Freddie Aguirre of Elkins shuffled down the bench, giving each of his teammates a high five.
Wearing a T-shirt reading "This is baseball," Aguirre threw a triple, and teammate Muriel Brown of Elkins pushed him on in to home base and a score.
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WHAT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO SAY?
Bean bag baseball is a big hit in the region's senior centers operated by the Arkansas Area Agency on Aging. On a day last month, a team from the Madison County Senior Activity and Wellness Center traveled to the Elkins center for a game.
TAKE THE FIELD
Bean bag baseball varies just a little bit from the American classic: There's no bat. The diamond is set up more like a bowling alley. The outfield and infield are empty. And the batter is the pitcher.
Many will recognize bean bag baseball as a modified game of Baggo or Cornhole. The "batter" stands at home plate and pitches his bean bags to the board 17 feet across the room. Each hole on the board is marked with a baseball action: single, double, triple, home run, out. The batter takes the action of the hole in which his bean bag falls.
"The whole idea is to keep seniors active and moving," said Angie Dunlap, director of senior center services for the regional office of the Agency on Aging in Harrison.
Across the room from home plate sit three chairs, representing first, second and third bases. If the batter throws a triple, the rules of the game require him to walk to the bases, touch the chairs marked first and second and sit in the chair representing a triple. And each player must touch home base again to score.
"It's a great game those with mobility can play," Dunlap said. "Although we've had them play with a cane, a walker, a wheelchair and someone even played with [an oxygen tank]."
The game can be modified for elders who are more frail, she said. Another player might join the game as a pinch runner.
"As I'm looking at it, it's mainly socialization," said Richard Del Soto, director of the Elkins center, as he watched the game from a window in his office.
"It gets them out of the house to come here," he continued. "And it gets them out of their seat and active. It's good for hand-eye coordination."
Aguirre said he moved to Northwest Arkansas from California seven years ago to be near his daughter. "I never had no friends till I came up here. Now I've got lots of friends."
Whenever lunch is ready, the game stops, and tables and chairs are pushed back in place. Every senior center in the region serves lunch Monday through Friday for a suggested donation of $3 for those 60 years old and older, Dunlap said.
"Arkansas is No. 1 in the country in senior hunger," she said. "A lot of them live on a limited income and may need to choose between buying groceries or paying their electric bill or getting much-needed medication."
The meals provide one-third of the recommended daily allowance of nutrients, she continued. "We want them to be as healthy as they can be for as long as they can be," Dunlap concluded. "And we want them to live independently."
These seniors ball players are definitely independent. The bean bag baseball games "run themselves," Del Soto said. The senior players organize, set up and officiate the games themselves, he said. "And they want it that way."
"We play until it's time for lunch, and in the afternoons sometimes," explained Helen Ledbetter of Huntsville.
Best yet, anyone can play bean bag baseball. "It's for members [of the senior center] and guests," Del Soto said. "They don't have to live in Elkins. And there's no fee for membership [to the center]. Nobody has to pay a dime while they're here."
After lunch, team members served as the ground crew, resetting the field for more games.
BATTER, BATTER, SWING
"Get a homer, Donna. Come on," yelled Mildred Sizemore of Elkins.
Donna Bratton of Elkins did.
"Willis, talk to that bean bag," Sizemore encouraged.
W.J. "Willis" Combs of Japton held the bean bag up to his ear and threw a home run.
Peggy Shuler of Elkins came up to bat, using her special stance. She bent at her waist as she eyed the board and shook the bean bags in her hands. Her bag hit the board and slid to a triple.
"I'm a little competitive," Shuler admitted. "So far I've been lucky. I got a triple, but I'm trying to make a home run."
"I don't care anything about sports, but this is different," said Daniel Bowman of Elkins, a reluctant team captain.
He said there is no secret to the game. "You just throw it and hope for the best, and it usually is," he said, and went onto score six runs in the game.
"You never know what's going to happen," said Shuler. "We all want home runs, but we don't always get them."
"In Harrison, I hit good that day, but I have not hit good since," Sizemore said.
Shuler's secret? "I just be happy with whatever I make, and some of them are good," she said.
Just like many successful baseball players, these seniors can be superstitious -- about their bean bags. Team members from Huntsville make and carry their own bean bags for competition. Myrtle Woodward of Huntsville said she made the bean bags of Razorback fabric she used to throw in the game. They are filled three-quarters full with brown beans or white beans, she explained.
"We just like ours," Woodward said. And if a batter is not hitting, a change of bean bags might be in order.
"But nothing works if you're not on it," she said.
The members of the Madison County team claimed they don't like to practice. "It doesn't do me any good," said Carol Fishel of Huntsville, shaking her head at her performance that day.
But the Elkins players officially practice three days a week, play another team once a week then skip a day to play bingo on Wednesday. In truth, they play every chance they get, Aguirre said.
The competition is serious, but good natured. The members of the Elkins and Huntsville teams play each other often because the trip to the ball park is shorter. And Ruth Cornett of Huntsville admitted that Huntsville's rival is Elkins. "Right here," she said when asked. "We never beat them, but we try."
"But we love them all," Shuler said.
The players report bean bag baseball careers of seven, 10 and even 18 years. In addition to friendships on their own teams, players have come to consider players from opposing teams as friends, too. "Are you playing for them?" called Jerry Smith of Huntsville to team mate Earl Henman. "Mr. Willis, can we trade you for Earl?"
"Oh, no, an out," Henman said. "I knew it when I threw it."
"Somebody's got to make the outs," Ledbetter called with encouragement. "And I tell you. I'm good at it."
"We always have fun when we play," said Doris Taylor of Elkins.
In the meantime, Aguirre had scored four more runs.
"Watch that Freddie go," Sizemore said, "Woo hoo!
"Freddie never has a bad day!"
NAN Our Town on 11/17/2016