“It’s great, once in a lifetime experience. We got a good ovation by the crowd, it was good to be able to represent our 1.3 million members. You know the umpires all signed the ball for me, the (Colorado) Rockies even signed the ball.”

Dave Riley is a U.S. Army and Coast Guard veteran. In the late 1990s, he lost all four of his limbs, after he contracted gangrene.

On Saturday, however, he got up onto the mound at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Ohio — where Major League Baseball’s Cincinnati Reds play — and threw out the first pitch.

It was the ball club’s Military Appreciation Day.

Riley is a high-level mover and shaker in the Disabled American Veterans organization.