Pride of the game

Curtis Pride

Happy 56th birthday today to the remarkable Curtis Pride, a journeyman outfielder who in 1993 becomes the major leagues’ first deaf player since outfielder Dick Sipek joins the Cincinnati Reds for one season in 1945.

Pride reaches the majors in 1993 after seven mostly disappointing seasons from 1987-92 in the New York Mets’ minor league system.

Pride then signs a minor league contract with Montreal and begins to turn around his career in the spring of 1993, when he is assigned to the Expos’ Class AA affiliate in Harrisburg.

Jim Tracy congratulates Curtis Pride after a home run in 1993

He quickly becomes a project for Harrisburg manager Jim Tracy, the onetime Chicago Cubs outfielder who during his career is a .293 hitter in the minors and a .301 hitter while playing in Japan.

Just a tweak here and a tweak there by Tracy, and Pride quickly finds himself emerging from a fifth outfielder to start the 1993 season into a fulltime player, hitting .356 for Harrisburg before a midseason promotion to Class AAA Ottawa and, finally, another late-season promotion to Montreal.

Pride, born 95 percent deaf, ends up playing parts of 11 seasons in the majors and becomes an international inspiration for overcoming his disability.

“When you have a guy who has some ability and who wants to work, there’s no telling what you can do,” Tracy says. “Makeup and work ethic, if you have some ability, are very important.

“That’s something that separates Curtis Pride from a lot of guys.”

Curtis Pride coaching at Gallaudet

Pride later spends 15 seasons as the head coach of Gallaudet University's baseball team in Washington, D.C.

“I’ve had a lot of people doubt my abilities because of my deafness,” says Pride, whose mother during her pregnancy contracts the Rubella that leaves her son deaf.

“I’ve been trying all my life to show people I’m an educated person. I can speak well. I can read lips well. I can communicate with other people. … I don’t want people to treat me different because I’m deaf. I want to be treated the same way as other people.”