She has no palm, just 2 fingers on right hand. 'She can do literally anything.' Like hitting over .400

Indianapolis Star

15-05-2025

CLAYTON — Brett Taber lights up when asked about Grace Parks. The third-year Cascade softball coach explains how the sophomore played sparingly for the Class 2A state champions last spring as he watches her grab her glove from the dugout and join her teammates along the third-base line in left field.
Parks can't stand not playing and she's worked her way into the lineup, Taber continues, proudly pointing to her recent performance vs. Franklin Central (3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs). She hit her first career home run a few days later, highlighting a two-hit, three-RBI effort vs. Indian Creek, and entered the penultimate week of the regular season batting .421 with 24 hits (six doubles), 15 RBIs and nine runs scored.
"Her swing, it just mesmerizes me," Taber says, estimating she has one of the fastest swings on the team.
The way Taber analyzes Parks' game is how the outfielder/pitcher wants to be recognized.
Grace Parks is a multi-sport athlete (volleyball and softball), who happens to have a limb difference.
"I like how nobody treats me differently because of it. I'm like a normal player who can do everything that everyone else can do," said Parks, who was born without a palm and with only two fingers — a thumb and pinkie — on her right hand.
"My high school teammates and coaches don't exclude me from things. If it's something complicated, like a timed transition drill or relays, I find a way to work around it or they'll work with me," she continued. "It's never: 'Oh we don't think you can do this.' It is: 'No, we believe in you.' … 'You can play, so we're going to play you.'"
Sports are like the "great equalizer," her parents observed, an opportunity to stand on level footing with everyone else. "That's what's driven her."
Most probably wouldn't expect softball to be Grace's sport of choice. Even her parents, Carly and Bryan Parks, discouraged the athletic youngster from it initially. It's such a hands-oriented sport, Bryan said. "I wasn't sure it would be good for her."
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But their daughter had been inspired by her older sister, Sidney Parks (now a senior pitcher at Plainfield) and was determined to follow in her footsteps.
We'll see how it goes, her parents told her.
Then during one of Sidney's Little League games, a 4-year-old Grace ran down a foul ball behind the backstop — and made the right-handed throw to her parents.
"I think she can do it," Carly told her husband.
"Grace can literally do anything."
Grace was nothing if not eager and determined when she first started, willing to give anything a try as she and Bryan experimented with various approaches to hitting and fielding.
The swing Taber raves about? That was step one in determining if Grace could play softball, Bryan said.
They went through various bats, grips and swings as they tried to determine what worked with Grace's "tiny, tiny hand," she said, recalling the countless practice sessions at Swinford Park in Plainfield.
She wasn't strong enough to support the bat with only her left hand yet, so Bryan had her rest it in the slot between her thumb and pinkie, and raise her right elbow to create a platform for it to rest on. The bat slid down from her shoulder, which kept it level as it came off her elbow, then she would essentially punch the bat with her right hand and whip it through the zone with her left.
It was both brilliant and effective, inspired in part by Katelyn Pavey, a softball player in Lanesville who was born with half a left arm with two digits below the elbow. But as she got older, Grace wanted to look like everyone else, to have a normal swing. It was a point of contention initially, Bryan said, but she's now strong enough to support the bat with her left hand and has a more traditional stance.
A "mesmerizing" swing, as Taber described it.
"It's been a fun, creative challenge to try to help her succeed and she's always been very agreeable to doing what it takes to make it work," Bryan said. "She's a competitor."
Hitting came relatively easy for Grace, as did throwing — at least through the first few years of her career when she was able to use her dominant hand. When she decided she not only wanted to continue playing beyond 8U (bigger softballs beginning at 10U), but also wanted to be a pitcher like Sidney, Grace had to learn to throw left-handed.
So they continually practiced throwing lefty until she got it down.
The biggest challenge was the glove exchange, which involved countless hours studying film and talking with Pavey, who met with the Parks after a game and showed them how she did it.
But Pavey, not unlike everyone else they found online — including former Major League Baseball player Jim Abbott, who's written to Grace in the past — had either half an arm or no arm entirely. And in those scenarios, Bryan said, it's actually easier to make the transition than with only one hand.
The solution? When Grace is pitching, she uses an 8U starter glove on her right hand that she's able to open and close with two fingers. In the outfield, she catches with her left hand, transitions the glove over and throws the ball with her left hand.
Asked if there were sources of inspiration beyond her older sister, Grace recalled attending a camp with Pavey for athletes with limb difference.
"It was really cool to see how everyone adjusted and made their own ways," she said. There was a baseball player with no arms, who held his glove in his mouth when he caught the ball, then flipped it up to himself. Another athlete, a woman with no arms, taught her how to do a back handspring.
"Some were like me, some were missing a lot more, and they were doing sports just like normal," Grace smiled. "It was like, if they can do that, then I can, too."
"She was so young when we started this (and) it's a good thing we tackled it then, because things got very difficult mentally for her in middle school. It gets hard because kids get mean. … Things got a little bumpy."
Grace could sense it as she moved into the on-deck circle for her first at-bat a few weeks ago: A couple of fans were staring and pointing at her hand.
Grace's physical therapist called her a superhero the first time they met, echoing a sentiment Carly and Bryan have tried impressing upon her over the years. They think she's an amazing inspiration, a superhero, Carly said. "But Grace has never asked for anyone to be inspired by her. She just wants to be thought of as an athlete first."
Over the past two years, Carly continued, their daughter has begun embracing it and is learning to talk about her disability in a positive light rather than trying to hide it as she did through middle school.
Bryan watched from across the way as his daughter simply stared back at the two fans marveling at her right hand, offering a polite "hey" before taking another practice swing.
"I tell myself they think it's cool and that's why they're staring," Grace says, a sly smile forming across her face.
"I've been more out with it," Grace continued. "I always thought, oh my gosh, people are gonna treat me differently. They're not gonna like it. … But now I'm just like, it's not really my problem."
Following the brief exchange, Grace stepped to the plate and laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt in her first at-bat, the prelude to a 2-for-2 performance that included an RBI and two runs scored — and initiated her current six-game hit streak.
"Grace is an inspiration to me, how she does all that she does," Sidney said. "I'm so inspired by her. … (And) I'm excited to see her inspire so many young girls, the older she gets."