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Pro Baseball Team First to Improve Experience for Color Blind Fans as Rocket City Trash Pandas to Loan EnChroma Color Blind Glasses

August 6, 2024 - Southern League (SL)
Rocket City Trash Pandas News Release


Madison, AL & Berkeley, CA - The Rocket City Trash Pandas baseball club, a Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, has partnered with EnChroma to become the first professional sports team in America to enhance the gameday experience for fans who are red-green color blind. The Trash Pandas will permanently make special EnChroma glasses for red-green color blindness available for color blind guests to borrow so they can better experience the vibrant colors of the game they love.

One in 12 men (8%) and one in 200 women (.5%) are color blind. In the US, 13 million people are color blind and 350 million worldwide. With approximately 170 million baseball fans in the US alone, at least 7.2 million are color blind and cannot see the colors of game the same as those with normal color vision. With 40 players under contract per Major League Baseball (MLB) team, nearly 100 major league players are color blind.

Green grass and the incredible blue 'baseball' skies are so synonymous with the baseball, said Trash Pandas Executive Vice President & General Manager. We're glad to partner with EnChroma to make these opportunities available to fans who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to experience the breathtaking sights of a Trash Pandas game.

While people with normal color vision see over one million shades of color, those with red-green Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) see an estimated 10% of hues and shades. To them, colors can appear dull, washed out and indistinguishable; purple looks blue; red seems brown; gray appears pink; and green and yellow can look similar. For color blind ballplayers and fans, it might be harder to pick up the rotation of the red stitches on the ball or find a pop fly against a gray sky.

To kick off the initiative, eight color blind Trash Pandas' fans were invited onto the field pregame at a home game on August 6 at 6:35 p.m. (EST) to educate fans about the challenges color blind can pose to them. The participants include a color blind police officer, a teacher, fire marshal, middle school student, paramedic, project manager, safety director and a chef. They then donned EnChroma glasses for the first time and shared their colorful observations and experiences. Click here to see images and video of the color blind participants and the reactions and comments.

For color blind players, the baseball can blend in with the brown dirt infield and the green grass, while the red of the Trash Pandas' uniforms can look dull. Even colorful sunsets, scoreboard graphics and postgame fireworks may seem less impressive, said Erik Ritchie, CEO of EnChroma. We are thrilled that the Trash Pandas are pioneering color accessibility in baseball. We hope that other ballclubs and sports teams will enable color blind fans to experience their favorite teams in richer color with our glasses too.

EnChroma glasses' patented lenses are engineered with special optical filters that help people with red-green color blindness (deuteranomalous and protanomalous types) see an expanded range of visible colors. The glasses are not a cure for color blindness, work for eight of ten red-green color blind people, and results and reaction times vary. A study by the University of the Incarnate Word illustrated the benefits of the glasses.

The Rocket City Trash Pandas join over 400 other organizations that support color blind guests and students by loaning them glasses through the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program™. Via the program, EnChroma donates a pair of glasses for each pair an organization purchases to loan to the public. Participants to date include over 100 museums, 200 public libraries, 10 tourism offices, 30 K-12 schools and 18 universities. The program is also open to employers. Nearly 100 state and national parks across 25 states offer EnChroma-adapted scenic viewers to color blind visitors and/or the glasses.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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