Warriors Slug It Out

The good news is that these days, not all of the members of the Louisville Slugger Warriors Amputee Baseball Team lost their limbs in warfare. While Dave Van Sleet, general manager of the team who founded it playing softball 13 years ago, originally fielded a team made up solely of military amputees, now just six of his 15 players are veterans. 

“A dozen years ago, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced all the amputees. It’s a lot fewer now, and that’s awesome,” he said. Estero resident Van Sleet, himself an Army vet who worked for 30 years with the Veterans Administration and has a degree in prosthetics, said they have fewer vets now, but there is no shortage of talented athletes who are minus a limb to fill out his team. 

“The decision was made to get better and better players. A lot of these younger guys on our team were in college and just finished their school year,” he said. That also is why the team hasn’t played together since January and perhaps explains why they went down in defeat to a local all-star squad on Saturday, 12 – 16 in a nine-inning contest. 

Nobody rolled over. Two well-matched teams put everything they had into the game at the return engagement of the Louisville Slugger Amputee Baseball Team vs. the Naples All-Stars. The teams met at Jet Blue Field in South Ft. Myers on Saturday, June 1.

The Naples All-Stars are the handpicked standouts from five teams in the Southwest Florida Adult Baseball League, this area’s division of the Men’s Senior Baseball League, drawn from teams in Cape Coral, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs, and the Naples area. Even though all of his players have all of their limbs intact, All-Stars manager and league president Tony Castro knew they were in for a fight. 

“We’ve played them before. They’re not an easy team to go out and beat,” he said. But he talked a little smack before the game, warning the Warriors, “They better get ready.” 

The Jet Blue Field stadium in Ft. Myers is the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox, with 14 Red Sox pennants recalling 14 years when the BoSox won championships, either the World Series, which they won as early as 1903 and as recently as 2018, and their own version of the “Green Monster,” the wall in the outfield of Fenway Park. A crowd of nearly 300 came out on a warm day to cheer on their favorites, with most of the fans rooting for their All-Star connections, even though officially the Warriors were the home team. 

They brought some hoopla. Before the game, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office presented the colors, soloist Jalissa McNeil sang the National Anthem, and Ft. Myers filmmaker John Biffar, who is shooting a documentary about the Warriors team, threw out the first pitch. During breaks in the game – the Warriors alone went through five or six pitchers trying to cool down the hot bats of the All-Stars – four Hooters girls in their trademark uniforms went out on the field and brushed the dirt off the bases. 

With the long pants worn by baseball players, it was not always immediately apparent that one team was made up of players each missing a limb. Using a variety of state-of-the-art prosthetics, the Warriors showed their athleticism. Outfielders with one arm would snag a fly ball with their glove, toss the ball in the air, drop the glove, and make the peg with their bare hand. 

Fielders leaped high on metallic legs, and base runners beat out the toss to first base. Some batters got pinch runners after getting on base, and the Warriors’ pinch runners often were running on prosthetics. Warriors bat boy Tucker, age 11, in addition to returning the bat to the dugout after a batter got on base – and the bats were Louisville Sluggers, made by the team’s principal sponsor – was sometimes carrying a prosthetic arm left behind by the runner. 

Another sponsor, the Margaritaville resort on Ft. Myers Beach, put the Warriors team up over the weekend, giving them a day to relax after a hot day playing baseball. 

Warm weather is another challenge for the amputees of the Warriors team. In hotter conditions, players with artificial legs have to pull off their prosthetics and neoprene sleeves to wipe down the stumps of their limbs after each inning.

Van Sleet said his team demonstrates sacrifice and resilience, and the ability to rise above challenges. “We want to show other amputees, and everyone who sees or hears about us, that life without a limb is limitless.” The team is a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization. Find out more at LSWarriorsteam.org.

Van Sleet was philosophical about the final score in Saturday’s game. 

“You win some, you lose some,” he said. “All these guys are missing a body part. Did they lose in life? They’re still playing the game they love.”