Sudbury baseball now features 'level field' for players with disabilities

Ryan Benoit says the recent renovations at Terry Fox Sport Complex means huge things for people with disabilities looking to get involved in sports.

Through the Blue Jays Care Foundation, a turf infield was installed at the facility's showcase diamond this week. The facelift to the field will enable people with cognitive and physical disabilities the opportunity to take some swings and field grounders.

Benoit, who uses a wheel chair, said he first heard of the improvements through Sudbury's Jean-Gilles Larocque, who runs the Baseball Academy.

"Growing up I was always a huge baseball fan. I would watch my dad's buddies and, my brother played travel baseball growing up as well," Benoit said.

"I was always watching them being involved, [and] I think it's really cool to kind of be involved now in a different way."

Laroque saysthe addition of this fieldenables the city become more well-rounded in its baseball offerings. The idea to offer a fully-accessible playing field had been in his mind for the past five years, Larocque said.

"We have baseball basically from t-ball to maybe 18 year olds, and there's some men's leagues," he said."Then we introduced league baseball with the 16-U and the 18-U programs I currently have."

"Last year we helped introduce the Voyageurs, Laurentian University's varsity program. And the next step was basically giving access to others."

"Now we have girls playing baseball, we have people with mental and physical disabilities playing baseball, we have from the elites to t-ball so we've met the entire spectrum in our community."

"And that was kind of my goal to be honest with you."

Benoit added that the city has now broken some of the barriers that limit who can play sports.

"Everyone wants to be included in sports. Ithink that's what makes it so special," he said.

"You learn so many great life lessons, like work ethic and leadership and how to be a team player. And I think I think it's extremely special, especially for people with disabilities being baseball fans," Benoit said.

"They can play their favourite sport to their ability. They don't have to worry about barriers or limitations and I think that's huge."