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Dawson Batts may have been born without a left arm but that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing his passion in baseball. The twelve year-old Dawson hails from Fayetteville, N.C. and he impressed everyone at the Baseball Youth NYBC All-Star Challenge with his skills.
Dawson began hitting baseballs off a tee at the age of three and he hasn’t looked back since. His mother is incredibly proud of Dawson’s love for the game and doesn’t mind sharing her admiration for her son with others, even if she gets a bit nervous with him on the mound:
“We’ve had several people ask if they could video [him] in our town, and we said, ‘Yeah, it’s fine,'” said Erica. “Everybody flocked over here. He’s used to [the stares]. I’d rather have him be out in the field. I don’t like him on the mound, it just gets me nervous, but he did OK, he shook it off.
“He adapts well. As long as he wants to play, we’ll do it.”
How does Dawson do it? When pitching, Dawson simply places his mitt by the mound and barehands throws from the catcher. At first base, he wears his glove but if he must make a throw after catching a ball, he removes his glove with his chin and quickly grabs the ball with his hand toss it where it needs to go. And when he goes to bat, he switches to a lefty stance and rests the bat on his shoulder to ready himself for each swing. Dawson has some power too. He hit a home run during Friday’s Home Run Derby.
When it comes to future plans in baseball, Dawson has some ambitious goals in his mind:
“As for Dawson, he has a clear plan for his life: playing baseball for North Carolina State and then getting drafted by the Red Sox, potentially becoming another Jim Abbott. His favorite player is Dustin Pedroia, because “he’s the underdog,” and it seems with each new level of baseball he tries, Dawson continues to grow out of that own label.”
