Gary Morton set out to turn baseball into a sport that anyone can play, no matter their ability. He stepped up to bring the game to people with intellectual, physical and developmental challenges, founding the Miracle League San Francisco Peninsula in 2015, one of hundreds of local chapters of the National Miracle League nonprofit.
The spirit of the league is different from most. At its games no one keeps score, and as Morton puts it, everyone is a winner. Watching the players take the field, he says, makes his heart swell, a simple joy that lies at the centre of what he built.
His motivation was deeply personal. He was moved to tears after seeing children in wheelchairs playing baseball and kids hitting home runs, many of whom had never been on a field before. His daughter Sarah, who had a chromosomal deficiency, had passed away, and he speaks of the players the way he might of her, saying that just like his daughter, they have goals just like anybody else, and that while they may look a little different, they are not.
Those values play out every game at Hawes Park, where around 120 children and adults take part. Among them are brothers Jeremiah George McCall and Javon George Dalton, who say they can hit the ball hard and over the fence. Their grandmother, Diane Johnson, has watched the pair find fun and friendship over the last five years.
For her, the league is a celebration of what the players can do. Despite the disability, she says, they have the ability to come out and be the greatest that they can be. Helping make that possible are volunteer buddies, many of them from local high schools, who support each player one-on-one through the game.
One longtime volunteer, Martin Gelhar, says the program Gary started has given him a way to bring others joy. He describes Morton as someone who likes to give back to his community and to make sure that other people in it are represented equally and are enjoying their lives too.
Morton himself has stepped back from leading the league over the last few years. He is living with inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease, but he remains the program's biggest cheerleader, still cheering the players on from the sidelines. Seeing what he created continue, he says simply, makes him happy.