Glaucoma stole his eyesight when he was 17. But Lisban Torres did not let blindness stop him from playing his favourite sport and greatest passion: baseball.
“Barely a year after I became blind, I heard on the radio that there was a group of blind people who were playing baseball. This made me curious and I showed up at the place where they were training,” Torres tells dpa.
That was 15 years ago; he still plays to this day.
Before going blind, Torres played baseball non-professionally. “I used to do it just for fun, simply to win and lose,” he says. His idol was Javier Mendez, one of the big stars on the Industriales team in Havana.
And as a blind baseball player, Torres says, “the excitement of the game is exactly the same.” The difference lies in that “you need to develop greater abilities, put more attention on the game.”
Divided into two five-member teams, the blind baseball players practice several times a week under trainer Roberto Carmona. On Sundays they compete in the Santiago Mederos Stadium in Havana.
Blind or visually impaired players place bandages over their eyes during games to even the playing field, and the balls, made from rubber, have two bells inside. The tinkling sound helps players locate the ball, and they can catch it when it hits the field.
Another major difference between blind baseball and regular baseball: There is no pitcher – the batter tosses the ball in the air and then hits it with a wooden bat that’s somewhat shorter than a regular one.
Once the ball has been hit, fielders on the bases clap their hands to guide runners as they make their way past second and third bases.
Standing behind second base is the only person in the field who can actually see what is going on. His or her mission is to guide players when they throw the ball to the home plate and when the runner is trying to reach the different bases.
“When I started to play, I could not bat at all, but my teammates cheered me on and told me it was OK, that I would get the hang of it,” Yanieris Vegsa, the team’s only female player, tells dpa.
Vegsa started playing when a male team member failed to show up and she decided to try it out. Since then, she has never again wanted to sit on the sidelines.
“I feel so happy every day to be able to wear this uniform, it makes me feel very happy,” Vegsa says, calling on other blind women in Cuba to start playing the sport.
“Anyone in Cuba who doesn’t know about baseball just isn’t Cuban,” says Carlos Miguel Lorenzo Fuentes.
Fuentes lost his eyesight to a rare genetic disorder: retinitis pigmentosa. The disease made it impossible for him to play baseball with friends when he was a teenager. This team lets him achieve what he couldn’t then. “I feel super motivated. It’s the dream I couldn’t fulfil as a child,” Fuentes remarks.
“When somebody says, ‘Oh, it’s just some blind guys playing baseball,’ people don’t believe it until they see them play and then they exclaim: ‘This is so lovely!’” says trainer Roberto Carmona.
Blind baseball was introduced into Cuba in 2000 by a group of Italian experts. Now, Cuban team players dream of being able to include baseball for the blind in the next Paralympic Games in 2020.
For that to happen, however, teams from two countries per continent are needed.
For many years, Cuban athletes achieved many successes in baseball on an international level, but recently things have gone downhill.
Perhaps someday, Cuba might be able to recover part of that lost lustre in the blind baseball category.
“In Cuba we’re genetically programmed to play baseball. We have the strength to be leaders, we were born for this sport,” says Carmona. - DPA
A blind baseball player in Cuba dives to the ground for a ball during a game in Havana. Blind or visually impaired players place bandages over their eyes during games to even the playing field.
