Pony Leagues Will Let Deaf Children Use Interpreters
Associated Press, August 17, 2006

The PONY Baseball and Softball league, where Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez once honed their skills, will allow deaf children to use sign language interpreters in games under an agreement with the Justice Department.

The department's civil rights division announced an agreement Thursday under which deaf, hard-of-hearing and other disabled kids among the 450,000 children who play in PONY's boys and girls baseball and softball leagues will get new assistance to help them participate fully.

There are 3,500 baseball and fastpitch and slowpitch softball leagues organized around the nation by nonprofit PONY Baseball Inc., headquartered in Washington, Pa. The leagues are divided into two-year age brackets to allow boys age 5-18 and girls age 8-18 to compete with players of similar ages and of their own sex.

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