking down an aisle in a grocery store to not being able to drive, it’s hard.” When Chesser won his first World Series championship in 2014, he recorded the final out for the Blackhawks. Upon getting the final out of the game, a curator from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. approached Chesser and asked him if they could put the ball on display in the Hall of Fame. Chesser agreed, and in 2015, he had the opportunity to go visit where the ball, along with his jersey and blindfold from that game, were on display in Cooperstown.
“This game gives me another reason to live and breathe,” Chesser says.
Ted Williams is Doug Winthrop’s favorite baseball player. For his reasoning, Winthrop cited Williams’ incredible hitting and his .406 batting average in the 1941 season for the Boston Red Sox. He also says that Williams’ incredible vision helped him stand out from the rest.
Playing baseball while growing up, Winthrop was known by his friends and teammates for having a great swing and for being one of the best hitters on the team. Unlike Williams, Winthrop has lost his vision.
Like Chesser, Winthrop was diagnosed with RP as a young adult. According to Winthrop, his vision began to diminish after high school and he no longer could participate in team sports. “I had always played team sports while growing up,” Winthrop says. “But now with my vision declining, I couldn’t play anymore.”
After graduating from college, Winthrop noticed that reading quickly became a challenge for him as he pursued his CPA license. “Being able to read was no longer easy for me,” Winthrop says. “And now I began to even hate writing too.”
Winthrop’s vision has gradually deteriorated, leaving him with very limited sight now. Winthrop says he’s thankful he lost sight over time rather than all at once. “I’ve been able to adjust to this life,” Winthrop says. “It was hard giving up driving and, eventually, I had to stop working and go on disability. But I couldn’t imagine losing my sight instantaneously.”
According to Winthrop, getting around the house is easy because of its familiarity and his ability to memorize things. But Winthrop says that traveling alone in unknown areas is extremely challenging. “I’m very uncomfortable in areas that I don’t know,” Winthrop says. “My mind’s eye can’t pick or read the situation well. Even getting around a public restroom is hard. If I’m traveling alone, I need familiarity.”
The first baseball game Winthrop ever saw was in 1959 at Yankee Stadium. “I could see everything,” Winthrop says. “I can’t see that anymore. Now I can only see it in my mind.”
But everything changed for Winthrop in April 2010 when he read on the cover of the Asbury Park Press about a new beep baseball team forming in New Jersey. His wife Karen encouraged him to try it, and Winthrop joined the New Jersey Lightning the following week. “It’s amazing that these people could do this,” Winthrop says. “I didn’t know anything about this.”
From the moment he joined the Lightning, Winthrop says he fell in love with the game. Most importantly, he rediscovered that great swing. “I hadn’t hit a baseball in almost 40 years,” Winthrop says. “But I found out I could still hit the ball pretty well. Just by swinging the bat and being level across the plate felt great. When the ball hit the bat, it went pretty far.”
Entering his eighth season with the Lightning, Winthrop still cannot believe he’s playing this sport. “It was amazing that I could pick this up at 57 years old,” Winthrop says. “I’m not a kid anymore. But I felt like ‘Wow, I can do this. I can still do something.”
According to Winthrop, the biggest challenge of the sport is to be in good shape. As a result, Winthrop trains everyday in his Florida home during the winter months. He hangs a ball from a string at the top of his garage to practice his swing and runs sprints in his backyard.
“You have to be in tremendous shape,” Winthrop says. “If you’re not working out regularly, you can’t play this sport and expect to succeed. When I practice my swing in the garage, I internally listen for the pitcher’s cadence. The consistency of that is so important.”
Along with being in good physical condition, Winthrop says that there are a lot of challenging aspects of beep baseball. One of those challenges is base running. “I’m used to running just to first base as a baseball player,” Winthrop says. “Now I might be running to third base instead.”
In beep baseball, there’s only a first and third base. The bases, which are four foot padded cylinders with speakers, are placed 100 feet down the first and third base lines. When a batter hits the ball, a base operator activates one of the bases by flipping a handheld device. Once activated, the base begins to buzz loudly. The batter, now a base runner, must decipher which base the operator has activated and run to it before a defensive player fields the ball.
According to beep baseball coaches and officials, the average base runner gets to the base in roughly five seconds. If a base runner hits the base before the ball is cleanly fielded, the batter is safe and scores a run for his or her team. If the ball is cleanly fielded before the base runner reaches a base, he or she is out. Unlike in regular baseball, a base runner does not advance from one base to another.
Winthrop also says that being able to listen is extremely important on the field. “You have to listen to the catcher, the pitcher, your teammates in the field, and for the ball and the bases,” Winthrop says. “Listening for the base is the hardest because the tone can change sometimes. When you add in the noise from the fans and the opposing team in the field trying to make a play, it can be really distracting so you really have to focus. It’s a challenge, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Winthrop loves hearing the reactions of sighted people when they first hear about the game of beep baseball. “Some sighted people just cannot believe that blind people play this game, let alone do anything,” Winthrop says. “A blind person can do a lot if given the opportunity.”
Despite being 65 years old and one of the older players in the game, Winthrop has no plans to retire. “I want to keep playing for as long as I can,” Winthrop says.
The Coaches and Volunteers
Ron Kampf of Rochester, New York has been a Little League Baseball coach for years. But until 2014, Kampf had never heard of beep baseball before.
Since 2001, Kampf had been running a program called Challenger Baseball, which is a baseball league for kids with disabilities. Because of his experience working with people with disabilities, someone in the local community suggested to Kampf that he start a beep baseball team in the area. “I knew nothing about the sport, but people reached out to me because of my passion for helping others,” Kampf says.
In 2015, Kampf started the Rochester Pioneers and became the team’s head coach and pitcher. The team started by using high school fields and gyms for practices, and by going over the basics of how to play the game. “Our first practices were focused on basic fielding and base running drills,” Kampf says. “As we held more practices, more people came and it became more fun for everyone.”
However, Kampf knew that this was not going to be a great team at the onset. “Some people who wanted to play had never played baseball before or knew what baseball was,” Kampf says. “Out of 14 on the roster, maybe one or two were athletes. You have to be athletic to play this game, so we had to a bit of a disadvantage and we weren’t going to win a World Series game. When you have athletes, you don’t have to sit there and go over the basics.”
But Kampf believes that there’s more to beep baseball than winning the championship. “This game has opened up more opportunities for people in their lives,” Kampf says. “We’re not going to go to the World Series and win it all, but I see past the competition of it. There’s more to this than winning. If the players can hit a baseball and run to a base without seeing, now they can try something else new in life. Now they can do anything if they can play baseball.”
Even for someone like Kampf who knows the game of baseball well, learning how to play beep baseball was hard. “It was pretty comical at first,” Kampf says. “My pitching cadence wasn’t great at first, but now I’ve got it down pretty good and I really try to help our players get a good swing. Breaking the field up into zones for fielding was challenging.”
Many players, including Winthrop, would agree with Ron’s statement about the challenges of fielding. Unlike in regular baseball, beep baseball requires only six players to play the field. Some teams will often employ a designated fielder or designated hitter, who is someone that will only hit or field in the game.
In order to identify defensive positions, the field is split up into several zones, which are numbered. The fielders are placed into these different zones to cover the field and to know where their other teammates are. When the batter connects with the ball, the fielders have to listen for the beeping ball. If the ball stops beeping after being hit or if the side of the ball which the beeping comes out of is facing down into the ground and cannot be heard, the play is waved dead.
But how do players know where the ball will be? That’s when spotters come in.
Spotters, who are sighted volunteers on the same team as the defense, are responsible for calling out which zone the ball is coming towards and positioning the defense in the field. Most teams use two spotters: one on the left and right sides of the field.
If a spotter makes a quick, fast call, it alerts the fielders that the ball is coming at them quickly in that particular zone. But if it’s a slower, more drawn out call, it’s likely in the air and hit further. Therefore, the fielders have to listen closely for the spotters’ call to know where the ball is and what their job is when the ball is hit into a particular zone. According to many spotters, good fielding requires exceptional communication among the players of where they are on the field so that they can get the out.
The spotter is only allowed to help set up the defense and call out which zone the ball is coming towards; he or she is prohibited from providing the fielders with any other information. For a ball to be cleanly fielded, a fielder must have full possession of the ball and hold it up from his or her body for an out to be called by the umpire.
In the history of beep baseball, only five times has a hit ball been caught in the air. Furthermore, fielders do not have to throw to a base or tag the runner or throw to another player in order to record the out.
Kampf, who says that the team would have to recruit across the country for players if it wants to win a World Series, believes that the pitching skills for Little League Baseball are very similar to that in beep baseball.
“Pitching in beep baseball is a lot like pitching in coaches pitch,” says Kampf, who enjoys pitching for the team. “It’s like pitching to kids and telling them ‘You can do this!’ It’s about getting the ball on the bat. You have to build up that confidence with them that they can hit the ball. And I need the confidence too.”
Like pitching, Kampf says that his coaching experience benefits him when working with the players. “Like Little League, some of the players are there to win and compete, and others are there to have fun,” Kampf says. “Either way, you have to keep complementing and encouraging them. You have to coach and pitch to their level.”
Just as the players have to work together, Kampf has to build trust with his players. “You have to build that relationship with the players and get to know them,” Kampf says. “You need to build that chemistry.” Kampf says there’s nothing better than seeing a player continue to develop and improve. “Our best player is someone who never picked up a bat before and who was scared of the ball,” Kampf says. “That’s pretty fulfilling.”
In contrast to Ron Kampf, Rusty Reames has been around beep baseball for almost 40 years. Reames’ son, Wayne, was diagnosed with RP as a child. “Wayne wasn’t 14 scared, but as a mom I was,” Reames says. “But a social worker told me to step back and let him learn how to live being blind. It’s hard, but that’s what I tell mothers today.”
Although he wasn’t scared being blind, Reames says it was hard for Wayne growing up. “Wayne couldn’t participate in the activities that his siblings could,” Reames says. “But beep baseball changed that.”
In June 1978, Reames received a phone call from the mother of another visually impaired child who told her about beep baseball. They wanted to know if Wayne wanted to participate.
“It was love at first beep,” Reames says. “At one beep, he was hooked.” Wayne would go on to start the Austin Blackhawks, win multiple World Series rings, and be inducted into the National Beep Baseball Association (NBBA) Hall of Fame in 2002.
Since her son’s initial involvement in beep baseball, Reames’ has been a volunteer and the chief fundraiser for the Blackhawks. The players, coaches, and volunteers call her “Mom”. In addition, Wayne’s younger brother Kevin became arguably the greatest pitcher in beep baseball history for the Blackhawks and was inducted into the NBBA Hall of Fame in 1999. This past year, Kevin left the Blackhawks to start his own team in San Antonio.
“This game has literally changed our lives,” Reames says. “It all happened with a purpose. Because of my son, we have gotten to do some extraordinary things.”
As the head of fundraising for the Blackhawks, Reames has a strong understanding of how important funding is to the success of a team. “Fundraising has to be consistent,” Reames says. “You need a core of people who can help run various events throughout the year to raise money. It’s an expensive sport, but being a winning team definitely helps with fundraising.”
According to Reames, a strong, passionate volunteer group has played a big role in the team’s success over the years. It can be the difference between being just good and winning a World Series. “The number of volunteers makes the world of a difference,” Reames says. “It has a huge impact.”
Because of the importance of volunteers, Reames says that the players are expected to treat the volunteers with the utmost respect. “We insist our players treat the volunteers with respect,” Reames says. “If they don’t, we have a little chat with them.”
Although Wayne doesn’t play much anymore, Reames is still an active member of the team. “I’m still going to help out and support,” Reames says. “It’s not just a sport; it’s a way to get blind people more involved in the community.”
The Umpire and the NBBA
Mike Woodard is an umpire and referee for high school baseball, basketball, softball, and volleyball in Illinois. But his favorite sport to umpire is beep baseball. “The players are fantastic and the sport is so much fun,” Woodard says. “It’s my favorite sport because of my family connection.”
Woodard is one of four boys, but he’s the only one of them not to be diagnosed with RP. All three of his brothers are visually impaired, and the family has been participating in beep baseball since 1982.
Woodard’s career began as a volunteer with the Marion Express from Marion, Indiana. Now, Woodard serves as a plate umpire for the World Series. Woodard says that there are many similarities between umping sighted athletes and visually impaired athletes.
“You gotta have a thick skin out there and the competitiveness is the same,” Woodard says. “These games matter to the players. But at the same time, every sport is different and has different rules.”
Woodard has never had to eject someone from a game, but there are times when he has had to make tough calls. “Fans and players officiate games with their hearts, so you have to keep that in mind during the game,” Woodard says. “If I make a mistake, I own up to it right away to diffuse the situation and move on. On the field during the game, they might look at me as the enemy. But once we’re back at the hotel, we’re family.”
Woodard says that the strength and ability of the athletes is what inspires and impresses him the most about beep baseball. “It’s a special sport but the athletes don’t want to be treated special or like children,” says Woodard. “They want to be like treated like everyone else.”
This past year, Mike’s brother, Clinton, was inducted into the NBBA Hall of Fame and won a World Series title with the Indy Thunder. Woodard says this game is extremely important to his brothers. “This game gave their lives meaning and purpose,” Woodard says.
Woodard also is on the Board of Directors for the NBBA. The National Beep Baseball Association, or NBBA, is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in Glenview, Illinois that has been running the game of beep baseball since 1976.
Someone who works closely with Woodard at the NBBA is Stephen Guerra, who has served as the NBBA’s secretary since 2006. Guerra describes his job as the “information disseminator”. His responsibility is to coordinate and distribute information to the NBBA teams across the country.
“In my job, I try to help teams out with the costs of traveling, housing, and meals during the World Series,” Guerra says. “I also help players find teams and volunteers begin teams.” According to Guerra, the league has continued to grow since its membership doubled in 2008. According to the NBBA, there are over 30 member teams.
But before Guerra became the secretary of the NBBA, Guerra had been playing beep baseball for almost 30 years. Guerra was born with a condition of cataracts, which is when one has blurred vision. However, after a poorly operated procedure, Guerra lost his sight at the age of five. But having no sight for practically his entire life hasn’t stopped Guerra from living his life to the fullest.
“I don’t let the negativity take over me,” Guerra says. “Beep baseball players like me don’t let blindness take over them and dictate their lives. It’s all about mindset. Giving up and quitting is not an option.”
Guerra found out about beep baseball from a childhood friend playing in a recreational league. “When I heard about it for the first time, I was like ‘That sounds cool’,” Guerra says. “And now it’s my passion.”
In 1988, Guerra began his career with a recreational team based on Long Island called Out of Sight. After eight seasons, he started the Long Island Bombers in 1996. In 2008, Guerra moved to Rochester, Minnesota and started the Minnesota Millers. Today, Guerra is the captain and player for the Millers.
Guerra says that beep baseball has allowed him the opportunity to live out his dream. “I’ll never make a diving catch in the air, but maybe I can do what some of my childhood idols do in the field,” Guerra says. “Being able to make a diving catch and hearing the sweet sound of the crowd cheering would be an indescribable feeling.
According to Guerra, what makes the game of beep baseball so special is that it’s a game for all. “This game is the closest adaptation to baseball for those with vision loss,” Guerra says. “With those small adaptations, it allows anyone who is visually-impaired to play. The game is built upon the foundations of muscle memory. We don’t get time to train all day, everyday like professional athletes. So all players have to start someplace.”
When it comes to playing the game, Guerra agrees that teamwork is the most important part of beep baseball. “Synergy is so important,” Guerra says. “It’s a family. Veterans help rookies. We all help each other.”
Guerra says that the most rewarding part for him as a player is seeing rookies learn and get better. “Seeing the new players have that ‘ah-hah’ moment is what is so special to me,” Guerra says.
