Ken Hoegler vividly remembers the moment he became a baseball fan.
After years of bouncing between foster homes, the Cleveland native finally landed in one that stuck. One of the first gifts from his foster parents was a small transistor radio.
"The first thing I heard was Jimmy Dudley doing a broadcast of the Cleveland Indians and broadcasting a home run, and I was hooked," said Hoegler, now 66 years old.
Dudley was the voice of the Indians from 1948 through 1967. The team changed its name to the Guardians in 2022.
The radio meant more to Hoegler than it would to other kids; He has been visually impaired his entire life. He experiences games by listening.
In the decades that followed that first game, Hoegler brought his guide dog and his radio and listened to live commentary at the stadium.
"There's something about it: the energy, the people, the sounds," he said. "I believe it was the greatest game ever invented by humankind.
But a broadcast delay has since hindered his ability to enjoy his favorite pastime: He'd hear the crack of a bat, the crowd's thunderous applause and, as other fans around him were already settling back into their seats, be left to wonder what happened for 30 seconds while the play-by-play caught up.
"You can't watch a game that way," Hoegler said. "It doesn't work for anyone with a vision challenge who takes a radio into Progressive field. You have to have it in real-time."
The delay was implemented in recent years to accommodate a Federal Communications Commission rule that mandates censoring obscenity on live radio, the Guardians said.
The issue varies from stadium to stadium, and some teams have found a workaround. For example, the Washington Nationals say they offer a non-delayed transmission of broadcast available on any personal digital radio.
The Guardians told Ideastream they don’t have such accommodations in place in the stadium, but they could look into it for future seasons.
But it's not just an accessibility issue: Fans on social media have also complained about the delay. They like the live play-by-play.
"I would think it would not be so limited just to visually impaired people," Hoegler said. "Why would you not want such a wonderfully detailed painting — an audio painting, if you will?"
Visually impaired people deal with this kind of thing all the time, said Alicia Howerton of the Cleveland Sight Center.
"There are so many variables that can cause accessibility not to be usable or even when they're usable, are they truly accessible?" said Howerton, the manager of external and government relations for the nonprofit. "I mean, there have been places that have put Braille on something, but, you know, did they put it in a space that was so tall you couldn't reach it?"
It’s a disability that can be lost in the shuffle, Howerton said.
"If you're talking about cancer, you're talking about... people in wheelchairs, you can be in a wheelchair for many, many reasons," she said. "There are many more people who probably have a physical or a mental disorder as opposed to somebody who's blind or visually impaired."
It’s a problem that’s expected to affect more people: Vision impairment and blindness are expected to increase by 150% in the next 25 years, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Guardians do make accommodations for people with disabilities, including accessible parking and seating. But until the Guardians — and other teams — provide a way for people to listen live in the stadium Ken Hoegler said many fans are going to miss out.
"I will probably not go to a game again until this problem is cured," Hoegler said. "This seems like they've kicked my group to the curb. That makes me feel sad because I love the game of baseball... I learned the rules in half an hour, and I've been figuring out the nuances for the rest of my life."
