Fort Wayne Woodchucks baseball team provides opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - About five years ago, Ashe Simpson of Fort Wayne slid into the baseball business after connecting with the director of an organization called ABO National.

“I reached out to him and volunteered to help out,” Simpson said. “He reached out to me and said, ‘Okay, you’re going to start a team,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, okay, I guess we’re doing this.’”

Simpson got to work, and in 2021 officially brought a new kind of baseball team to 21Country in the Fort Wayne Woodchucks. It’s a team for players ages 15 and up with intellectual disabilities.

“This is a part of the Alternative Baseball Organization, which was started in Georgia by a man with autism himself,” Simpson said. “His whole vision was to allow people with special needs to play baseball like the pros.”

While players may face personal challenges outside the fence, inside it, the focus becomes all about baseball.

“Being active, playing baseball, hanging out with friends and learning — it means the world,” player Corbin Wilson said. “I love playing baseball with this group of people.”

“My dream was to play baseball and it means a lot to me,” player Ozzie Munoz said. “It feels great hanging out with them, talking about what to do and all that.”

For Simpson, his athletes and their love for the game make everything worth it.

“It’s so much fun,” Simpson said. “The best of this is just the joy of it. You can see the joy on their faces every time they come out and play. Seeing players get incrementally better every practice, every game, and just seeing how that translates into social skills and life skills, that’s the best part.”

Simpson hopes to provide those benefits to even more people who share similar struggles as his team of Woodchucks.

“I hope that this program continues to grow,” Simpson said. “If we had teams we could travel to, even locally, or ended up having more than one team, that would be a dream.”

The Woodchucks practice weekly from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Their next game is set for noon on Aug. 23 at the World Baseball Academy on Freeman Street. If a player is interested in joining the Woodchucks, email Ashe Simpson at ashejsimpson@gmail.com.