Caleb Welday is standing at home plate.
With his feet kicking up dirt as he waits for the right pitch, the crowd is on the edge of their seats. The pitcher, Rob Welday, is throwing ball after ball, but nothing in the right zone for Caleb.
He swings and he misses.
His banana yellow jersey and purple baseball hat match his teammates in the dugout, who anxiously await their turn.
Then, the perfect pitch comes floating into the batter’s box, connecting with the tip of Caleb’s bat, rolling the ball past the pitcher’s mound.
Cheers erupt all around him. Fans shout his name and clap excitedly. Leaving his bat behind, Caleb, 26, practically flies to first base.
It is a breezy Monday night in John F. Kennedy Park in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and this is Superhero Baseball.
Caleb, who was celebrated all the way to first, stops at the base. Because that is what you do in Superhero Baseball.
Along with one-base runs, this league plays by different rules. Rubber balls, occasional tees, and no outs are just some of the adaptations that Jen Welday has created for this league. Because, unlike any other diamond in the park, all of the players in Superhero Baseball have physical or intellectual disabilities.

Superhero Baseball, a subset of Superhero Sports, is a program run by the Reynoldsburg Parks and Recreation Department. The baseball league is led by volunteer head coach Jen Welday, a Reynoldsburg resident and the 54-year-old mother of Caleb. Armed with a glove full of rubber balls, her husband, Rob Welday, is the pitcher extraordinaire.
For $25 a season, Reynoldsburg resident or not, players get the matching yellow and purple uniform, and a season of excitement. Most players are from Reynoldsburg, but some come from neighboring towns such as Pickerington, Canal Winchester, and Groveport. While some players run between the bases, others walk, and some are wheeled. No matter the adaptation, the bases are rounded.
Here, in the dusty baseball diamond in the back of the park, parent participation is discouraged. They are encouraged to just watch.
Annie Lewis, a mom of two boys ages 11 and 10 who are in the league, said watching is one of her favorite parts.
“When you are a special needs parent, you feel like they are your appendage for absolutely everything. … You are always shadowing your child. … And this has been one of the few opportunities where they have been like, ‘Nope, we’ve got it.’ And you have the experience of actually getting to sit back and watch your child participate in an activity without you being right there with them, every step,” she said. “It has been amazing.”
According to a study done by the National Alliance for Caregiving, an organization to advocate for and support caregiver families, parents of children with special needs who are the main caregiver spend an additional 30 hours a week helping children with daily activities affected by their disabilities. This is in addition to the 13.5 hours per week on average that parents spend with children.
At Superhero Baseball, the joy of the fans is not from a stadium hot dog, or basking in the sunshine. It is from their camping chairs. Their joy is found in all the parents, seated on the sidelines, watching their kids – just like any other kids’ baseball game on any other baseball diamond. But here, it means more.


This, according to Amanda Gehres, the recreation superintendent for Reynoldsburg Parks and Recreation Department, was a crucial factor in the creation of this league.
“It is just as important to us to provide parents with a chance to be a parent as it is for the players to be athletes,” she said
Welday started Superhero Baseball in 2018. Caleb had played in other baseball leagues, like the Miracle League which plays on an adaptive, concrete diamond, but they were looking for a home. And more specifically, they were looking for a home with dirt.
“He wanted to play baseball like everyone else,” Jen Welday said. “He wanted to play on a dirt field.”
Superhero Sports started in Reynoldsburg in 2014 with an adaptive soccer league, but was expanded when Welday proposed adding baseball. It now also includes flag football. Baseball primarily happens at JFK Field, a very dusty dirt field – exactly as Caleb wanted.
“Our kids don’t get a lot of the same opportunities. And that is another reason why we are on this dirt field. It is because that is an opportunity that all the other parks and rec kids in Reynoldsburg have. And so we want the same thing,” Jen Welday said.
Jen, who has no experience with baseball, is not huddling up players to discuss strategy and game-winning plays. Rather, she wants participants to burn off some energy, be active, and get dirty.
Getting dirty seems to be a guarantee, especially with some players taking breaks by lying in the infield, nuzzling into the dusty ground. But nobody bats an eye, and play continues around them, careful not to interfere with the much needed break.
From their camp chairs lining the diamond, spectator cheers erupt like clock work. Foul ball, unintentional bunts, or near home runs are all greeted with the same explosion of positivity.
Because that is what you do at Superhero Baseball.
Steve Lewis, Annie’s husband, explained this unique air of positivity that hangs around the JFK baseball diamond.
The Superhero program “takes sports and makes it completely positive,” he said. “It’s just sports for the sake of joy and exercise and sports for the sake of fun. The environment you get being here is just nothing but positive.”
The ear-to-ear grin that positivity paints every face in the vicinity of Superhero Baseball is seemingly unprecedented in the modern sports world.

Of the more than 60 million children who participate in youth sports throughout the U.S., 70% drop out by adolescence, according to a study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health in 2014. One of the main reasons: They say it’s not fun anymore. And parental behavior has devolved so much that 50% of sports officials say they do not feel safe while doing their jobs, USA Today reported in 2023.
Here, every at bat is met with personalized cheers, every cluster of camping chairs calling out the athletes by name. Smiles are mandatory. The feeling of inspiration is unavoidable.
“It has been really interesting how we have turned this into a community. It is really neat getting to know all of the kids and cheering for them,” Steve Lewis said.
That is unsurprising, considering that the athlete pool for baseball is remarkably similar to the lineup during flag football. The soccer roster is no different.
With each game that passes, and each ball that is hit, the players become more and more like a team. The older players, some as old as 30, begin to teach the newer players the ropes. They become the model of a “Superhero” athlete.
The hits off of tees that barely make it past the pitcher’s mound mean more to the people in the stands than any home run ever could.
“The first time Caleb played baseball, he was 8 and walked with a walker and had braces on both legs,” Jen Welday said. “And he got out there and he swung and hit the ball. I burst into tears.”
On a recent Monday night, Caleb stood over the base, having traded in his cane for his baseball bat, looking to send a runner home, clocking yet another RBI. As his ball made its way into play, and he began his journey to first base, the little boy running home couldn’t contain his excitement.
With his arms thrown over his head, his slightly oversized and beaten up batter’s helmet wobbling as he ran, he shouted out to everyone who would listen, “I’m going home! I’m going home!”
Anyone watching that scene would have to agree with Annie Lewis, who said, “Superhero Sports restores my faith in humanity.”
Sarah Sollinger writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation and donations from readers.Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.