The Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum is “by far, the largest and most active” facility dedicated to a Major League Baseball team in the United States, according to Executive Director
Rick Walls. He says there are only about six museums like the Reds' even in existence.
To build on that activity and allow more fans of the game to experience the history of professional baseball, which is rooted in Cincinnati, the museum sought a grant to improve accessibility to its exhibits for visitors with visual or hearing impairments.
About 42,000 people in the Greater Cincinnati area alone are blind or visually impaired, and Walls says 31 million individuals in the U.S. have experienced hearing loss.
“You hear these ideas and start to think about baseball, and how people sat at home and listened to the game on their radios and how a commentator had to paint the picture of the story behind it, and then you hear about the others who would go to the baseball field who remember the green grass and the lights on the field,” Walls says. “Baseball provides all these senses to different people in different ways. And to some, you provide only some. To others, you provide all of it, so I thought—how do we bring that color out? How do we let people experience the Hall of Fame in different ways?”
After receiving nearly $21,000 from the Erma A. Bantz Foundation and partnering with the
Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired for advice on how to best use the funds, the Reds' Hall of Fame went to work.
Larger font sizes, more effective sound and lighting levels, and closed captioning are all improvements that Walls says were simple and cost effective, but the non-profit also invested in large-print maps and assisted listening devices.
“Competing sound and how it affects people differently was something we became aware of, and with every audio element within the museum, there will be a transmitter to these devices,” Walls says.
But the organization’s partnership with CABVI extends beyond the improvements. The two nonprofits will team up to bring various groups to the museum for tactile tours during which participants will be able to do more than see and hear about Reds history—they’ll have the chance to experience it by touching artifacts.
“I think this ends up being a program for everybody, and not just those who have impairments because the tactile tour is going to become popular—who wouldn’t want to hold a piece of history?” Walls asks.
Walls says he’s excited that more people will now have the chance to experience all the museum has to offer.
“I think that’s one of the most important things we do—and that’s when a grandfather or grandmother comes in with their grandkids, with their son and daughter—they don’t have a lot in common these days because of technology,” Walls says. “But when they do come in here, they have something in common, and it’s the simple game of baseball. And when they look at the wall, a grandparent will point at a player on the wall and say, ‘Look at this guy,’ and then the grandkid will point at
Brandon Phillips or
Jay Bruce, and then all of a sudden, they’re together, and that’s really a neat phenomenon.”
Do Good:
•
Plan your visit to the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, and consider
becoming a member.
• Support the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum through the
Legacy Brick Campaign or the
Joe Morgan Statue Campaign.
• Support CABVI by
donating or
volunteering your time.
By Brittany York
Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.