Courtesy of Miriam Academy
Chris Holmes might be the only baseball coach in the Ballwin Athletic Association who can’t immediately rattle off his team’s record.
“How many ever games we’ve played, we’re 0 and whatever,” says Holmes, head coach for Miriam Academy’s first baseball team, the Miriam Magic.
And he doesn’t expect that win-loss percentage to budge for the team’s last few games of the season, considering Miriam, a high school for students with multi-faceted learning disabilities in St. Louis County, had no plans to field a team at all when it opened for its inaugural class of freshmen this fall.
Casual kickball games between classes spawned talk of starting a baseball team in spring 2018. “Then, our P.E. teacher, Norman Rich, who is the baseball commissioner for the Ballwin Athletic Association, said, ‘Well, why don’t we have a team this year?’ and the kids loved the idea,” says Holmes, who teaches humanities at Miriam.
Much to the faculty’s surprise, most of the school’s 16 students were eager to join the roster, with the others currently acting as student managers or statisticians. That gave them enough players to field a co-ed team, which is sometimes supplemented by a more experienced youth catcher and Holmes’ son, a Lindbergh High School student who does some of the pitching to expedite games. But the learning curve for many Miriam students had more break than Adam Wainwright’s best pitch.
“The trick was to teach them baseball because only a handful of them had ever played—maybe only one or two competitively,” says Holmes, a long-time player and coach. “And there were probably five or six kids who had never thrown a baseball, never swung a bat, never caught a ball, ever in their lives.”
Courtesy of Miriam Academy
Courtesy of Miriam Academy
Miriam doesn’t have its own field, so the team might get in one practice a week. Sometimes, they run drills in P.E. class or take a trip to the Ballwin Athletic Association or Balls-n-Strikes, a nearby youth baseball and softball facility. Holmes says parents, teachers, opposing coaches, and the players themselves have noticed the team’s progress since its first practice.
“We won’t win a game. We know that. We talked about that ahead of time, and that wasn’t the goal," Holmes says. "But if you look at what they’ve accomplished since they started practicing, talentwise, it’s phenomenal. Every game, I keep expecting that disappointment that they’re not doing as well as the other team. But they’re just loving the fact they’re playing baseball.”
Courtesy of Miriam Academy
That was even the case in early games, when hits were few and far between, and many players didn’t make contact. More recently, Holmes estimates about half the lineup connects with some pitches, and the Miriam Magic has been plating runs.
“We’ve had kids who’ve gotten their first hit in their lives and, frankly, that’s kind of emotional for them, their parents, and for us,” Holmes says. “That’s a pretty big deal, and we try to celebrate it.”
Indeed, there’s no heckling at a Magic game, only high fives, says Susan Hereford, whose son Jack specializes as a pinch runner. The tall, slim freshman isn't a power hitter, but can lay down a bunt single and hustle to first. The younger Hereford even scored two of the team’s three runs in one game.
“Each person on the team really has something they’re good at, and their coaches are really good at figuring out what that is,” Susan says. “My son never really played sports on a team where he was contributing. For him to really be part of a team is huge.”
In fact, Jack didn’t even want to participate in kickball games early in the school year, but the unflagging enthusiasm and support from Miriam Magic teammates has totally transformed his attitude, she says. “It’s the kind of dream team you want to have.”
The Miriam Magic’s schedule can be found here.
