Good sport.(The Goodness Of America)(handicapped child enjoys sports)

Nine-year-old Ryan Nelson of Sandy, Utah, pitches and plays infield for the Holladay Baseball League's Devil Rays (Sandy and Holladay are suburbs of Salt Lake City). His participation would be unremarkable, were it not that Ryan was born with spina bifida, a serious congenital defect in which part of one or more vertebrae fails to develop completely, leaving a portion of the spinal cord exposed. In relatively non-severe cases, surgery can close the defect and preclude further spinal cord damage. Ryan has most of the feeling in his legs, but they are not strong enough to support him and he cannot use his feet. He must field and run bases on his knees, so has become adept at "scooching" (sitting on his legs and using his arms to shuttle himself along).

Ryan bats for himself, but a rules adjustment allows him to have a pinch runner run to first base when he hits the ball. From there he is on his own. Needless to say, he is often walked due to his tiny strike zone, and also reaches first base regularly after being hit by pitches.

His mother, Libbie, describes her son as "a pretty good pitcher." Indeed, she contends, he is one of his team's "better pitchers. He's not real fast but he has a good sinker that no one can hit."

Ryan developed his love for the game while playing catch with his older brother, Samson. He also has a younger sister, Olivia, and brother, Isaac. By the time he was four, according to his father, and Devil Rays coach, Wayne Nelson, "all Ryan wanted was a coach and a jersey."

He hoped to launch his little league career before last year, but in a June 30th Deseret Morning News profile his father recalled that he and Mrs. Nelson "postponed [allowing Ryan to play] baseball a year longer because we ... didn't know how he was going to do it. He wants to play football, and I think about how will he do this and how will he do that, and he says, 'Let's play.' We work it out as we do it." Ryan recently told Salt Lake City's KSL-TV, ...