Above: Ben Nascimento, 9, waits for his pitch as his Riverside team faces Portsmouth in Sunday’s Challenger Jamboree. Photo by Jim McGaw.

PORTSMOUTH — You couldn’t wipe the smile off Ben Nascimento’s face if you tried.

The 9-year-old player on the Riverside Challenger baseball team could barely wait for the pitcher’s ball to reach the plate before he smacked it for a single.

For his parents, Bob and Mary Nascimento, Challenger baseball is a way of providing a little normalcy in their lives.

“I think it’s great that they can play as a team,” said Ms. Nascimento of Challenger baseball leagues, which give children with varying development disabilities an opportunity to compete on the diamond with their peers.

“They just have the benefits that every other child does. It’s just amazing for them to come and play baseball and just have the same camaraderie with all the other kids.”

Mr. Nascimento agreed.

“It makes him feel like he’s a regular kid,” he said. “Everybody’s the same here.”

On Sunday Ben joined a couple of hundred other players at the ninth annual Challenger Jamboree at Glen Park, in which 18 teams from Rhode Island and Massachusetts participated.

Everything from the food, face-painting, moon walk, dunk tank, pony rides, visits from various mascots and more was offered up free of charge so that families could enjoy a stress-free day of watching their children have fun on the field. Dozens of volunteers turned out to make the day a success.

Bob Dyl, a former Little League coach who started up the local Challenger division nearly a decade ago, said this year’s Jamboree was slightly scaled down from previous ones.

“We actually have a few less teams but it doesn’t look like we have less people,” he said.

Town Council President Keith Hamilton, who Mr. Dyl said “has been a supporter of this Challenger division for a long time,” threw out the first pitch.

“He has come through for us big time so many times,” Mr. Dyl said of Mr. Hamilton, who was president of Portsmouth Little League when the Challenger division was part of that group. (Now known as Rhode Island Challenger District 2, the division has since become financially independent.)

The Jamboree also featured a free raffle, which was won by Joseph Camara of Attleboro, Mass. His prize was an autographed, framed picture of the Boston Red Sox’s Mookie Betts.

The players and their families ate well. The food tally included 800 hamburgers, 600 hotdogs, 750 bags of chips, 40 pizzas and 15 watermelons. Most of it was donated or offered at a reduced rate to the league.

Senior league

Morgan Carroll of Portsmouth, a longtime Challenger player who’s now part of the senior division that Mr. Dyl started up this year for adults over 18, sang the National Anthem.

“The senior division is doing well,” said Mr. Dyl, whose son Caleb plays with the older group. “It started a little bit slower than I had hoped. We contacted every agency that we could without much turnout from them, so next year we’ve going to make a more direct approach.”

Athletes in the senior Challenger division, who also competed at Sunday’s Jamboree, play at the Berkley-Peckham Field on Green End Avenue in Middletown on Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Scroll through more photos from the 2015 Challenger Jamboree below.