Melanie Tutka only needed one pitch to knock in a home run. She eyed the ball all the way to the outfield. A smile beamed from ear to ear as she dropped her bat and turned to the crowd. She waved her hand in the air and took a bow, then trotted to first base.

The stadium at Adams Elementary School burst into cheers as Melanie rounded the bases, stopping to wave and bow at third before making her way home.

As she stomped on home plate, her teammates rushed out of the dugout to greet her.

Shouts of “Way to go, Melanie!” and “Yeah, Melanie!” filled the air. Watching from the bleachers, her mother’s face lit up with joy.

After the final inning, Melanie sprinted off the field and headed straight for a box of M&M chocolate-chip cookies. Her smile remained planted on her face as she wandered around giving high-fives.

But it wasn’t because her team, the Yankees, won. They always win. Every team wins. And it wasn’t because she scored. She always scores. Everyone scores.

Along with the almost 90 other children who participate in the Miracle League of the Triangle, 4-year-old Melanie and her Yankee teammates are just looking to play ball and have fun.

The Miracle League, a nationwide endeavor that only recently gained prominence in the Triangle, provides children with disabilities a chance to play baseball — an activity most were used to just watching.

In the Miracle League, every player gets to hit — twice, in fact — and the last hit of the game is always a homerun. Every runner is safe, every player scores, and both teams are crowned victors.

With the help of “buddies,” volunteers who help the children overcome the challenges associated with their disabilities on the field, everyone plays. Whether 3 years old or 21 years, the league is open to all.

The Miracle League holds a fall and spring season. The local fall league began Sept. 16 and runs through Nov. 4 with games played on Saturdays. Since the league has no practices, all eight teams play on the weekend.

“It’s great to see them all growing, physically and mentally,” said Stephanie Davage, the executive director of the MLT. “They root for each other and most of them play to the crowd.”

Melanie, who was born with Down Syndrome, is proud of her work on the field. But such enthusiasm for the game wouldn’t have been possible for kids like her before the Miracle League began.

“She just has so much fun,” said Melanie’s mother, Cathie Tutka. “It’s nice for them to be able to do normal things. Her brother plays baseball, so it gives her a chance to do something like her brother does. She loves doing what her brother does.”

The league started nationally in 1998 in Conyers, Ga., with 35 players spread over four teams. The organization has since exploded into a 143-league nationwide miracle. But as of April 2006, only 18 specialized fields were completed.

Made of rubberized synthetic turf, accessible dugouts and restrooms and a pitcher’s mound that has been shaved down to a circle, the field caters to those with mobility and visual impairments.

On Sept. 16, the Triangle became the newest owner of a Miracle League field.

In cooperation with the Wake County Public School System, and with the help of community volunteers and local businesses, the league was able to raise enough to build the state-of-the-art facility worth almost $500,000.

Fifty-one “All-Stars,” as the league calls them, pledged $5,000. Of those All-Stars are 15 local banks and businesses that gave more than $650,000 in donations and in-kind gifts with a minimum value of $5,000 each.

The idea for the Triangle to establish a Miracle League field came on an ordinary Sunday evening about a year and a half ago. After watching an HBO special on the Miracle League, Robin Rose, a Cary businessman and current co-chairman of the MLT, knew he had to get involved.

“I was lying on the couch watching TV, like most of us do,” Rose said. “I heard something about baseball, and I was a fan of baseball, and it had something to do with special needs kids. Within five minutes of that promotion, I was standing in front of the TV with my arms crossed and jaw to the floor. I called my buddy Tony Withers and asked him if he thought it was something we ought to do. He called me back later that night and said, ‘We’ll get started tomorrow.’”

Withers, the CEO of a local environmental and civil engineering firm, was immediately hooked on the idea of bringing a Miracle League field to the Triangle. Now that the project is complete, his enthusiasm remains.

“When we first started, it hurt to see these kids,” Withers said. “Now, when I see new kids arrive and when I see them play in the field, I don’t see a single handicap. It’s amazing how the league changes your outlook.”

Rose and Withers’ outlooks have changed, and it seems the awareness of the MLT’s newest field is changing others as well. Already the two have started initial talks of building two more fields in the Triangle within the next five years, one in North Raleigh and the other in the Durham-Chapel Hill area.

For Joe Porrazzo, the designated home-plate umpire and the coach of the Yankees in the Miracle League, receiving word of the Miracle League wasn’t an issue. He has been devoted to the organization since before he moved to North Carolina.

The native New Yorker helped coach a Miracle team in 1993 and ’94, and couldn’t deny the chance to get involved again when he heard the Triangle was starting a league.

“The best part is just seeing how happy the kids are,” he said. “They’ve never been able to do anything like this before. They are so happy, just look at the smiles on their faces.”

With a chocolate-chip cookie in one hand and her mother’s hand in the other, Melanie left the “Field of Dreams” on Saturday, skipping every step of the way. The gleaming smile she showed the crowd after her in-the-park home run never left.

It just got bigger.