This One-Armed Softball Team ‘Can Play Some Ball’

The easiest part was coming up with a team name: “One-Arm Bandits.”

And the hardest?

“The hardest part was just coming out here to play,” recalled Gustavo Berdugo.

He plays for a fast-pitch softball club with 15 players who have only one arm. The only handicap for players of the opposing teams in their league is getting caught by surprise if they aren’t ready for the Bandits’ quick bats and fielding.

“These guys can play some ball,” said Alex Valero, moments after his team was beaten by the One-Arm Bandits, 17-7. “It’s not like we were overconfident. We had heard about them.”

The Bandits were 1-2 after three games, coming off a 6-5 loss Oct. 24 in the Cuban American Softball League.

Won-lost records are secondary, though. Their season became successful when they took the field for their first game and proved they could compete with full-bodied players.

“It was a big challenge,” said Berdugo, 42, a Colombia native who lost an arm at age 9 in a New Year’s Eve fireworks accident; other players’ limb losses range in dates from birth to just a year ago.

“Some people thought I was crazy starting a team like this,” said Victor Rosario, born without a right arm. Rosario, 38, has played softball on regular teams for years. “A team like this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

A security specialist at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, Rosario has seen people suffering the trauma of a sudden loss of a limb.

“I thought it would be good therapeutically, recreational and uplifting for people who were trying to get their lives back in shape,” Rosario said. “So I said, ‘Let me try this and see what happens.’ ”

Rosario began recruiting players in March. He already knew a few, such as Roscoe Jones, who works for Dade County Corrections, and more came to him after notices in newspapers. He even recruited one player after spotting him in a shopping mall.

Besides the 15 one-armed players, he has four full-bodied players. One plays shortstop, one center field, one pitcher and the fourth usually only pinch-hits.

They practiced much of the summer, played scrimmage games and in a three-team tournament, and opened league play Oct. 3.

“It’s fun, but I really came out to do it for kids,” said Jones, 33. “I want them to see you don’t have to sit back and feel sorry for yourself. I hope kids see us and say, ‘I can do it!”’

Jones suffered severe injuries during a football game for his Waycross, Ga., high school team in his senior year. His right arm was amputated, ending his dreams of a collegiate football career 15 years ago.

Two players, both former soldiers in Venezuela, lost their arms only a year ago during civil unrest in their homeland.

“I felt this team would be good for me psychologically,” said Edwin Barrios, 30, who lost his arm to a grenade.

Cesar Mera, 30, injured in an army truck accident, said he has little baseball experience.

“Soccer is my game. But I saw him playing,” Mera said, pointing to Rosario, “and I thought, ‘Why not me?’ ”

Jones enjoyed recounting the stunned looks on the opposition faces in the Bandits’ first game when they pulled off two double plays.

The first was a third-to-second-to-first double play started by Rosario, who stabbed a hard groundball with the glove on his left hand, tucked the ball and glove against his right shoulder, deftly removed the ball with his left hand, then whirled and fired to second.

Most of the Bandits use 23-ounce bats, several ounces lighter than those preferred by two-armed players.

“It’s gone great, being that most of the other teams have played together for years,” said Rosario.

Most baseball fans are familiar with New York Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott, who threw a no-hitter this season. Abbott has no right hand.

But the Bandits’ spiritual hero is Pete Gray, who lost his right arm as a youth but made it to the major leagues during the war year of 1945. He played outfield, appearing in 77 games for a third-place St. Louis Browns team.

Gray heard of the team from relatives in the Miami area. Gray, 76, has been ill, but relatives said he was pleased and touched when told of the Bandits.

Rosario hopes to take his team to Gray’s Nanticoke, Pa., hometown for an exhibition game, “where he could come out and see us play.”

Rosario’s team motto is: “The Will Is Stronger Than The Limitations.” It’s picked up a sponsor, Central Orthopedics, and has so many inquiries from would-be players Rosario hopes to start a second team.

“I want to expand this as far as it can go,” he said.