A brand-new ballgame

From pro ball player to prosthetist?

From the ballfield to the mission field? 

Lee Anne “Beanie” Ketcham’s journey might seem circuitous, but it’s as true as a trip around the base paths.

You remember Beanie?

If you lived in Hoover in the 1970s, you’d probably recall her as the only girl who pitched in the Dixie Youth baseball league. 

If you followed high school baseball in the 1980s, you probably recall Beanie as the only girl who pitched for Sammy Dunn’s Vestavia Hills Rebels, posting a 12-5 record with six saves in her senior year, helping lead the Rebs to the Class 6A state finals. 

If you were a college softball aficionado, you’d recall Beanie as the shortstop on Oklahoma State’s four-time Big 8 champions, the Cowgirls making two appearances in the Women’s College World Series, finishing third twice. 

If you were familiar with the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s baseball team managed by Atlanta Braves Hall of Famer Phil Niekro, you might know her as the team’s ace pitcher who won the first game for a women’s team over a men’s team, pitching seven innings and striking out 14 batters. 

Or if you’re a Samford University fan, you’d know Beanie as the women’s head softball coach for seven seasons. 

But to any number of Ghanaians — and Alabamians, too — she’s the warm and compassionate prosthetist who is expertly fitting them with a new leg or arm, giving them back their mobility, their career and their honor.

Ketcham has logged a lifetime of memories and moments in a relatively short 45 years. 

She’s in several halls of fame, including the Vestavia Hills Sports Hall of Fame and the Alabama Dixie Softball HOF, and is pictured with her Silver Bullets teammates in Cooperstown at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. She won the Sington Award in 1995 as Alabama’s Female Pro Athlete of the Year.  

But she says she lives in the “now,” and the now is building and fitting prostheses at Birmingham Limb and Brace and, for the past three years, as a volunteer for Standing With Hope, a Christian ministry based in Nashville that sends prosthetists to Ghana. 

Faith has been a guiding force in her progression. 

“I had a heart to help people draw on their faith,” Ketcham said. “I kind of had in mind possibly getting a master’s in theology and be a team chaplain for a professional team and decided I wanted to go to seminary.”

So she enrolled at Samford and began and completed a master’s in theological studies at Beeson Divinity School. But circumstances warranted that she help coach softball as a graduate assistant to help pay for school, which eventually led to her taking over as head coach. Seven years later, she felt like she was being called in another direction, and she resigned.

“I took a summer off and was making lists of what I wanted as a priority in moving to another career,” Ketcham said. “One requirement was I really wanted to do something that I could do in the mission field that would have an eternal impact. 

“So I came upon prosthetics, and I said this really combines my skill set, my interests, my passions.”

She went on the Internet, searched out local companies and began shadowing prosthetists.

She began working at Birmingham Limb and Brace, under the tutelage of Gerald Deason, and with a little more schooling she became certified and licensed in January 2014. 

“It’s been a bit of a journey but it’s been a really, really good one. I’ve seen the hand of God just really provide and open doors along the way, as just confirmation that I was headed down the right path.”

One of those paths took her to Ghana.

While searching the Internet about prosthetics, Ketcham had come across Standing With Hope. She contacted them about volunteering. They asked her to apply, and her first trip to West Africa was in 2012. She returned in 2013 and 2014. Her plans for this year are not set, but she’d like to go back. She has to raise some $4,500 to make the trip, which is typically about a 10-day stint.

The organization works exclusively in Ghana, with the cooperation of the government of Ghana, working through Ghana Health Services, which has a prosthesis clinic. 

“(Standing With Hope) uses prosthetics as a way of sharing the gospel of Christ,” she said. “They came in alongside them to help equip the clinic better to increase the quality and the level of service that they were able to give their patients, so they would bring a prosthetist or two over every year and train the staff and also fit difficult patients. Standing With Hope also sends crates of supplies and materials that they cannot get in Africa to help build prostheses. The thing that makes them different is they are doing carbon fiber laminated prosthetic sockets.

“Essentially, it’s enabled a Third World country to build a prosthesis that’s almost as good as one that they can get here, but for a fraction of the cost.”

Ketcham said the staff there is learning and getting better at making prostheses and fitting patients. The goal is for them to become self-sufficient.

She said although she gives of her time and talent, she gets so much more from seeing how much of a difference it makes in people’s lives.

“In Africa, pretty much everybody we put a prosthesis on literally dances. A lot of them come in, even if they have a prosthesis, their foot is duct taped together, they’re walking on carbon fiber, there’s no foot shell, the suspension sleeve they have is in so many pieces or duct taped together and the fit is not good anymore, if it ever was.

“When you fit them with a prosthesis that fits and works and you put a cosmetic cover on it so that it resembles their other leg, which is very important to Africans, I can’t tell you how grateful they are and how excited they are.”

Ketcham said that’s something she’s learned about the African culture. 

“It’s a shame/honor culture. They are ashamed because they’re missing a limb or they’re not whole. To put them back on two feet, put them in a position where they can earn a living and provide for their family, is really restorative and takes that shame away.”

The Christian aspect of the ministry isn’t a hard-sell job. The staff there are typically Christians, and many of those they treat are Christians. But even for those who are not, the ministry is really the gift of the prosthesis and the skill of the technicians.

When they deliver the prosthesis, they will share the gospel of Christ.  

“We really just share the truth and love them and allow God to work in their hearts however he chooses.”