EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Participants from Syracuse Challenger Baseball are getting the chance of a lifetime. About 30 players are going to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA, in August.
Challenger, a league that serves children and adults with special needs, will send two teams to play exhibition games against a Challenger team from Lancaster, PA, on Aug. 25 and Aug. 26.
“(The players) are so overjoyed that they get to go or even just be a part of something,” said Rebecca DeJohn, Syracuse Challenger Baseball’s Adult Division Program Director. “We’re all just excited to have our name out there.”
The league has 16 teams and almost 250 players from the Syracuse area. It has been around since 1982 and is the biggest single-district Challenger program in the United States.
With Challenger, it is about more than wins and losses and runs and hits.
“Our motto is that anyone can play,” DeJohn said.
Syracuse Challenger held true to that mission, lobbying Little League to get more representation in Williamsport. When Syracuse Challenger found out it was going to play at the Little League World Series, the condition was that it could only bring 15 players under the age of 20.
“We were not happy about that because we have a lot of teams that are adults that have been playing for 20 years plus,” said Jennifer Savastino, one of the league’s program directors. “We didn’t feel it was fair to tell them they wouldn’t have the opportunity to participate.”
Syracuse Challenger got together with Lancaster, who also has an adult division, and petitioned Little League to change the rule.
The result? The league will now send two teams—a skilled team and a traditional team—to Williamsport. Syracuse Challenger will also get to send players over 22 years of age, which Savastino says is a first.
“It’s a pretty groundbreaking year,” Savastino said.
In addition to the Little League World Series, Challenger is embarking on an ambitious $5 million “Superfield” project to expand the facilities at Carrier Park in East Syracuse. In line with Challenger’s mission, the goal is to have a complex with eight fields that can fit all the league’s teams and players in one location.
