Authors @ Alden to Host David Wanczyk to Discuss Baseball for the Blind

Authors @ Alden will host David Wanczyk on Oct. 24 from 5:30-7 p.m. to talk about his book “Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind” on the fourth floor of Alden Library. “Beep” is the first book written about baseball for the blind and visually impaired.

For five years Wanczyk, who graduated from Ohio University’s Ph.D. creative writing program in 2010, traveled the country, and to the Dominican Republic and Taiwan, to interview beep baseball players for his book and witness the action of the game. The book focuses on the gameplay of beep baseball, along with profiles of the players, over the course of a championship game.

“What I’m really interested in is watching how the personal lives of the guys are in some ways indistinguishable from their gameplay,” said Wanczyk. “I hope to transcend a kind of cliché about inspiration that I think people feel about the stories of disabled people, and although they are inspiring people, they’re more than doing just that.”

Wanczyk will be speaking with j.w. smith, Ph.D., an associate professor of communication studies, who was an early source for Wanczyk’s book. Smith was born blind and played beep baseball in the 1970s and 1980s.

The event is free and open to the public.  To request accessibility accommodations for this event, please contact Jen Harvey.