Birmingham, Michigan native, Stephen Peck, has had a love for children for as long as he can remember.  As most children, Steve thought his dad was the greatest and he couldn't wait until his sixth birthday.  The reason... His dad had decided that six years old was the perfect age to begin taking his son to Detroit Tigers baseball games.  Steve's sixth birthday came and went without a chance to see the Tigers play.  His father passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack at the young age of 38.

Steve vowed that when he had his son he wouldn't wait until he was six years old to see a ballgame. Steve's dream of having a boy came true as Ryan was born in November of 1989.  Ryan and Steve have been attending baseball games all over the country since Ryan was old enough to walk.  Steve was also deeply involved in coaching Ryan's teams for the first six years of Little League.

Steve had been a major market radio disc jockey and went on to own a successful audio/video marketing company.  It was during this time that he met former Detroit Tigers World Series champ, Jim Northrup and they began providing baseball training camps for able-bodied players as a side line business.

After leaving a baseball camp, Steve stopped by a 7-Eleven and happened to notice a public service ad on the counter that had a picture of a boy in a wheelchair with a baseball bat.  Steve wondered if children with disabilities would be able to play ball.  He rushed home and did an internet search and discovered a video piece that had aired on HBO Sports featuring a league in Georgia that had designed and built a synthetic turf surface baseball field for children with disabilities.  Steve acquired the rights to The Miracle League for his market and began the task of finding a donor for the land and then went about the daunting task of raising the $500,000 to construct the field.

The Miracle League offered only one field surface at the time for leagues and the cost of the Mondo surface was priced out of reach.  This prompted Steve to begin the search for an equivalent field surface that would cost less.  He found two surfaces that were less expensive than the Mondo surface but ruled one out due to the fact that it was a recycled painted surface and shaped in octagon blocks making it look like bathroom tile and was deemed unsafe due to the literally thousands of edges of the octagon blocks fitting together.  (See pictures on Photo Page)

A synthetic field surface should provide safety to players in wheelchairs and walkers, and second, be esthetically pleasing.  After researching other surface options, Steve found the perfect solution in Defargo.  Not only was he able to save $20,000 over  Mondo, but the Defargo surface actually looked better. 

Steve installed the first Defargo surface in 2004 and the rest is history.  Since then, many other adaptive fields have also installed the Defargo surface and are glad they did.  Exceptional Sports Products is now the exclusive representative of our Exceptional Sports Surfaces by Defargo.