{"id":10308,"date":"2010-04-28T12:01:38","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T17:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/?p=10308"},"modified":"2010-05-04T04:27:03","modified_gmt":"2010-05-04T09:27:03","slug":"deaf-icon-curtis-pride-bringing-big-league-game-to-gallaudet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2010\/04\/28\/deaf-icon-curtis-pride-bringing-big-league-game-to-gallaudet\/","title":{"rendered":"Deaf icon Curtis Pride bringing big-league game to Gallaudet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deaf icon Curtis Pride bringing big-league game to Gallaudet<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mel Antonen, USA TODAY<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Concerned he’d lost passion for school and feeling a need to
\nwork with his hands, Danny Gabel left Gallaudet University in 1999 to become
\na carpenter and figured he’d never return to the world’s only liberal arts
\ncollege for the deaf.<\/p>\n

But a decade later, Gabel reconsidered, thanks to the only man who could
\nchange his mind.<\/p>\n

When Gallaudet hired Curtis Pride to coach its baseball team, the move
\nserved two purposes: It gave a woebegone Division III program credibility by
\nsnagging an 11-year major leaguer to lead it. And it gave deaf athletes
\nnationwide a chance to play for an iconic figure in their community.<\/p>\n

So last fall Gabel left New York to re-enroll at Gallaudet, majoring in deaf
\nstudies and history. This spring, he is a 30-year-old junior left-handed
\npitcher. Playing for Pride, if you will.<\/p>\n

“Curtis Pride is a hero in the deaf community,” Gabel says through an
\ninterpreter. “He’s exciting and gives hope. It’s amazing to be playing for
\nthe guy I loved watching as a kid. He’s inspirational, someone that I look
\nup to.”<\/p>\n

In parts of 11 seasons, Pride racked up 199 hits and had a .250 batting
\naverage, his value lying in his speed and left-handed bat off the bench.<\/p>\n

But his modest accomplishments were burnished by the fact he was the only
\ndeaf player in the modern era, inspiring Gabel, for one, to seek his
\nautograph and collect 98 of his baseball cards.<\/p>\n

Now Pride, 41, who was born deaf and learned to lip-read and speak as a
\nchild, hopes to turn his inspiration into victories, vowing to make
\nGallaudet good enough to someday qualify for the NCAA Division III
\ntournament.<\/p>\n

That’s a big task, considering the school on Capitol Hill has had two
\nwinning seasons since World War II; banners hanging in the gymnasium honor
\nteams from 1966 and 1977 that finished with 7-5 records. Pride acknowledges
\nthat the caliber of play at Gallaudet has been substandard.<\/p>\n

“I want these kids to play like real players,” says Pride, who last played
\nin the majors with the 2006 Los Angeles Angels and concluded his career in
\n2008 in the unaffiliated Atlantic League.<\/p>\n

“I want to teach these guys how to be committed. I want them to take it
\nseriously and teach them to play the right way. We have not improved much
\nfrom last year. We have a lot of work to do \u2014 but will get better.”<\/p>\n

History of losing<\/p>\n

Last season, Pride’s first, the Bison made 119 errors in 32 games while
\nopponents blistered their pitching at a .336 clip, 110 points higher than
\nthe Bison’s average. In six games the last two seasons, Salisbury (Md.), a
\nDivision III powerhouse, beat them by a combined score of 106-0.<\/p>\n

The Bison are 4-33, and their final game is at home today. They have twice
\nlost by scores of 24-0 and 17-0, along with 20-0, 22-0 and 26-7 setbacks.<\/p>\n

They also found a sliver of hope: They beat Stevenson University (Baltimore)
\n5-3 to end a 150-game losing streak in the Capital Athletic Conference.<\/p>\n

The victory was so unlikely that since it came on April Fools’ Day, family
\nand friends did not believe the news.<\/p>\n

“It was nerve-racking,” says Pride, who has a picture in his office of the
\nBison players piling on each other in celebration.<\/p>\n

There was another celebration of sorts Monday afternoon at the White House.
\nAs guests of President Obama, the Bison watched as the World Series champion
\nNew York Yankees, a team Pride once played for, were honored. Some Yankees
\nstopped to hug Pride and wish him luck, and the Bison shook the president’s
\nhand.<\/p>\n

Major league moments<\/p>\n

Pride was born deaf after his mother contracted rubella during her
\npregnancy. As a kid, he says, peers teased him about the way he spoke and
\nthe “funny thing” he had in his ear.<\/p>\n

He grew up in Silver Spring, Md., a D.C. suburb, earned a finance degree
\nfrom the College of William & Mary and was drafted by the New York Mets in
\n1986.<\/p>\n

He played seven minor league seasons, made the big leagues with the Montreal
\nExpos in 1993 and wound up playing for top-notch managers Bobby Cox, Joe
\nTorre, Mike Scioscia and Felipe Alou. While Pride’s major league stats were
\nmodest, he had his moments.<\/p>\n

With the Expos, Pride hit the second big-league pitch he saw for a two-run
\ndouble and got a five-minute standing ovation in Montreal. “It was emotional
\nbecause they had heard my story,” Pride says. “They knew I had achieved my
\ndream.”<\/p>\n

In 2003, he hit his only home run for the Yankees at Yankee Stadium in a
\nJuly win vs. the Boston Red Sox. Torre and pitcher Roger Clemens pushed him
\nout of the dugout to take a curtain call.<\/p>\n

“He had determination and just kept pursuing his career,” Torre says. “So
\nmany players in our clubhouse gravitated toward him because of his
\npersonality.”<\/p>\n

The next season, Pride was on the Anaheim Angels’ playoff roster after
\ngetting a key pinch-hit double in a game vs. the Texas Rangers, extending
\nthe game into extra innings. The Angels won in 11 and clinched three days
\nlater.<\/p>\n

Pride retired in 2008, at 39, after a toe injury made the decision easier
\nfor him.<\/p>\n

When the coaching job opened, Pride was the obvious choice, Bison athletics
\ndirector Michael Weinstock says. Pride says he had several overtures from
\nmajor league organizations to work as a coach or scout. After Weinstock
\ncalled, it took Pride three months to decide to come.<\/p>\n

Pride and his wife, Lisa, a former TV reporter who covered him in the
\nmajors, and their children, Noelle and Colten, live in Wellington, Fla., and
\nPride commutes.<\/p>\n

“His name is well-known in the deaf community,” Weinstock says. “It’s a
\ndream come true for a lot of these athletes. He can open a lot of doors for
\nthem.”<\/p>\n

Pride has gone from the big-league dugout to teaching the basics. When Pride
\narrived, the biggest problem was the players’ inexperience. Players didn’t
\nknow how to properly grip the ball. “They were gripping it like a softball,”
\nsays Pride, who did not learn sign language until he arrived at Gallaudet.<\/p>\n

Pride says his players’ deafness is a challenge when it comes to hearing the
\nball off the bat, catching flies and throwing to cutoff men. He says he’s
\ntrying to teach them to be instinctive.<\/p>\n

Of the 15 players on the season-ending roster, 10 are freshmen or
\nsophomores. Pride wants to find pitchers and aggressive players “who will go
\nfrom first to third (base), dive for balls and be willing to get hit by a
\npitch.”<\/p>\n

He has much knowledge to impart. He says Scioscia taught him the value of
\naggressive baserunning. Torre and Alou gave him confidence, and Cox taught
\nhim communication.<\/p>\n

“Bobby let everyone know their roles and made me feel part of the team even
\nthough I was a fourth outfielder and pinch-hitter,” Pride says.<\/p>\n

Scioscia says Pride was a terrific athlete and teammate. “He worked hard to
\nbecome a good player. One thing that sticks in my mind was how much he
\nstudied and understood the strategy. He was very intuitive, and this will
\naid in his coaching,” Scioscia says.<\/p>\n

Hard finding talent<\/p>\n

Pride is uncertain about his future aspirations but says he wanted to leave
\nthe pro game for coaching and says, “We can do something special here.”<\/p>\n

But finding deaf baseball players isn’t easy. Weinstock said there are five
\ndeaf high schools that have programs, with two in California and others in
\nIndiana, Maryland and D.C.<\/p>\n

“It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Weinstock says. “But Curtis has
\nhis own network for finding kids.<\/p>\n

“A lot of times, instead of finding them, they find us because of Curtis’
\nname recognition.”<\/p>\n

Pride estimates his pool of potential recruits is between 20 and 30. “Half
\nof them aren’t good enough to play, and the other half are being recruited
\nby Division I and Division II schools,” he says.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Pride says his next recruiting class consists of five “Division
\nI-type players … who are going to help.”<\/p>\n

His current players say Pride gives them hope and the ability to empathize.<\/p>\n

“We’re improving,” says sophomore pitcher Jeremy Shepps, who knew of Pride
\nsince 2001. “There’s a big difference between before and after Coach Pride.”<\/p>\n

A member of Pride’s first recruiting class, Billy Bissell, an all-state
\nbaseball and football player from Brewer, Maine, was attracted by the chance
\nto play for Pride in an atmosphere where there were deaf classmates.<\/p>\n

Bissell’s mom, Lynn, said her son couldn’t be happier. She said he felt the
\nsting of discrimination growing up.<\/p>\n

“It was a small number of coaches that said he couldn’t play, but it was
\njust enough to hurt him,” Lynn says. “My son has a ‘I’ll-show-them’
\nattitude. Billy was mesmerized by Pride. He went to Gallaudet because of
\nPride.”<\/p>\n

Gabel, who has one year of eligibility remaining, feels that way, too. He
\ngrew up on Staten Island, N.Y., and has 15 of Pride’s bats and 20 of his
\njerseys.<\/p>\n

Gabel was at Yankee Stadium the night Pride hit his home run. He has
\npictures of himself with Pride in a Yankees uniform and another in a Red Sox
\nuniform.<\/p>\n

He was working in Manhattan when his mom sent him a message about Pride’s
\nhiring.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was impossible,” he says. “It was the best news for the deaf
\ncommunity. It’s a thrill. When I was young, I had to chase him down. Now,
\nhe’s my friend.”<\/p>\n

Source:
\n http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/college\/baseball\/2010-04-27-gallaudet-curtis-pride_N.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deaf icon Curtis Pride bringing big-league game to Gallaudet By Mel Antonen, USA TODAY WASHINGTON \u2014 Concerned he’d lost passion for school and feeling a need to work with his hands, Danny Gabel left Gallaudet University in 1999 to become…<\/p>\n

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