The Louisville Slugger Warriors visited WKU’s campus on Friday, Oct. 10 and Saturday, Oct. 11. According to their website, the team is a “… competitive amputee baseball team that consists of U.S. military veterans, active duty personnel, wounded warriors and current and former amputee college baseball players.”
The team consists of 15 players from around the country. Each team member has “suffered a loss of limb, partial limb, digits, eye and serious limb deformities,” according to their website.
The visit began with a screening of their documentary “Curveballs… Secrets to the Game of Life” on the evening of Friday, Oct. 10, as a part of the Mary E. Hensley Lecture Series. Corinne Murphy, dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, said that the event was a collaborative effort between WKU Hilltoppers Baseball, WKU ROTC and WKU Military Student Services.
The next day, Saturday, Oct. 11, WKU Hilltoppers Baseball hosted an exhibition game against the Louisville Slugger Warriors at Nick Denes Field.
Sophomore Reagan Abbott from Charlestown, Indiana, said she participated as a volunteer through WKU ROTC. Now in her second year of the ROTC program, she said she plans to join the military as a second lieutenant in the Army once she graduates. She said she found inspiration through the team.
“It’s their whole team, and what they do and what they work for and what they represent,” Abbott said. “I think it’s really cool. It’s amazing that they’re still able to get out and get active, and I think it’s going to be a really entertaining game.”
Luke Brittain, a player for the Louisville Slugger Warriors, had his left hand severed in a lawn mower accident. After a 14-hour surgery, surgeons were able to reattach his hand, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“Luke endured months of painful physical therapy as well as five additional surgeries to address the many issues that remained,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The “Curveballs… Secrets to the Game of Life” documentary highlights each player on the team and the history of their injury or disability. The documentary said that Brittain plays as a left-handed pitcher and batter.
“Losing my hand was probably the best thing that ever happened to me in my life,” Brittain said in the documentary.
Brittain’s grandfather, Kenneth Roberts, came to WKU to watch his grandson play. Roberts said that the team had a life-changing impact on his grandson.
“I think it’s one of the best things that ever happened to him after his accident,” Roberts said. “He was pretty down. He lived in it, when all of the sudden he didn’t have a left hand. After he got on this team, he seemed to come around pretty good. A bunch of his buddies, you know, and they all love baseball.”
Roberts also said he is an Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War.
“I was in the military during the Vietnam War. It wasn’t very popular to be in the military,” Roberts said. “When we came back from overseas, there were people waiting to protest. Called us all kinds of names. So now when you see something positive these young fellas can take advantage of, when you get into your senior years like I am, it makes you really appreciate it.”
Rick Redman, vice president of corporate communications for Hillerich & Bradsby Co., also attended the game. He said he was a part of the original Louisville Slugger group that decided to sponsor the team.
Redman said that this whole organization started 15 years ago. He said he got a call from David Van Sleet, the founder and general manager of the team.
Redman said that Van Sleet is the head of prosthetics for the Veterans Administration for the southwest portion of the United States in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“He [Van Sleet] said, ‘We got all these soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with catastrophic injuries, but they’re athletes, and they want to compete,’” Redman said.
After that conversation, Redman said that Louisville Slugger began supplying the team with all of their equipment. He said he joined the team for their first tryouts at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.
“It was amazing just seeing these guys out there diving for balls,” Redman said. “Guys who only had one hand or one arm catching the ball, throwing their glove up, then recatching the ball with their bare hand and throwing it. Guys sliding headfirst when they had blades for feet, just remarkable and inspirational.”
Redman said the Louisville Slugger has been part of baseball since 1884. He said that this included sponsoring a multitude of players from Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, to current-day players like Kyle Schwarber and Christian Yelich. He said the Louisville Slugger Warriors are something special.
“What we’ve done with this team is one of the most satisfying things that we’ve ever done,” Reman said.
He said that helping the players with their life journey past their injuries has shown people the brighter end of the tunnel.
“You just have to focus, you have to have resolve,” Redman said. “You have to have dedication and discipline, and you have to have some support along the way.”
Redman also said that the players aren’t just “warriors” on the field, but off it as well.
“That’s one of the great things about these guys being together,” Redman said. “They all have the same thing in common, these catastrophic injuries or birth defects, whatever the case may be, and they’ve had life’s challenges. But they are warriors. They are warriors in the game of life.”
