A new baseball field designed to give children and adults with disabilities greater opportunities to participate in sports is coming to Tobey Park in Memphis. City leaders and community members gathered Tuesday for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of the project.
The ceremony, held at Tobey Park, was reported by the Daily Memphian, which covered the Oct. 13 event marking the official start of construction plans for the field. The project is being developed by the Miracle League of Memphis, which says on its website that the complex will sit on a field at the north end of Tobey Park, with an entrance from Avery Avenue. According to the organization, the area southeast of the Board of Education will be designed with a single entrance intended to protect the children who use it.
Details on the planned amenities come from an earlier description published by CityCurrent, which reported that the complex will include a specially designed baseball field along with what it called the largest inclusive playground in the Mid-South. The outlet reported the field will feature a totally flat, rubberized surface meant to allow kids who use wheelchairs to participate alongside their peers.
A Years-Long Push Through City Hall
The project has been in the works for some time at the municipal level. A 2024 Memphis City Council committee agenda listed Parks and the Miracle League of Memphis as responsible for fundraising and project management tied to construction of an accessible ballfield at Tobey Park, according to a document posted by the city. That record predates Tuesday's groundbreaking by roughly two years, reflecting a planning process that moved through city committees before shovels hit the ground.
Tobi Olukogbon was photographed posing with the Miracle League of Memphis mascot at the event, a small but telling detail from a ceremony aimed at celebrating what organizers hope will become a hub for inclusive play.
Why Accessible Fields Matter for Kids With Disabilities
The push for more adaptive sports infrastructure comes against a backdrop of national data showing children with disabilities are getting fewer chances to play. A 2025 survey from the Aspen Institute's Project Play found that children with disabilities who do participate in sports play about five months out of the year, compared with 5.7 months for children without disabilities. The same survey found that 47% of children with special health care needs played organized sports at least once in the previous year, versus 58% of kids without those needs.
Among the parents of children with disabilities who responded to the survey, 23% said their child has a documented disability, and basketball, baseball, soccer, tackle football and dance ranked among the most-played activities for kids with and without disabilities alike. Project Play also found that parents of children with disabilities were more likely to report that their child's health worsened when they weren't able to regularly play sports. More than 3 million children in the United States have a disability, according to the Project Play page.
How Tobey Park Compares to Other Miracle League Projects
Memphis isn't alone in pursuing this kind of complex. In Nashville, a proposed Miracle League field at Cedar Hill Park would likewise be accessible to people of all abilities, according to WKRN. That project is planned as a two-phase effort, starting with renovation of an existing softball field and followed by construction of an all-inclusive playground, with the first phase set to include accessible bathrooms, seating and gathering areas, and concessions. A Healthy Places in-kind grant tied to the Nashville project would provide no more than $6 million, contingent on the city meeting Miracle League field guidelines, WKRN reported.
A similar facility already exists in Murfreesboro, where the city describes its Miracle Field as a special-needs baseball and playground facility designed for inclusive play across all ages and abilities, complete with sensory components, sliders, gliders and ziplines. Those comparable projects underscore the kind of community investment organizers in Memphis are now working to bring to Tobey Park, giving families in the Mid-South another option close to home once construction moves forward.
