Back in the late 1990s, when Rocky Evans was a baseball star at Central High School, the students from Rick Rogers' special education class - especially one young man he remembers only as Zach- would often sit with him and his teammates during lunch.
"They were our biggest fans," the 37-year-old Evans recalled Wednesday. "They'd come cheer at our games. I always wished they'd had a team we could have cheered for and supported."
A few weeks ago, atop a baseball field just north of Atlanta, he finally found such a team, or group of teams. Thanks to a charity fundraiser involving Paulding County government entities such as the fire and sheriff's departments, Evans discovered the Alternative Baseball Organization.
Mark WiedmerFounded by 22-year-old Taylor Duncan - who was often shunned by recreational and church leagues during his youth because of his autism - the league is for anyone 15 and older, male and female, who has autism or special needs.
"We use major league rules," Duncan said last week. "We play on regular baseball fields. We use wooden bats. We steal bases. We're trying to teach social and physical skills that our players will need later in life. The only thing that's different is the ball, which is a little larger and softer than a regulation baseball."
CNN and ESPN already have done stories on the ABO. NBC's Today Show will showcase both Duncan and the league on Friday morning sometime between 8 and 9. Additionally, Duncan and Evans are scheduled to appear on WDEF News 12's morning show Friday at 6.
"It's just a remarkable thing that Taylor's done," said Evans, who will coach a Chattanooga ABO franchise beginning in the spring.
"For far too long, there's been a perception that a special needs person or someone with autism couldn't do something that other kids could. Maybe the coaches were afraid they'd get hurt or there would be a communication problem. But when I watched Taylor's team in that charity game a few weeks ago, I was blown away. They're making great pitches, they're diving to rob somebody of a base hit. They're hitting the ball with a wooden bat. They can really play."
Duncan, whose autism was first diagnosed at age 4, always believed he could play when he was growing up near Atlanta in Dallas, Georgia. He was on a youth league squad for a year, then tried to join a church league team when he was 13. But the coach of that church team - a former special education teacher - told him that he would have to sit out all the games.
"What's that term - rinse and repeat?" Duncan said. "It was youth ball all over again."
But however hurt and angry and frustrated he was with all those who wouldn't give him an opportunity, he never lost his love for the sport. When he was 17, he even coached a softball team he had found on the craigslist website.
"We were one run from winning a championship my first year," he said.
But it was baseball Duncan loved, and baseball - real baseball - that he wanted to provide for teens and adults with autism and special needs.
Referring to the slights he felt that segment of society experienced far too often when it came to sports, Duncan told ESPN, "I believe my calling is to change that."
Among others, he soon reached out to Ken Vanderpoel, who runs Atlanta International Umpires.
"Taylor came to me about his dream to form this league," Vanderpoel said. "He told me he wanted to have real umpires. I said that was a great idea, but who was going to pay for them? He said, 'I guess I will.' I told him we wouldn't charge him a thing, that was our way of giving something back to the sport."
If you want to know how thorough was Duncan's plan to form a league that now has 14 teams spread from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Leesburg, Virginia, to Aberdeen, Maryland, to Chattanooga and throughout Georgia, consider his care in picking the ball that's used.
"I'd played with this ball once in a youth game," he said. "We finally found a bunch of them at Ollie's Bargain Outlet in Carrollton (Georgia). But I had to be sure they couldn't hurt anybody. So I threw one as hard as I could at a flat-screen TV, and it didn't break it. I hit one against a window. Nothing. Finally, I had a professional pitcher throw one 85 miles per hour at my stomach. It might have hurt for five seconds. We bought every one they had."
Said Vanderpoel of how that ball plays, "It's a solid ball, but it plays a little like a whiffle ball. You can really hit it and you think it's a home run, but then it winds up dropping a little past second base."
The story has already brought Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker out to watch a couple of games. Shaw Sports Turf has helped the league. Former Braves catcher Johnny Estrada is set to play in the ABO's celebrity game Nov. 10.
And you can help, too. Anyone interested in learning more about the ABO or joining Evans' team can email Duncan at alternativebaseball@gmail.com or contact Evans at (423) 503-2828.
Said Duncan's mother, Cindy, during the ESPN feature: "This meets a need for (these players) to come out here and just be themselves for who they are and know that they're appreciated and that they can achieve whatever they want to achieve."
Evans looked back to his time at Central and ahead to next spring when talking about the opportunity at hand.
"This is my chance to give back for all baseball's meant to me," he said, "and for all we couldn't do to support kids like Zach when I was in school."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.