Prep Coach Appealing Umps’ Ruling That Calls Him and Wheelchair Out

The Westminster Lions freshman baseball team might as well have been playing in Mudville Tuesday afternoon, not Huntington Beach.

Sluggers struck out, pitches went high, pop flies glanced off mitts and gangly legs ran for home although teammates screamed for them to slide.

The confusion was caused by more than just the greenness of boys new to high school play. They were playing with minimal coaching.

Umpire Scott Nelson, following orders from his association, forbade one of the team’s two coaches, Victor Barrios, from taking the field because Barrios uses a wheelchair.

Barrios and freshmen head coach Ron Aho typically switch off coaching first and third bases. Tuesday it was Barrios’ turn to be at first, but instead he shouted plays and orders from the dugout.

“Hey, Fred, he can’t touch you!” he yelled to the pitcher. Buoyed by the praise, the youngster hurled a fastball past the batter for a strike.

Barrios, 26, has been a baseball coach for the last four years, and his wheelchair never presented a problem--until this season.

But at a home game against Montebello two weeks ago, umpires ordered Barrios to take his lightweight chair off the field, giving him an ultimatum.

“They said either he goes or we go,” Barrios said. “So we played without umpires.”

The umpires apparently brought the issue up with their group, the Orange County Baseball Officials Assn. Barrios was not even aware that he had become an issue when the umpires group met last week and agreed to bar him from the field. Officials from the association said Tuesday they would not allow Barrios to play without a written clearance from the California Interscholastic Federation. Concern for Barrios’ safety is their primary concern, according to Frank Lerner, an assignor of umpires for the association.

Lerner said the association also is concerned about liability if Barrios suffered an injury. An umpire for more than 30 years, Lerner said he has been hit by baseballs at least five times in his career.

“That ball comes so fast off those aluminum bats, how would someone in a wheelchair avoid getting hit?” he asked.

Laura Diamond, an attorney for the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, who often handles disability discrimination suits, called the officials’ position “paternalistic.”

“The legal question that arises is whether there is a reasonable accommodation that can be made in order to allow somebody to do a particular role or job,” she said. “In this case it doesn’t sound like he’s needed any accommodation at all.

“Also, if I can pay money to go to a baseball game with the understanding that I might possibly be hit by a ball, certainly a coach can take the risk,” Diamond said.

Westminster school officials also back Barrios.

School Principal Kathleen Miller wrote to the federation asking that Barrios be allowed to coach. The school is fortunate to have him both as a coach and a role model for athletes, she said.

Aho said the school has received verbal reassurance from federation officials that Barrios will be allowed to coach if the metal on his chair is padded. Written permission is expected as early as today, he said.

“I just don’t see how they can make a judgment that it’s unsafe,” Aho said. “It hasn’t been a problem for the past four years during say, 80 games, and all of a sudden it’s a problem now?”

But being barred from the field is one of a laundry list of indignities and setbacks Barrios has endured since he was shot on Nov. 26, 1991.

The old Victor Barrios was a gang member who believe he had to get others before they got him. His loyalty belonged to several square blocks of an Anaheim neighborhood.

A rival gang member changed his life--for the better he says--by shooting him.

“My eyes were so closed and now, thinking back, it was pretty dumb,” he said. “For the first time in my life I’ve met people who are just regular members of society.”

Two job offers were withdrawn, he said, when his disability gave employers cold feet. So he decided to go back to school.

Now Barrios is a junior at Cal State Fullerton, majoring in physical education. In his spare time he coaches his 8-year-old daughter’s softball team, speaks to gang members about his experiences and volunteers as a coach with the Westminster High freshman boys.

He believes he will soon return to the field to coach these youngsters. Until then, Barrios said he stays optimistic and tries not to complain.

‘I’m the type of guy who doesn’t make excuses but just finds a way,” he said. “You can go home and pout or stay behind the dugout and help the team.

“I’ll always choose to help the team.”