Visually impaired teens have "eye-opening" experience at day camp at Guaranteed Rate Field
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A group of visually impaired teens from Spectrios Institute for Low Visions's Grandma Martyl's Summer Day Camp was at Guaranteed Rate Field on Thursday.
The White Sox hosted the kids, complete with an on-the-field tour of the ballpark, where the kids got to run the bases and participate in batting practice.
The event is part of carrying on the legacy of the late Martyl Reinsdorf's work with children during her lifetime. The late wife of White Sox and Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf died in 2021.
"To be able to do a tactile tour, to let people really talk about seeing and feeling the baseball experience, and that's what today was really about; to really create just a richer understanding of the sport and the game," Christine O'Reilly, White Sox VP of Community Relations and Executive Director of Sox Charities, said.
White Sox staff showed kids things like how pitchers will use rosin bags to quickly dry off sweat from their hands and arms to be able to control their pitches.
"I've never really seen this stadium so close before, and now being in it, and being surrounded by it, it's a really nice experience. It's really eye-opening. It's like this could be an opportunity, because from up there [the stands] it kind of seems scary, but down here it's like everything is actually closer than you think," 14-year-old Alexander Karellas said.
One girl said it was the first time she's ever hit a baseball.
"We take it for granted, right? Not just the hitting it, which they made work, but the fact of even trying it; to not be embarrassed to try it. Safe space," said Leslie LeResche, director of children's programs at Spectrios. "For them, they feel so special. One girl said, she goes, 'I feel like I'm in a dream, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and it's not going to have happened.' I said, 'No, we have the pictures to prove it."
"It's really cool that people like me who are visually impaired, and I can collect numbers, and enjoy time with people who have the same kind of thing as I do, and try to find people who understand that kind of thing," said 13-year-old Paige Cichon.
The White Sox and Spectrios continue offering low-vision children aid such as vision exams, glasses, sports goggles, and magnifiers at no cost.