Fans throughout Maine turned out for the Portland Sea Dogs’ Deaf and Hard of Hearing Awareness Night on Wednesday. The minor league baseball team held the event in part to honor victims of the Lewiston mass shootings as four of the eighteen people killed were deaf.
"[Afterwards,] we immediately came in here as a staff and met [to ask,] 'how can we help?'" said Chris Cameron, the Vice President of Communications for the Sea Dogs. "We always want to be more than just a baseball team. We want to be strong, active, contributing members of the community. And when the Deaf community was so hard hit by this tragedy, we wanted to do something to support them."
Throughout the nine innings, interpreters stood on top of the third-base dugout and translated for those in the crowd. Students from the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf in Falmouth performed the national anthem in American Sign Language.
Instead of their usual uniforms, the Sea Dogs wore specially designed jerseys with the team's name in American Sign Language displayed on the front. The team will auction off the jerseys online later this week. A Sea Dogs spokesperson says they expect the auction to raise more than $5,000.
All of the proceeds will go to the Dirigo Experience — a summer camp in Maine run by the Pine Tree Camp for deaf and hard of hearing children. Camp Dirigo was founded three years ago by Josh Seal, the Director of Interpreting Services at the Pine Tree Society, who was killed in the Lewiston shootings.
"Inclusion and providing support for people to access things is really the biggest benefit for the children that we work with," said Dawn Willard-Robinson, Camp Dirigo’s director.
Seal’s 13-year-old son, Jayson, who is also deaf, threw out the first pitch of the game. Interpreters hovered near the concession stands to help people order snacks. The first 1,000 fans at the game received a baseball card of William Hoy – a deaf outfielder who played in the late 19th century and taught sign language to his teammates.
The Sea Dogs ultimately lost 18-4 to the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
