On Curtis Pride and his accomplished athletic life
By Earl Mikell

When you’re doing something you love and enjoy for a career, that’s when you know you’ve realized your dreams. Curtis Pride is one such person who’s made that leap. What makes it so much more fascinating, however, is that Pride even had the ability to realize more dreams of his own than usual. In the end, only one dream could become reality, and that was his steady and assured ascent to the Majors (Major League Baseball). Every baseball player dreams of making the big show every year, and thousands of them don’t. A select and fortunate few do make it. Curtis Pride is one of them, and he also happens to be deaf.

That dream wasn’t all too obvious early on in his life. Pride was born in Washington, D.C., on December 17, 1968 to two loving parents. An auditory test established his deafness nine months later, and when Pride was two years old the family moved to Silver Springs, Maryland and enrolled him in Montgomery County’s public school auditory service infant program. He would remain in a special class of deaf kids until 6th Grade, when it was determined that he should enter the mainstream.

Pride entered John F. Kennedy High School, and proceeded to make an impact there. Playing three sports – baseball, basketball, and soccer – he would break all of the school records for all three sports, and be recognized as a Parade Magazine first team All-American for soccer. In 1985 he played for the United States National Team in the Junior World Cup of Soccer in Beijing, China. His performance in the cup would lead Kick Magazine, a prominent soccer publication, to name him one of the top fifteen junior soccer players in the world. “My time in high school was fun, and I never had any problems,” Pride said of his high school years. This also extended to his deafness, which he never had an issue with in school.

He graduated in 1989 with a 3.6 GPA and many colleges calling for him to play for their teams. The College of William and Mary would be the recipient of his choice with a four year scholarship for basketball, where Pride played all four years as a starter at point guard. He also played a season of soccer, then his favorite sport at the time. He studied for and graduated with a B.A. in Finance, but this didn’t mean he would go off into the financial world right after graduation. On the contrary, he did something he’d been picked for four years earlier – he went off to play some minor league baseball. He had been picked in the 10th round of the professional baseball draft by the New York Mets organization, four years prior to his graduating from college.

“It was 23 years altogether, my time in the minors and majors combined.” Upon graduation, Pride went on to rookie ball (the first level of the minor league system, before A/AA/AAA level baseball) for 3 years before moving up to A level where he played for 27 different teams. Eventually he made it up to the AAA level. It wouldn’t be until September 1993 when Pride got the Call. He was called into the manager’s office, and told he had been called up by the Montreal Expos because of its’ roster expansion. He had been doing well at the time in the organization’s farm system (playing Double A and Triple A baseball), hitting .324 with 21 home runs and 50 stolen bases combined. He didn’t have time to celebrate, but he did call his parents to share the great news.

Speaking of the call-up, “it was exciting. When you have the faith to achieve your dreams, then it’s very exciting when you achieve it. It was an awesome feeling, like heaven.” Upon reaching Montreal, Pride didn’t play his first five days there. He did have fun, however, as he was actually being around major leaguers and in a tight pennant race with the Philadelphia Phillies at the time. He did eventually play, going 4 for 9 during his stint that month, with a home run, triple, double, and single. The Expos, unfortunately, didn’t make it into the playoffs, missing out by a 2 or 3 games deficit.

Pride would soon get hurt, resulting in a return to the minor leagues. But his stay didn’t last long; in 1995 he was called up again to play with the Expos. In 1996, he was invited to compete for a roster spot on the Detroit Tigers, which he won. That year, he became the first regular season Deaf player to play a full season of baseball. He would hit .300 in 267 at-bats with 10 home runs and 11 stolen bases. The Tigers weren’t good that year, losing over a hundred games. He remained with Detroit the following year in ’97 until September when he signed with the Boston Red Sox.

On September 10th, Pride would hit a home run in his first at-bat at Fenway Park, becoming only the seventh player in the hundred-plus year old Red Sox organization to manage that feat. He would also hit another home run there as well. “It was awesome, being at Fenway. The fans and team there is very passionate, and also very knowledgeable,” Pride recalled of his days with the team. And so, despite the fact his stay with the Sox was short, the home run would mark it as a great stop for him forever. He moved on to Atlanta after 1997, and got to play for Bobby Cox, his favorite manager during his baseball career.

“I learned a lot there, and it was a great education under Cox. He definitely was my favorite manager.” Pride was proud to have been a part of the great winning team of the 1990s in the Atlanta Braves, and played an important role down the stretch towards the playoffs, hitting .252. He would become a free agent after the season, but suffered an injury to his right wrist and underwent surgery on the injury in March of 1999. Another return to the minor league system occurred, as he needed to recover from the injury before making another return to the majors, which he did by signing a contract with the Red Sox in June of 2000.

In 2001, he would return to Montreal, playing a whole season before once again going back down to the minors. Pride played triple A ball for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the majors wasn’t done with him just yet. In 2003, he was signed by the New York Yankees, the most storied and popular of all the baseball teams, and joined the team on July 4, 2003. “It was an awesome feeling, being at Yankee Stadium. I played with future Hall of Famers Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, and Roger Clemens. And it was really nice playing for Joe Torre.” On July 6, Pride would hit a home run in his first at-bat at Yankee Stadium, resulting in a standing ovation and curtain call from the sold out crowd at Yankee Stadium. It was definitely a moment to remember. He did well for the Yanks that year, including hitting in a 9th inning game-winning run against the Yankees’ hated rivals the Boston Red Sox.

The following year, he would begin playing for the Anaheim Angels franchise, with several detours to the minors over a four year period, from 2004 to 2007. In 2005, he was called up when Vladimir Guerro, a superstar player for the Angels, was injured. 2008 would see him as a free agent in an independent league, the Atlantic League, with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. Pride hoped to return to the majors, but when no calls were forthcoming, he was released in August and retired shortly afterwards. In November of 2008, Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for the deaf, announced that they had hired Curtis Pride to become the next head coach of the university’s baseball team.

Pride averaged a .250 batting average over his career, with 20 home runs, 82 RBIs (runs batted in), and 421 games played in the majors, over 11 seasons. He played the greatest amount of games on the major league level since William “Dummy” Hoy in 1902. The other remainder of his career was spent in the minors.

Such a lengthy career could have posed unique challenges to Pride because of his deafness, but “I didn’t have a problem with communication or anything else.” Pride was able to lip-read very well, and had a little hearing left with which to use his hearing aid. He relied on himself, and didn’t have any interpreters during his time in baseball. Even more so, he felt comfortable with the press, having a lot of interviews, and never ran into any problems there. In short, Pride was a model of self-reliance and confidence.

As for baseball and his life, Pride didn’t have any favorite baseball players growing up, ironically enough. He also didn’t follow the game much, too. However, he would make friends in the majors, of which he counts the Yankees’ famed captain Derek Jeter as. Curtis loved soccer more growing up, but today he says he doesn’t regret going off to play baseball. “All three sports, playing any one of them was my dream and I accomplished it.”

He had a good career, Pride pointed out, and he got the chance to play with some of the best players in the world. He met a lot of interesting people, and made a lot of great memories while in the big show.

And what about his life outside baseball, you may be asking? Pride met his wife, Lisa, in 1994 and married her in 1998. They have two children today, his son Colten and daughter Noelle, and the family lives in Florida. It wasn’t too bad being a deaf man in baseball, with a loving family, a normal life, and a long and successful baseball career, Pride stated, on the subject of a deaf man playing professional baseball.

Pride does view himself as a role model for the Deaf, however. “I never had a Deaf role model when I was young, so I want to be there for deaf people, most especially deaf baseball players, and help teach them to set goals and work hard to achieve their dreams.” He wants to encourage everybody he mentors to fulfill their dreams, because if he did it, then they can, too. “If you always believe in yourselves, then your dream will come true.”

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