Coach Sues to Use His Wheelchair at Ballpark

WESTMINSTER —  Victor Barrios’ wheelchair has run smack into Rule 10, Article 7 of the California Interscholastic Federation: Equipment such as crutches, canes and wheelchairs are prohibited on the baseball field. Casts, splints and braces may be worn, if padded.

On Tuesday, Barrios, a third-base coach for the Westminster High School baseball team, filed a civil rights suit in U.S. District Court against the federation and the Orange County Baseball Officials Assn., whose umpires have not allowed him on the field for most of this season. His case comes up for hearing today.

Advocates for the disabled said that the federation rule is left over from the dark ages.

“It isn’t just that this league clearly hasn’t heard of things like the Americans with Disabilities Act, but they are relying on very old stereotypes and myths about the capabilities of people with disabilities,” said Sid Wolinsky, director of litigation for Disabled Rights Advocates in San Francisco.

Baseball association officials have said they worry that Barrios, a paraplegic, could be hurt on the field or that his wheelchair could pose a hazard to others.

Bill Clark of the CIF Southern Section, based in Cerritos, declined to discuss specifics of the case, but cited Rule 10 in defending the organization. “This has really been blown out of proportion and it shouldn’t have been,” Clark said. “From Day 1 we say we want to find a way for this guy to coach and we think he’s probably good--but that’s gotten lost in all of the legal shuffles.”

Barrios’ attorneys cite a ruling in a remarkably similar case in Arizona. In that 1992 case, involving a third-base Little League coach who was banned from the field because of his wheelchair, a federal judge ruled that sports organizations must make decisions based on individual abilities and not ban an entire class of people based on the equipment they might need to use.