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.”