Longtime Peninsula coach brings baseball opportunities to adults and children with disabilities

Kids and adults with different abilities are getting to do something that many never thought people - they're playing baseball, thanks to a longtime coach.

Gary Morton coached girls fastpitch softball for 30 years at Bay Area high schools. Eleven years ago, when he'd sneaked away from a Southern California wedding reception drawn instead to sounds of his favorite pastime.

He saw kids in wheelchairs playing baseball and it touched his heart.

"I was in tears. I'm crying right now." Morton said. "I saw kids hitting homeruns and going to a camera and going like this, you know, never been on a field."

His daughter, Sarah, who had a chromosomal deficiency, had just passed away.

"Just like my daughter, they have goals just like anybody else, and we aren't different," Morton said. "We may look a little different, but we aren't."

So Morton stepped up to the plate to bring baseball to people with intellectual, physical and developmental challenges. In 2015, he started the San Francisco Peninsula chapter of The Miracle League, a national nonprofit that brings children and adults with disabilities together to play baseball. The San Francisco Peninsula chapter is one of hundreds of local chapters across the country.

Brothers Jeremiah George-McCall and Javon George-Dalton are among 120 kids and adults who play at Hawes Park in Redwood City for the spring and fall seasons. Their grandmother, Diane Johnson, has watched the pair find fun and friendship in The Miracle League for the last five years.

"I love this because despite the disability, they have the ability, and they have the ability to be the greatest they can be," Johnson smiled.

Volunteer buddies pitch in - mostly from local high schools - to support each player one-on-one. High school senior and longtime volunteer Martin Gehlhar says the program Morton started gives him a way to bring others joy.

"Gary's a great guy, and I think he likes to give back to his community and make sure that other people in the community are equally represented, that they're enjoying their lives, too," Gehlhar said.

Morton has stepped back from leading the league for the last few years and he is living with inclusion-body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease. But he's still the program's biggest cheerleader.

"It makes my heart swell just to see them playing baseball," he said. 

This fall, the league looks forward to playing at Mitchell Field in Redwood City, where the city has put in synthetic turf that's safer for wheelchairs. The league has also raised money to make the dugout wheelchair-accessible.

For those who cannot afford registration fees, there are scholarships. No one is turned away.

Morton says they're always looking for more volunteers, especially buddies to come alongside the adult players.