- Playing
- Challenger Softball Team
- From
- Dmae Roberts
INTRO: It's a spring Sunday in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Under a bright blue sky, the Kimberton Gators take the field. Here there are no strikes or outs, and each player swings the bat as much as needed to hit the ball. This is the Challenger division, designed for youth with disabilities. The Kimberton Youth Athletic League chartered their first Challenger team in the mid-1990s to provide opportunities for youth with special needs to play organized softball. Amanda Jefferies and her family - her mom Deb, her dad Randy, and her sisters Dina and Jess - have been involved with the Challengers since Amanda was nine years old. Writer Cynthia Kryder took a tape deck out to the softball field for this piece. Amanda Jefferies likes to bat and catch. Dmae Roberts produced this sound piece from Cryder's recordings. Published on Stories1st.org. Distributed independent to stations that aired it locally. Never been on any network show.
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Piece Description
INTRO: It's a spring Sunday in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Under a bright blue sky, the Kimberton Gators take the field. Here there are no strikes or outs, and each player swings the bat as much as needed to hit the ball. This is the Challenger division, designed for youth with disabilities. The Kimberton Youth Athletic League chartered their first Challenger team in the mid-1990s to provide opportunities for youth with special needs to play organized softball. Amanda Jefferies and her family - her mom Deb, her dad Randy, and her sisters Dina and Jess - have been involved with the Challengers since Amanda was nine years old. Writer Cynthia Kryder took a tape deck out to the softball field for this piece. Amanda Jefferies likes to bat and catch. Dmae Roberts produced this sound piece from Cryder's recordings. Published on Stories1st.org. Distributed independent to stations that aired it locally. Never been on any network show.
Transcript
SOUND: CROWDS CHEERING AT A SOFTBALL GAME
AMANDA: In some ways softball is. I call it, like, team effort. Yeah. That?s what I call it. You know. You give a lot of team effort when you hit. You give a lot of team effort to your friends, you give a lot of team effort to everyone else, really. For one thing. (calls out) Go Kev!
SOUND: CHEERING AND CLAPPING
DEB: When Amanda was born she was born perfectly fine. By the time she was 15 months old I knew that something was wrong. She did everything normally with the standing, the sitting, the walking and the rolling. But she wasn?t making any sound. Children?s Hospital was the one that really tied in the true diagnosis and labeled her developmentally immature, which is a nice way of saying that she?s educably retarded. She has an IQ of about 47. Her speech will always be slurred. And when she starts talking and people turn around and star...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
IN: Sound of softball game
OUT: Sound of softball game (tail of 30 seconds of sound to fade out on)
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Hans Anderson
Posted on November 07, 2003 at 02:14 PM | Permalink
Review of Stories1st: Team Effort
If you are putting together a sportsmanship series, or anything about mentally-challenged children or how their parents cope, this would fit perfectly. I'd like to hear more about how the woman says there is *no* meanness in a challenged-game, where the "normal" kids are complaining, back-stabbing, putting down, etc. There were several smaller, stories-within-stories that I think would work well instead of the broader angle. Perhaps you could cut three or four different stories from what was surely left out and end up with this overall view, but then some closer glimpses. Make it a 29 minute piece to air as a "special" or something. Yeah, I know... who's going to air that? I'd like to hear an honest piece about what the "normal" kids think. Has anyone ever done that? Would the levels of cruelty be high, or low?
My deal with the rating is that it would be nice to hear different styles for pieces like this. That's it. This is well-done, but I feel that it sounds a lot like other stories and I think PR needs a shakeup. If you like PR the way it is, this and are going for this type of story, it's well done and provocative.