There is a morning Marilyn Ewing will never forget.
Her son Spencer was ten years old. He had already been through more than most people face in a lifetime. A brain stem tumor was diagnosed before his fourth birthday. Surgery in New York that no one else would perform. Months in the ICU, paralyzed, on a ventilator, relearning how to walk and talk and breathe. Years of hard winters that kept pulling him back to the hospital.
Through all of it, Spencer loved sports. Every ball, every game, every statistic. But there was nowhere for a kid like Spencer to play. No field where he fit. No team where he belonged.
Then one morning, the family was listening to the radio. A baseball league was coming to Little Rock. For kids with special needs. Spencer looked up and said:
“I could play that baseball.”
Marilyn called. And called again. “I was like a stalker,” she laughs. “Every week, when’s this getting started?” She had no idea what went into building something like this. She just knew her son needed it.
He showed up to that first game ready. Marilyn was nervous. But the moment Spencer stepped onto that accessible field, something shifted. The kid who had spent years fighting just to get back to ordinary life was out there playing baseball with a team, in front of a crowd, doing the thing he loved most in the world.
That field existed because people in this community decided it should. People like you.
“Miracle League gave him something to look forward to. There were a lot of dark days. I can’t imagine his mindset if he hadn’t had that field in his life.” — Marilyn Ewing, Spencer’s mom
What happened next is what your investment in Miracle League actually looks like.
Spencer didn’t just play. He grew. Season after season, the confidence he found on that field started showing up everywhere else in his life. When he got older, he began coaching. As a teenager, he designed lineups, studied each player’s strengths, and made sure every teammate had a fair shot. He was methodical, serious, and completely in his element.
“It was the very first place that opened up things he thought he would never be able to do,” Marilyn says. “It gave him the confidence to try other things.”
Spencer’s College Graduation
Those other things turned out to be extraordinary. The boy who once had no place to play went to college. Then graduate school, earning a double master’s degree in sports management and business administration. He studied abroad in Ireland. Then, Scotland, where he climbed mountains and searched for the Loch Ness Monster with friends he made on the other side of the world. He went on a mission trip to Krakow. He built a life that, as Marilyn puts it, is beyond her wildest dreams.
None of that was inevitable. Spencer fought for every step. But the confidence to take those steps, to believe he could do things people said he couldn’t, that started on a baseball field that you helped keep open.
“I underestimated him constantly. And I birthed him. He just set out to prove it to himself, and his goals are beyond my wildest dreams.” — Marilyn Ewing
Today, Spencer is thirty years old. He runs the intramural sports program at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, where participation has grown every year under his leadership. He has never stopped playing. And he has never forgotten where it started.
Spencer’s story is one of twenty years’ worth of stories. Twenty years of Friday nights. Twenty years of parents holding their breath in the stands. Twenty years of kids stepping onto the field and discovering, maybe for the first time, what they are capable of.
Right now, there are children across Arkansas who have never heard of Miracle League. Children who love sports and have no place to play. Children whose parents are searching for something that will give their child a place to belong, something to look forward to.
The field that changed Spencer’s life is still open because of you. Your support ensures the next child gets their turn.
Every child who wants to play baseball deserves the chance to step onto that field. Your gift today makes that possible for young people across Arkansas who have nowhere else to play. Please give generously and help ensure no child is ever left waiting for their turn at bat.