Evanston Baseball & Softball Association invites individuals with special needs to participate the new Evanston Buddy BasebALL League.
Buddy BasebALL provides the opportunity for individuals with a mental and/or physical disability to play baseball despite their handicaps.
Mike Hamann, EBSA vice president of operations, says Buddy BasebALL will help individuals learn teamwork, promote self-esteem, and have fun.
“Two of EBSA’s core values are that every child has the opportunity to play and to give back to the community. We feel that our Buddy BasebALL program accomplishes both of these by giving special needs children a chance to play and by teaching our players the importance of giving back to the community,” said Hamann.
The EBSA Buddy BasebALL league will not charge any fees to participate, and tee shirts and ball caps will be provided for all players.
Each special needs player will be paired with an Evanston travel baseball player from EBSA’s 14U travel league, comprised of 14 year old players. The target age group for special needs individuals needed, is between 5 and 20 years old. Ideally there will be enough participants to field two teams. The games will last about innings and take place on Sundays in July at James Park in Evanston.
“EBSA families have been overwhelmingly supportive of our initiative to create this inclusive baseball program. As a community based organization, we believe it is our responsibility to support all children in our community,” said EBSA President David Campbell.
More information is available online.
This is a wonderful thing
This is a wonderful thing for EBSA to do. I am proud to be part of a community that has a youth sports organization with such fine values.
Buddy baseball
is it possible for u14 travel softball players to help buddy baseball? There is not a u14 team yet, but there will be one in the next years ahead…we could do it for baseball too…it is practically the same sport