This episode was written and produced by Jack Glover.

Playing a sport without sight might sound impossible. But it turns out, there are blind athletes all around the world doing exactly that. Instead of using their eyes, these players rely on their ears to hit a pitch, block a throw, and charge across a crowded field. Featuring beep baseball player Ethan Johnston and goalball coach Keith Young.

MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Original music by Wesley Slover

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View Transcript ▶︎

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[sfx: sports crowd cheering]

[music in]

Whether it’s a roaring crowd, [sfx] a referee's whistle, [sfx] a shouting coach, [sfx], or a blaring goal horn [sfx], sound is a crucial part of basically every major sport out there.

But there are some sports where sound does more than just call out a foul or ring in a goal. In these games, players are totally reliant on sound to know where they are in relation to the ball, to the field, and to each other. These sports are built around the experience of hearing, and during a game, players have to be hyper aware of every sound around them.

[music out into beep baseball sfx]

Ethan: My name is Esubalew ‘Ethan’ Johnston, and I am a blind athlete.

[music in]

Ethan was born in Ethiopia, but grew up in Missouri. As a kid, he loved sports. But his partial blindness made playing them really difficult.

Ethan: I played soccer and just typical club soccer back from like fourth grade all the way to eighth grade, but obviously that wasn't adaptive so it was hard. The best part about it, I have a lot of brothers and sisters so we were always on the same team, so they'll say, "Ethan, ball on the right." And I can see light in color, so we always played in the morning when the sun was bright.

Ethan: And so the white ball on beautiful green grass, I could see it if it's four, five feet away from me.

After he graduated from high school, Ethan moved out west.

Ethan: I signed up to go to the Colorado Center for the Blind and there I met one of my teammates by the name of Demetrius and he told me, "Do you want to join a baseball team?" And I said, "Baseball team for the blind?" He's like, "Yeah." I was thinking in my head, "How does that work? You know, are you going to put the ball on the tee, hit it, and then go sit down and you're going to get a lollipop for it?" I wasn't sure.

Ethan’s friend explained that this wasn’t traditional baseball. It was a modified version called Beep Baseball, a real competitive sport, with its own unique set of rules.

Ethan: It was definitely exciting, because I was really swinging a bat hard as I can. Nothing was set on the tee for me. It was a pitcher pitching me the ball.

Ethan: And it was really awesome just to experience hitting the ball and running the base and scoring and playing defense.

Ethan quickly fell in love with the sport, and his new teammates were happy to have him.

Ethan: My team was excited because I was a young, hungry, passionate athlete because I found an adaptive sport, and so they were excited to have me on their team.

[music out]

Beep Baseball was created in the mid sixties, when a telephone engineer designed the first beeping baseball. A decade later, the National Beep Baseball Association was founded, and the first World Series was held. Today, the World Series includes about 25 teams from the US, Canada and Taiwan.

Beep baseball teams are open to all ages and genders, from kids, all the way up to seniors. Players wear blindfolds or black eye shades, so that anyone with partial vision doesn’t have an unfair advantage.

[music in]

Even though they share a name, there are some important differences between beep baseball, and conventional baseball. The first is the ball itself, which is three times heavier than a normal baseball.

Ethan: The ball is 16 ounces, so that's a hard ball. It's larger than a softball.

The ball makes a continuous beeping noise, which allows the players to keep track of it.

[sfx: beep baseball]

The next big difference is how pitching works in the game. In beep baseball, both the pitcher and the catcher are on the same team as the batter. Unlike the batters though, the pitcher and the catcher are sighted, and don’t wear blindfolds. When a batter is up, the pitcher tries to set them up with the perfect pitch.

Ethan: So he's trying to give me a beautiful pitch to nail, so I can hit the ball and run to the base.

When you first start to play, this takes some getting used to.

Ethan: So batting was difficult for me because I was listening to the beep of the ball instead of my pitcher, because as a batter, you want to listen to your pitcher.

The sound of the ball is really designed for the defensive players, and not for the batter. Because as a batter, when a ball is flying towards you, you don’t really have time to hear where it’s going to be. Instead, nailing a pitch is all about timing.

Ethan: So the pitcher would say, "Set, ready, pitch," and when he says pitch, you're supposed to be taking your best cut. [sfx:" set, ready, pitch,", beep baseball being pitched]

[music out]

Another key difference from standard baseball, is that In beep baseball, there are only 2 bases.

Ethan: First base and third base.

Rather than flat squares, the bases are padded cylinders that stand about 4 feet tall, and these cylinders have speakers inside them. When the player hits the ball, a person called a base operator will activate one of these two bases.

Here’s what the base sounds like. [sfx: base buzzing]

The batter doesn’t know which base is going to buzz until they’ve hit the ball. As soon as it starts buzzing, they run towards that sound.

Ethan: And as a batter, that's the best sound ever. That means you got to find that sound and take off [sfx: running toward base].

While the batter is running towards the buzzing base, the defensive players race to get a hold of the ball [sfx: running toward beep baseball].

Ethan: And to get the ball, you just have to pick it up and have complete possession of it. Make sure it's not touching the grass, that's it, and that's how you get an out.

[music in]

To find the ball, the fielders rely not only on the beeping sound it makes, but also on direction from players called spotters. Like the pitchers and the catchers, spotters are also sighted. The field is divided into numbered zones, and the spotter’s job is to call out where the ball is headed.

Ethan: So for instance, I play shortstop on the left side, and if my spotter says “three”, that means I usually stand in zone three and the ball is coming at me.

When the ball is moving towards him, Ethan has to make a split second decision about whether can get it.

Ethan: If I can get it, I'll get it. If I can't get it, then communicate to my teammates behind me saying, "Over me! Left! Right! Off me!"

Good communication is essential if players want to get the ball and avoid accidents. For example, if they’re sprinting towards the ball...

Ethan: Say "moving" or "charging", "looking", just to let the person behind you know or beside you know, like “I'm looking for it so you can kind of lay off. Don't run me over.”

But accidents still happen.

Ethan: There's collisions that happen because of miscommunication. So especially there is the middle defenders and if they don't communicate, they're both going for the ball, they're going to plow into each other.

[music out]

[sfx: team members colliding]

Ethan: So communication is very important.

If a batter gets to the base before the other team picks up the ball, it’s scored as a full run. There’s no running between bases or back to home. That means that every single hit is either a run or an out, and nothing in between. So the stakes are always high.

[music in]

To make a successful run, you wanna do pretty much the opposite of what you do in traditional baseball.

Ethan: So the key to beep baseball is you want to hit pop flies [sfx: bat hit, beep baseball, whistle sound].

A pop fly is a ball that arcs high into the air. In traditional baseball, pop flies are usually the easiest ones to catch.

Ethan: Regular baseball, if you hit ground balls or line drives, it's great, if the ground balls find holes, pass the fielders.

But in beep baseball, it’s the exact opposite.

Ethan: Beep baseball you gotta hit those mile-high pop flies.

This is because a ball that’s flying high in the air is a lot harder to pinpoint than one that’s bouncing along the ground. And that gives you a headstart to run towards the base.

Ethan: The key in beep baseball is don't hit the ball on the ground. That's just easy. Because I mean these blind people, they got ears like hound dogs. They can locate and scoop it up before you get halfway there.

Now catching a ball almost never happens. According to the National Beep Baseball Association, there have only been five recorded cases of a ball being caught. But even if you’re not catching the ball, getting a batter out is still just as satisfying.

Ethan: So the best feeling is when you shut down a rally. Say they scored four, five, six in a row and then you get that opportunity with a ground ball to you or to your left or to your right, and you dive and stretch and pick it off the ground before the runner gets to the base and you hear, "Ahhh." [laughs] As a defender, that's the best sound.

[music out]

Like most sports, the crowds at a game can get pretty enthusiastic. But there is some special etiquette to follow. This is from a game in Columbus, Georgia.

[sfx clip: Announcer: So we want to remind you once again as always, when the ball is in play, please try to stay quiet, so we can hear the beeping of the ball and the buzzing of the bases.]

Ethan: Basically you cannot cheer during the play. So say I hit the ball. During that time, until the empire says “Safe” or “Out,” you can't say anything.

Ethan: The only ones that can talk is the defensive players obviously, saying, "By me! Left! Over! Tip! Charge it! Come up!”

In between plays, the crowd sounds about the same as any baseball game [sfx: crowd]. But once a batter is up, it suddenly sounds like golf [sfx: crowd silent while pitching beep baseball, then crowd joins in once the play is in motion].

Once the play is called, the noise comes back.

[sfx clip: Umpire: He’s out! 

Announcer: Ohh, what a play! Attagirl! [cheers]]

The silence from the crowd helps the players keep their ears on the ball. But that doesn’t stop some players from trying to psych out their opponents.

Ethan: There's some players that, before they even have the ball, say "Oh, got it!", so if you're a rookie runner you're like, "Oh, I'm out," and you just slow down, but they don't even have the ball yet. The main thing is as a hitter, you need to listen to the umpire only.

[sfx clip: Umpire: SAFE!]

[music in]

As competitive as this sport is, there’s also a lot of camaraderie between the teams. This is even true during the Beep Baseball World Series.

Ethan: There's 20 to 30 teams out there and obviously during the games it's not like family. You're trying to kill each other or you're trying to embarrass each other. But after all that's over with, you socialize and hang out. It's like a huge family and friends. You just hang out, have fun, and if you need to pop bottles, pop bottles [sfx: bottle caps, then bottles clinking/cheers]. Whatever it may be. However you enjoy yourself with your family, that's what happens.

Today, there are beep baseball teams in cities across the US. But this isn’t the only sport designed for blind and low-vision players. One of them is actually included in the Paralympic Games. And it’s the only one that wasn’t adapted from an existing sport.

That’s coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

Beep baseball is one of many sports that have been adapted for blind and low vision players. There’s also soccer, track and field events, a version of tennis, and even archery.

As you might imagine, all of these sports put a big emphasis on sound. It could be a beeping ball, or something as simple as communication between sighted coaches and non-sighted players.

But there’s only one Paralympic sport that isn’t adapted from an existing one. It’s called Goalball.

[music out]

[sfx clip: Goalball Announcer: [Whistle] Play! …Goal, Germany! 1-0 [cheers]]

Keith: Goalball is a Paralympic sport played by blind and visually impaired athletes.

That’s Keith Young, the head coach of the US Men's National Goalball team.

Keith: I'm blessed to be a part of the blind vision impaired community, even though I'm sighted.

[music in]

The history of goalball goes back to World War II. It was originally developed for visually-impaired veterans returning home from the war.

Keith: And it literally started out with almost like a medicine ball, doing exercises, and turned into a game.

In 1976, goalball became an official sport of the Paralympic Games. The first world championship was held two years later.

Keith: And that's how it’s evolved over time.

To someone who’s only familiar with mainstream American sports, goalball will look pretty different.

Keith: It's a three versus three game. It's played on a metric volleyball court.   There’s no net in the middle, but there are goals on both ends of the court, which are sort of like super wide soccer nets.

Keith: The goals are around about a meter and a half height.

Since the goals are pretty short, players spend most of the game kneeling, or crouched on all fours.

Keith: And they have an approximately three pound ball that has two bells inside of it.

Keith: The bells are inside a ball made out of rubber and clay [sfx]. But you'll hear it bounce and hear the ball kind of jingle [sfx].

To score a point, players use their hands to hurl the ball past the opposing team, and into the goal.

Keith: And the object of the game is to block the ball.

[music out]

Similar to beep baseball, goalball players wear eyeshades, so that partially sighted players don’t have an advantage. The crowd is also expected to stay quiet when the ball is in play.

[sfx clip: Goalball Announcer: Please be quiet during the game. If you have a mobile phone, please turn it off. Thank you.]

To block a throw, the defensive players get down their sides, and stretch their arms and legs out as far as they can. Since they’re using their bodies to block the ball, some people describe the game as reverse dodgeball. But Keith likes a different analogy.

Keith: It's like three person Pong. The little Pong piece will [sfx: pong] move left and right to block the ball and send the ball back to the other side [sfx: pong goal].

The jingling sound of the ball lets you know where it’s going [sfx]. Being able to quickly react to those audio cues is essential to a block. Each type of throw makes a slightly different sound, and a pro player can recognize all of them.

Keith: You've got a smooth ball that's rolling, and the bells are obviously moving within the ball [sfx].

Keith: Then you got what's called a bouncer, which is a two hop that you typically throw at the center, so it's going to be a little bit harder hitting the ground. So you'll hear the bounce, bounce [sfx].

Keith: Then the skip ball bounces three times, but the trajectory is a lot flatter [sfx].

Keith: Sometimes the skip ball, it's a little bit faster, so you'll hear a lighter one [sfx]. You'll hear it going from left to right [sfx], right to left [sfx].

The way a player throws the ball can have a huge impact on how it sounds as it travels down the court.

[music in]

Keith: There's some players that the way they release the ball for some reason the bells kind of stay by the bottom, and the ball will go really quiet [sfx: quiet throw].

Making a silent throw can give you a huge advantage. For instance, there’s a player named Matt Simpson who’s really good at throwing this way.

Keith: He'll hit that skip ball just right, and there will be very little sound. And all of a sudden, you see the ball going towards the defense. And if he hits the right area between players, they kind of jerk their head a little bit [sfx: ball comes from right, then fakes out back to right] like, "Whoa," because they thought they had a track on the ball.  In order for a player to know where the next throw is going to come from, they also have to know where their team’s last throw was blocked.

Keith: They try to hear where the ball impacts through blocking [sfx: body thud]. So they have a point where they heard the block. Then from there they're going to listen to the point of release, because some teams, like United States, Brazil, they don't pass the ball like a bounce pass.

These teams in particular are known for doing a kind of soft pass to a teammate that’s really hard to hear.

Keith: And then the player who received the pass will go up and down the net and be as quiet as they can so they're trying to move away from the point where they blocked the ball.

Keith: So something that's so simple as listening to the ball can be quite complicated.

[music out]

For sports fans with a visual impairment, lots of traditional sports can be pretty hard to follow if you’re sitting in the stands. This is because you really only hear the commentary if you’re listening on the radio or on a TV. But at many goalball games, there’s a dedicated audio describer who narrates the game from inside a soundproof booth. Spectators can use their phones to link up with the audio description, and follow along using headphones.

Here’s a clip from a match between Finland and the United States.

[sfx clip: Commentator: Finland does a little fake, with their offence. Blocked by Tyler Merrin. Merrin scrambles for it, gives it to the center Josh Walbourn. Number 3 spins and throws it into the corner, and it goes out of bounds. 11:46, just opening up this match between Finland on my left, and USA on our right.]

[music in]

In addition to coaching the National Men’s Goalball team, Keith teaches physical education at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. He also coaches a youth goalball team. Since sound is so crucial to the world of blind sports, Keith spends a lot of time training his students’ ears.

Keith: I use different types of bell balls. I’ll do a verbal description, I'll say, "Okay, this is a bell basketball [sfx: bell basketball]. This is a bell soccer ball [sfx: bell soccer ball]. And I'll basically play a game with them, like name the ball. Or I'll give them a certain type of ball [sfx: bell volleyball] and they have to go out and match the ball [sfx: bell football, bell basketball, bell volleyball]. So even with young kids, I'm trying to teach them that sound gives you information.

[music out]

[music in]

For a lot of blind or have low vision athletes, finding a sport designed specifically for them can be life changing.

Keith: Everybody wants to be a part of a team. Some of the kids who came from public school maybe track, swimming, wrestling, is the only sports that they could be actively involved in. And when they happen to be introduced to a sport like goalball it's like, "Man, nobody else can do it. This is our thing. This is our sense of pride." And then they evolve to, "Man I want to share this with everybody. This is cool. This is awesome."

Ethan Johnston feels the same way about beep baseball.

Ethan: There's a lot of blind people, not just in America, but around the world that could have this sport be part of their life and give them independence and give them something they're passionate about and give them hope that, you know what, just because they're blind they're not going to be part of the stereotype that's sitting home doing nothing. They're out there playing a sport that helps them to become independent and build great friendships that last forever.

But these sports aren’t just for people with visual impairments. Remember, in beep baseball, the pitcher, catcher and spotter positions are all held by sighted players. In goalball, there are sighted coaches, referees, and announcers. And of course, anyone can be a fan. One of the best things about sports like these is that they can be a bridge between communities that might not interact very much otherwise.

Keith: That's why I think with goalball, it's an exciting sport, and once someone who'd never been exposed before sees it, they're like, "Oh wow, look at them. How can they do all that?" And that interest possibly peaks them to get involved with the sport, or learn about the blind and vision impaired community.

If you’re a sighted listener who’s interested in checking out goalball...

Keith: I would say the first thing you probably want to do is learn how to be a referee because you learn the rules of the game. And if you're brave enough, get those eyeshades on and get on the court.

Playing a sport is always exciting. But trying to play one without being able to see takes it to a whole new level.

Keith: I've seen people literally, they have so much adrenaline and they're shaking so hard, like, "Wow, that's the scariest, most fun thing I've ever did in my life, like just that surge of adrenaline, that nervousness, fear and excitement all packaged into one.

[music out]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. To hear our most captivating work, visit defactosound dot com.

This episode was written and produced by Jack Glover, and Casey Emmerling, with help from Sam Rinebold. It was sound edited by Soren Begin. It was sound designed and mixed by Nick Spradlin, with original music by Wesley Slover.

Thanks to our guests, Ethan Johnston and Keith Young. To learn more about how to get involved with goalball, visit USABA dot org. And to get involved with beep baseball, check out NBBA dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]