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Spring has arrived, and so has my favorite sport -- baseball. I shall make many jaunts to Baltimore this year to cheer on the Orioles as they vanquish all opponents -- except when they play the Cleveland Indians. Then I root for the Tribe. (I lived in Cleveland for six years, and the Indians are almost my hometown team!)
I love the thrill of seeing the long ball hit into the center-field stands, the tingling sensation of watching a runner steal a base, the excitement of a pitchers' duel, the breathtaking experience of seeing a powerful arm rifle the ball from center field to home plate or from deep in third-base territory across the infield to the first baseman, beating the runner by a hair. I love the roar of the crowd when the team scores or a player makes a great catch. Hey, I even like to jump up and down when "the wave" sweeps around the stadium. I'm a baseball fanatic.
Many of my friends with disabilities are also baseball fanatics. Contributing to their passion is a national movement to make newly built baseball parks more accessible, both physically and in terms of communications, allowing everyone to experience the same thrills.
GOLD STANDARD.
Robert Wierton, 41, a self-employed software developer from Cheverly, Md., is a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair. He attends 30 to 35 games a year at Camden Yards and can cite stats for every Orioles player who has donned the uniform. He has been to ballparks in Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit.
"Camden Yards is the most accessible park I have ever visited. It set the standards for accessibility for other ballparks built since [the American with Disabilities Act was passed]," he raves. "Entering and leaving are easy. Elevators take me up to different levels. From anyplace I sit in the ballpark, I can see the entire playing field. The counters are low so I can see over them. The bathrooms are accessible." He attended the Orioles opening-day game against the Cleveland Indians. Lucky bird.
Edward Rumberg, 46, had both of his legs crushed when he was struck by a car at the age of 12. Today, the college instructor uses a powerchair to get around. He thinks that Jacobs Field in Cleveland takes the prize for being the most accessible ballpark in America. "There are multiple spaces for people like me in a wheelchair to sit. And being so close to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum [it's right across the way from the stadium], I can roll my wheels to it and enjoy the best of rock and roll and the best team in baseball. It's cool," Rumberg says.
The Astros' new stadium has a closed-captioned scoreboard -- Major League Baseball's first
Stan Jennings, 40, a paralegal from the Houston area, is hearing-impaired. He's passionate about his baseball and regularly goes to Houston Astros games. For years he has wanted the Astros to use closed captioning on its scoreboards, and finally his dream has become reality. A recent story in the Houston Chronicle about the team's newly opened Enron Field stated, "The right-field scoreboard revived the old "Home Run Spectacular" from the Astrodome days; a nearby auxiliary board unveiled a new attraction for Major League Baseball -- the game's first closed-captioning board that enables the hard of hearing to keep up with details of the game."
The display (measuring an impressive 9 feet by 30 1/2 feet) will show the words of the public-address announcer and give other information as well. Up to 3 lines of data with a maximum of 28 characters for each line will be shown. Members of the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities are delighted with the screen. Jennings told me, "We all love this feature. We worked for it. The disability community feels a close connection to Enron Field."
STAFFERS WHO SIGN.
The ballpark is also accessible to people using wheelchairs. Indeed, the owners are making a big push to get all fans with disabilities out to the ballgame. Some of the stadium's staff can sign to communicate with deaf patrons. Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf are available to answer questions. Says a spokesman for the Houston Astros: "We know the disability community are active members of our fan constituency. We want all of our fans to attend the games."
Out on the West Coast, the San Francisco Giants have abandoned Candlestick Park and opened a new stadium that's getting rave reviews from the disabled. Richard Olcese, a 58-year-old digital artist from Ross, Calif., says, "The new San Francisco Giants' stadium is the most accessible ballpark in the country." A person in a wheelchair can get a clear view from anywhere, he says, and he points out that the elevators go to all levels. "There are signs on each level indicating seating for wheelchair users. There are more spaces for wheelchair users than any baseball park that I have been in, and I have been in many of them," he enthuses.
Olcese says the hard-of-hearing community thought closed-captioning messages on the scoreboard would be too distracting, so they opted for the messages to appear on the TV monitors inside the stadium. Unfortunately, according to Olcese, the closed-captioning features were not working on opening day.
BUYING POWER.
As new sports stadiums as being built for baseball, football, and soccer, accessibility features are becoming routine. They're being designed into stadiums because of the power of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yes, fear of lawsuits has something to do with it. It's doubly costly to have to redesign a newly built stadium. Better to build the features in to begin with. But here's another incentive: The business community understands the buying power of people with disabilities.
Lainey Feingold, a California attorney who has successfully sued several stadiums over their lack of accessibility, says "stadium owners and designers, as well as sports teams, are becoming more and more aware of the disability community's desire to participate actively as sports fans. Architectural access in new construction is definitely getting a lot better."
Plenty more can still be done, however, to open the sports world to people with disabilities. Feingold says three things that would make a difference could easily be provided: assistive-listening devices to help the hard-of-hearing follow the game, screen readers on team Web sites for blind users, and ticketing information in formats usable to all. It will take continued advocacy to ensure full accessibility to America's pastime. Play ball!
(To find out about the accessibility of a specific venue, call the stadium or ballpark.)
To comment on this and other assistive technology issues, visit BW Online's Assistive Tech Forum. Or drop John a line at JMMAW@aol.com EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
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