On a warm summer day, a group of seven people played catch in the outfield of a baseball field at Riverside Park in Sioux City.
One participant, Kevin Negaard, asked for the others to give him a bit of a break since he started throwing 21 hours ago.
“We're down to three hours left. Yesterday was an incredible day — just busy the whole way through. And then we had fun overnight. We left this field to find people to play catch overnight, including some local [bars],” Negaard said. “The people of Siouxland are just unbelievable. So far, 350 to 375 people have come out — and it's just amazing. And so we can raise some money, but we also get to spread the word of the Miracle League.”
Negaard founded the Miracle League in Sioux City, which includes a playground, splash pad and rubber-surfaced baseball field at Riverside Park. He decided to throw and catch for one whole day to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the organization and to raise money to resurface the all-inclusive play area.
“It's probably the best representation of who Sioux City is, right? It's a melting pot of abilities and disabilities and all socio-economic and all color and all backgrounds, and it was really important to us when we were designing it,” Negaard said.
Negaard started his quest Monday at 2 p.m. and hoped to raise $50,000 to help refurbish the Miracle League sports complex.
“I think for our community, it's really important for our parents and our athletes," he added. "I see these parents fighting all the time to get what their kids need, and for us to be able to say, 'Hey, you don't have to fight anything — your kids are the priority here. We built this for them.'”
Two-time World Series champion Scott Spiezio took part in the fundraiser. He played infield for the Anaheim Angels and St. Louis Cardinals. Negaard met Spiezio earlier this summer at a national Miracle League event in Cooperstown, New York, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“It's really unbelievable, you know, there's nothing like [the Miracle League] around that I've ever heard of. Everybody else always brags about this one. And what Kevin and the community have done to raise money for — it's incredible,” Spiezio said. “It's neat to see how many people have come out. Some even at four in the morning."
Spiezio admitted to getting a few hours of rest the previous night.
“They, nicely enough, let me get a shower and a little bit of sleep,” Spiezio added. “But Kevin, man, he's 62 years old. He's still going like the Energizer Bunny.”
A couple of years ago, Negaard also spent a year playing catch with 2,300 people in five different countries and raised more than $370,000 for the Miracle League.
Negaard was featured in a recent IPR News story about three Tanzanian students who now live and attend college in Sioux City. He was one of three Iowans credited with saving the students’ lives when their bus crashed in Tanzania. Negaard was on his way to a safari when his group came upon the accident scene.
