Playmakers gives those with disabilities a ‘league of their own’

Ten years ago, Mike Gomez and Susan Graham took their kids to the park. Isabella, 4 at the time, was there to practice her tee-ball skills but instead wanted to play on the playground. Michael, 2 at the time, had just started walking. 

Gomez took his son out of the stroller to stretch his legs and to his surprise, 2-year-old Michael walked over to the field, put the baseball on the tee, swung the bat and joyfully ran straight down the third baseline. Even though Micheal was born with Down Syndrome, he made it clear that day—it would be his first of many at-bats. 

His parents would eventually create a nonprofit to make it possible. 

“We didn’t ask to be a special needs family, it was something that you know, as we look back at it, it was given to us and it was a blessing,” Gomez said. “So that’s where it all started, I was just trying to get my son to experience the joy that I had in playing baseball.”

Michael, now 12 years old, is one out of hundreds of kids and adults with disabilities who get to experience the joy of hitting a baseball in front of cheering fans, performing a choreographed dance or swishing a basketball through a hoop through the Long Beach nonprofit Playmakers. 

Participants are divided into three age groups (4-8 years old, 9-18 years old and 19 years old and over) then moved around based on their specific abilities. The oldest group, however, has no age limit, so no one is turned away or aged out. 

‘Think Small And Big Things Will Happen’

In the three years since the organization was created, hundreds of parents have enrolled their children in the three sports they offer: baseball, basketball and dance. The next goal for Playmakers is to create a hub for these families—an adaptive park that will cater to people of all abilities. 

“Just to have a field that these kids can call their home or their ‘Field of Dreams,’ so to speak,” Gomez said.

Graham and Gomez never envisioned that getting their son to play baseball would result in helping hundreds of other families to do the same, but it’s part of Gomez’s mantra now: “Think small and big things will happen.” This is how they hope to build the first adaptive park in Long Beach and surrounding cities. 

Playmakers originally grew from a family’s love for their children and baseball. As soon as Isabella joined the Long Beach Little League, Gomez began talking to the board about creating a Challenger’s League—a little league team for children with disabilities. 

In 2016, a handful of families participated in the Challenger’s League. It slowly grew from the families already involved in little league, averaging about 50 kids per season for about five years. But kids were left without a place to play once they aged out of the program at 18 years old. 

The husband and wife, along with Cynthia Brannon, started toying with the idea of breaking off and creating a league of their own with no restrictions on abilities or ages. In 2020, they began creating their own nonprofit with the help of Miracle League, another nonprofit that creates baseball leagues for kids with disabilities. 

Counting On Community

The Long Beach Miracle League played two seasons before wanting to expand yet again. The founders had a vision of offering multiple sports, but knew they would have to break away from the national Miracle League affiliation. 

Through the help of the community, Playmakers was quickly created and supported. Various nonprofits stepped in to show the board the ropes on functioning on their own, lawyers taught them about the need for waivers and grant writers have been working with them to raise funds.

A friend of co-founder Brannon volunteered to teach dance classes, Lakewood basketball coach Dwayne Cooper volunteered to run the basketball league and Gomez volunteered to run the baseball program. 

“That’s what really makes this program click, when we have community involvement,” Gomez said. “You know the old saying is, ‘It takes a village to raise a kid’ and that’s true. I see it every week.”

A local special needs teacher, Kelsey Cooper, recommended many of her students to the Challengers League and has helped shape the different ways kids are engaged. Each sport comes with changes that make it safer and more enjoyable for children with disabilities. 

For starters, no one keeps score. There are no losses in Playmakers, and every player will get to interact with the game on every play, whether it’s tossing a ball, running bases or swinging at a tee. There are also color-coded bases and pads for foot placement at the home plate, choices between metal or foam bats and a bright wiffle ball in place of a baseball, for those who struggle with fine motor skills. 

“Being able to change the rules to accommodate these kids allows us to make sure that they have fun and allows us to ensure that they’re in a safe environment and that they have something for them to look forward to when they come,” Gomez said. “Your child may be in a wheelchair, but at this moment, your child is a baseball player, and I’m going to make sure that your child gets to experience everything that comes along with that game of baseball.”

There are countless success stories that Gomez can rattle off in detail, ranging from a child finally getting comfortable on the field to one of the longest-participating players, Dean, winning a medal in the Special Olympics for pitching. 

Dean’s mother thanked Gomez for working with him on his pitching skills, telling him, “You’re the one that did that.” 

“I took a step back and I said, ‘No, I just showed him what he needed to do,’” Gomez said. “I just worked with him to show him that he could do it and that he was capable regardless of his diagnosis, whatever it may be, that he has the ability to do that. I just took a little time to show it to him and just be compassionate with him and be patient with him.”

Perhaps the most inclusive aspect of the program is the buddy system it entails. Baseball players from local high schools come out every Saturday to play alongside the kids and adults. Buddies not only keep players safe, but teach them baseball skills like how to hold a bat and throw a ball as well as running with them through bases or pushing a player’s wheelchair so they can achieve a homerun. 

“For us, inclusion is a big deal and that means for us, making sure that our kids can participate on the same fields as kids that are typical kids, that are baseball players and dancers,” said Ron Krajniak, board chair of Playmakers whose son participates in the baseball league. “My son is 20 and his sister is 23, and she has friends here all the time and my son is at his best when he’s included in the things that my daughter and her friends are doing.”

Eventually, Playmakers wants to work with every high school in Long Beach and even the Long Beach State Dirtbags. 

The ‘I Didn’t Know’ Problem

For the past year, the Playmakers board has been meeting with the city of Long Beach to discuss building a truly inclusive, adaptive park for families in the surrounding cities. 

Their “Field of Dreams” vision includes padded baseball fields so there are no bumps, rocks or holes in the ground that cause problems for people in wheelchairs or with motor functions. Dugouts will be wheelchair accessible and there will be a splash pad, also wheelchair accessible, so kids can play in the water during or after games. 

Playmakers also wants to have a building where people with disabilities can play basketball, dance or participate in other programs. Krajniak explained that since some people on the Autism spectrum can be sensitive to loud sounds, the basketball court will have a “baffled” floor to absorb the sounds of bouncing balls so “they don’t get scared away or intimidated.”

Their vision is to “make this place, this destination, an example for the rest of the country of what accessible park accessibility means,” Krajniak said. As of now, Long Beach doesn’t have an adaptive playground, but he said the city has been open to conversations about creating one. 

“I came to realize very quickly that we don’t have an ‘I don’t care problem,’ we have an ‘I didn’t know problem.’” 

Krajniak estimates that the four-acre park they envision will cost anywhere from $15-18 million. Through grants and fundraising, Playmakers hopes to raise that money on their own, but obtaining that much land for park space in Long Beach isn’t easy, even with the funds. 

Playmakers hopes to create the park in Long Beach, but is open to building it in a neighboring city if necessary. 

Those who are interested in signing their child up for a sport with Playmakers should visit https://www.letsbeplaymakers.org/. There will be a “Pack the Stands” fundraiser on May 20th at the McGaugh Elementary School Baseball Fields in Seal Beach from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.