Tristin Crusenberry lost his hearing due to meningitis when he was 15 months old, but he never let that slow him down. Crusenberry has continued to pursue his passion for playing baseball at the collegiate level, and just as importantly he also enjoys sharing his inspirational story. Crusenberry was recently presented with the 2023 National Baseball Congress Most Inspirational Player Award, given to the player who has been the most inspirational player in the league not only on the diamond but off of it as well.
Crusenberry — currently a starting pitcher for the semi-professional team the Liberal Bee Jays of the Rocky Mountain Baseball League (RMBL) under the National Baseball Congress — spoke at Country Heights Elementary on Tuesday.
Crusenberry attended Country Heights growing up, and fondly remembers the good times he had in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program with his teachers and his fellow students. Country Heights is where he first started playing baseball as well, he said.
“It’s a very big blessing for me to get the opportunity to speak to the students and share my story of where it all started,” he said. “Hopefully I can help to inspire them and help them believe in themselves like I believed in myself.”
Crusenberry was born in March of 2003, just two weeks early and in relatively healthy condition. It wasn’t until he turned 13 months old that he contracted bacterial meningitis, an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Tristin soon joined the 20 percent of people who experience hearing loss after receiving a diagnosis of bacterial meningitis.
At 15 months old, Tristin’s parents Tom and Christy tried using hearing aids and weekly therapy at the Wendell Foster campus. By the time he was 18 months old, Tristin reached the narrow window still available to him to have cochlear implants.
Throughout his childhood and teen years, Crusenberry would often feel isolated and alone, he said. His lack of hearing and difficulty with speech were the subjects of ridicule by bullies. His one escape from all of that was baseball.
Crusenberry fell in love with baseball when he played T-ball at 5 years old. He participated in other sports such as bowling and basketball. Communication was the hardest challenge for Crusenberry due to the other kids not knowing how to properly communicate with him. However, this did not stop him from trying his best to learn to improve socially as well as teach others how to best communicate with him.
“It was a huge advantage for me to learn how society works,” he said. “You just gotta put yourself out there and that’s the most important thing you can do.”
After making the baseball team at the end of 7th grade, Crusenberry was on his way to seeing his baseball dreams come to fruition. He ended up graduating from Apollo High School, but Crusenberry said that was still a particularly difficult time in his life. He said the bullying did not stop despite knowing some of his classmates his entire life, and he struggled with feeling isolated.
That all changed when Crusenberry’s pitching trainer Jody Hamilton, now head baseball coach at Owensboro Catholic, gave him information for a showcase at Olney Central College in Illinois. Crusenberry was offered a full-ride scholarship to play for Olney’s D1 baseball team. He found that his classmates and teammates there were more accepting of him being deaf and his difficulty with speech.
“They respected me for who I am and they treated me right,” he said. “I guess it was just maturity. They accepted me, and with being deaf that was a huge deal for me that they did not think any different of me.”
Crusenberry has since graduated from Olney with his a degree in general studies. While Crusenberry currently plays for the Bee Jays, next summer he will play for Campbellsville University in Kentucky and will enter the school’s physical therapy program.
Despite the NBC Most Inspirational Player Award being an individual accolade, Crusenberry does not feel it was something he earned alone. He said the people around him on the Bee Jays helped him.
“I would not have won this without my coach, my manager, and the Liberal Bee Jays,” he said. “If it was not for those people there for me, who I have been with and played with, I would not have won it. It’s the people you’ve been with and how they respect me and I respect them back. It’s teamwork and it’s a blessing to win.”
Crusenberry’s dream is to play professional baseball, but even if that doesn’t come to pass he is still happy because he loves helping, he said.
“I’m just like everybody else and just like you all where you’re sitting right now,” he said in his speech to Country Heights students. “I just lost my hearing, that’s the only thing. If you’re feeling hopeless, have hope and believe in yourself.”
