 |
|
 |
||
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|||
MidWest MFA AgriServices group has locations at St. Joseph and KingCity. CLICK - MFA CONNECT
|
|
Printable Page
07/24 05:00 CDT Born without a right hand, Britt Apgar is set to play in the
Women's Professional Baseball League
Born without a right hand, Britt Apgar is set to play in the Women's
Professional Baseball League
By JAY COHEN
AP Sports Writer
Britt Apgar was born with a limb difference. She had a small right forearm,
half of a palm and no fingers on her right hand.
On her way to 12 surgeries by the age of 4, she was taught two lessons by her
parents that never left her. Two principles that she carried all the way to the
Women's Professional Baseball League.
"My mom said I am never allowed to use my hand as an excuse," Apgar said. "Like
if I wanted to do the monkey bars, we were out there figuring out how to do the
monkey bars, and they taught me how to tie my shoes before I even went to
preschool. So that way I was never, like I never felt weird or different around
the kids. And my dad ... if I wanted to do anything, he wanted me to put my
heart into it like 100 percent."
Family is at the center of Apgar's journey to the WPBL's inaugural season this
summer in Springfield, Illinois, pitching and playing the outfield for the Los
Angeles Queens. The family she was born into --- her parents, Tommie and Tom,
and her older brother, Zach --- and the family she picked up along the way.
"I have always and will probably forever describe her like this: She is
sunshine," said Courtney Jamison, one of Apgar's closest friends.
Baseball, softball and dropping out of college Apgar bats right-handed, resting the bat on the flat part of the nub on her right arm. She uses her left hand and arm to pull the bat on a swing while the nub guides it through the zone. When she pitches, Apgar rests her glove on her nub and keeps it down near her waist so she can quickly move it to her left hand after she finishes her motion. When she catches a ball in the outfield, she turns her glove inside before taking it off and grabbing the ball to throw it. "It sounds like a lot, but it's really quick, I swear," Apgar said. It's a process she practiced and perfected in the sunshine of North Carolina. Apgar, 22, was born in Farmville near East Carolina University, and she grew up playing in the fields near her home. Her father and brother would throw in the yard, and she fell in love with the pop of the baseball landing in their gloves. "I wanted to make that sound, too," she said. While Zach was content to just play catch, Britt wanted to do everything. Tom studied former major league pitcher Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand, and taught his daughter how Abbott fielded his position. When the family moved to Greensboro, Britt continued to play. She made the junior varsity squad as a freshman in high school, but the coach told her he couldn't keep her on the team. "He pulled me to the side and said, ?Hey listen, I think you're a great player, but you're just never going to be big and strong enough to play with my guys. And we get changed on the bus, we get changed behind dugouts at the field, and I just can't have that interfering with the team chemistry and stuff,'" Apgar recalled. Apgar started crying and walked off the field. She switched to softball, and she played all the way through one full season at Greensboro College. A couple of weeks into her sophomore year, she quit. She liked playing softball, but she didn't like the atmosphere around the team, and it wasn't baseball. She transferred to North Carolina-Greensboro and got a job at a gym. When Tommie --- a factory worker --- broke both of her legs in an accident at home, she dropped out of college and started working full-time. "Put my head down, worked a lot," she said. Apgar thought she was done with baseball. But it turned out baseball wasn't done with her.
Finding a solution to a big problem When Apgar hits, the nub catches the impact of contact while the left hand finishes the swing. That becomes an issue when she faces velocity in the upper 70s and low 80s, like what she is going to see this summer in Springfield. Apgar attended a WPBL camp in March at the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox. Facing left-hander Niki Eckert, she hit a grounder to second --- and knew almost immediately something was wrong. "Swung for it, just busted my nub open completely," Apgar said. Apgar's grounder was the third out of the inning, so she was bleeding when she ran out to left field. Wearing a white uniform and concerned about the implications of what happened, she used the back of her glove, her black belt and a sock to hide the blood. Looking for a solution to her problem against high velocity, Apgar went on Instagram and asked for help. She was flooded with responses, including suggestions for foam and prosthetics. "Even when people didn't have helpful hints or like tips or tricks, they would just say, ?Protect the nub,'" she said. Using a batting glove, foam and a hollowed-out part of an old prosthetic, Apgar developed a prototype with some help from Jeff Gardner, a WPBL investor. Gardner, a former scientist who works in generic drugs, became friends with Apgar after they met at the March camp in Florida. Gardner went a step further, reaching out to Chrysta Irolla, the director of prosthetics and orthotics at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. "When you get a personality like Brittany's, it's easy to want to help somebody like her," Gardner said. Irolla and the hospital are building a prosthetic for Apgar with a gel liner and a hook extension that is designed to fit around the bat and provide a more secure attachment. Doctors used some of the bones in Apgar's left leg and foot to help strengthen her arm when she was a kid, so the hospital also is creating custom foot orthotics for her with built-in rigid plates. "She's very open to trying new things. She just wants to perform at the highest level and everything that she can do to get there," Irolla said. "It's really nice to have somebody be that open and creative and motivated." Apgar has no feeling in her nub. During one visit with Irolla, she tried on a prosthetic that mimicked the sensation of touch. "It was the first time that I had held a bat and it felt like I was holding it with two hands. So I started tearing up," she said. "It was such a mind-blowing feeling."
The WPBL opportunity, and the training Baseball moved back into Apgar's life more than two years ago, when she saw a post on social media about WPBL tryouts. She put her name in and then forgot about it. In April 2025, she got an email inviting her to try out at Nationals Park that August. "I couldn't believe it," Apgar said. "I was like, there's no way this is actually happening." Then, reality set in. She was about to face the best of the best, and she hadn't played competitive baseball for years. Following her father's advice, she went all out with a challenging daily schedule. She got up at 6 a.m. so she could run and do footwork drills before going to work at 9 a.m. At 3 p.m., she took her lunch break and joined a friend for another run with a weighted vest. She drove to her parents' home after work, and Tom threw batting practice to her until the sun went down. Jamison's boyfriend, Logan Vacharasin, played baseball at Greensboro, and he got Apgar into the college's facility for more baseball activities at night. Then Apgar would go back to her gym for grueling sessions with Isaiah Manning, a college wrestler. "There were nights that he would make me cry in that gym," Apgar said. "I would be bawling, crying, thinking I couldn't do it. And he would be like, you're not leaving until you can do this." As Apgar trained almost around the clock, she was backed by constant support from her parents. And Jamison, who brought her food and told her how proud she was of her. And her girlfriend, Natalie Brewer, who encouraged her to keep going when she was ready to give up. And Vacharasin and Manning. The list goes on and on. There were more than 600 players at tryouts, but Apgar made enough of an impression that she was selected by Los Angeles in the third round of the league's six-round draft in November. The Queens play their first game of the season on Aug. 1 against New York. On the day of the draft, Apgar was surrounded by friends and family at Jamison's apartment. "They had all invested time and effort and energy into me making it and we had all made it at that very moment," she said, "and so that whole night was just us on top of the world celebrating together. It was so great." ___ AP Sports: https://apnews.com/sports
Baseball, softball and dropping out of college Apgar bats right-handed, resting the bat on the flat part of the nub on her right arm. She uses her left hand and arm to pull the bat on a swing while the nub guides it through the zone. When she pitches, Apgar rests her glove on her nub and keeps it down near her waist so she can quickly move it to her left hand after she finishes her motion. When she catches a ball in the outfield, she turns her glove inside before taking it off and grabbing the ball to throw it. "It sounds like a lot, but it's really quick, I swear," Apgar said. It's a process she practiced and perfected in the sunshine of North Carolina. Apgar, 22, was born in Farmville near East Carolina University, and she grew up playing in the fields near her home. Her father and brother would throw in the yard, and she fell in love with the pop of the baseball landing in their gloves. "I wanted to make that sound, too," she said. While Zach was content to just play catch, Britt wanted to do everything. Tom studied former major league pitcher Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand, and taught his daughter how Abbott fielded his position. When the family moved to Greensboro, Britt continued to play. She made the junior varsity squad as a freshman in high school, but the coach told her he couldn't keep her on the team. "He pulled me to the side and said, ?Hey listen, I think you're a great player, but you're just never going to be big and strong enough to play with my guys. And we get changed on the bus, we get changed behind dugouts at the field, and I just can't have that interfering with the team chemistry and stuff,'" Apgar recalled. Apgar started crying and walked off the field. She switched to softball, and she played all the way through one full season at Greensboro College. A couple of weeks into her sophomore year, she quit. She liked playing softball, but she didn't like the atmosphere around the team, and it wasn't baseball. She transferred to North Carolina-Greensboro and got a job at a gym. When Tommie --- a factory worker --- broke both of her legs in an accident at home, she dropped out of college and started working full-time. "Put my head down, worked a lot," she said. Apgar thought she was done with baseball. But it turned out baseball wasn't done with her.
Finding a solution to a big problem When Apgar hits, the nub catches the impact of contact while the left hand finishes the swing. That becomes an issue when she faces velocity in the upper 70s and low 80s, like what she is going to see this summer in Springfield. Apgar attended a WPBL camp in March at the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox. Facing left-hander Niki Eckert, she hit a grounder to second --- and knew almost immediately something was wrong. "Swung for it, just busted my nub open completely," Apgar said. Apgar's grounder was the third out of the inning, so she was bleeding when she ran out to left field. Wearing a white uniform and concerned about the implications of what happened, she used the back of her glove, her black belt and a sock to hide the blood. Looking for a solution to her problem against high velocity, Apgar went on Instagram and asked for help. She was flooded with responses, including suggestions for foam and prosthetics. "Even when people didn't have helpful hints or like tips or tricks, they would just say, ?Protect the nub,'" she said. Using a batting glove, foam and a hollowed-out part of an old prosthetic, Apgar developed a prototype with some help from Jeff Gardner, a WPBL investor. Gardner, a former scientist who works in generic drugs, became friends with Apgar after they met at the March camp in Florida. Gardner went a step further, reaching out to Chrysta Irolla, the director of prosthetics and orthotics at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. "When you get a personality like Brittany's, it's easy to want to help somebody like her," Gardner said. Irolla and the hospital are building a prosthetic for Apgar with a gel liner and a hook extension that is designed to fit around the bat and provide a more secure attachment. Doctors used some of the bones in Apgar's left leg and foot to help strengthen her arm when she was a kid, so the hospital also is creating custom foot orthotics for her with built-in rigid plates. "She's very open to trying new things. She just wants to perform at the highest level and everything that she can do to get there," Irolla said. "It's really nice to have somebody be that open and creative and motivated." Apgar has no feeling in her nub. During one visit with Irolla, she tried on a prosthetic that mimicked the sensation of touch. "It was the first time that I had held a bat and it felt like I was holding it with two hands. So I started tearing up," she said. "It was such a mind-blowing feeling."
The WPBL opportunity, and the training Baseball moved back into Apgar's life more than two years ago, when she saw a post on social media about WPBL tryouts. She put her name in and then forgot about it. In April 2025, she got an email inviting her to try out at Nationals Park that August. "I couldn't believe it," Apgar said. "I was like, there's no way this is actually happening." Then, reality set in. She was about to face the best of the best, and she hadn't played competitive baseball for years. Following her father's advice, she went all out with a challenging daily schedule. She got up at 6 a.m. so she could run and do footwork drills before going to work at 9 a.m. At 3 p.m., she took her lunch break and joined a friend for another run with a weighted vest. She drove to her parents' home after work, and Tom threw batting practice to her until the sun went down. Jamison's boyfriend, Logan Vacharasin, played baseball at Greensboro, and he got Apgar into the college's facility for more baseball activities at night. Then Apgar would go back to her gym for grueling sessions with Isaiah Manning, a college wrestler. "There were nights that he would make me cry in that gym," Apgar said. "I would be bawling, crying, thinking I couldn't do it. And he would be like, you're not leaving until you can do this." As Apgar trained almost around the clock, she was backed by constant support from her parents. And Jamison, who brought her food and told her how proud she was of her. And her girlfriend, Natalie Brewer, who encouraged her to keep going when she was ready to give up. And Vacharasin and Manning. The list goes on and on. There were more than 600 players at tryouts, but Apgar made enough of an impression that she was selected by Los Angeles in the third round of the league's six-round draft in November. The Queens play their first game of the season on Aug. 1 against New York. On the day of the draft, Apgar was surrounded by friends and family at Jamison's apartment. "They had all invested time and effort and energy into me making it and we had all made it at that very moment," she said, "and so that whole night was just us on top of the world celebrating together. It was so great." ___ AP Sports: https://apnews.com/sports
