Jim Walker
jim.walker@irontontribune.com

CINCINNATI — Colton Hurst was seeing red, and not because he was angry at watching the Cincinnati Reds lose 3-2 to the Atlanta Braves on Friday at Great American Ball Park.
In fact, Hurst wasn’t even upset. Instead, he was happy and amazed at the same time.
The parents of Hurst gave their son a special pair of glasses on Friday as an early birthday present and the 12-year-old put them on and saw the color red.
That isn’t anything special to most people, but for Hurst it was a monumental moment in his life because he was born color blind.
It was the first time Hurst has ever seen color and he couldn’t stop looking in all directions after putting on the glasses.
“Red. Everything was red,” said Hurst. “(My parents) said ‘can you try on these glasses for me real quick,” said Colton. “I put them on and they were color blind glasses.”
And the excitement of the special glasses continued all night as Colton kept wearing them even after the game.
“I will remember seeing red for the first time. It shocked me whenever I put them on,” Colton said. “I was trying to figure out how this was possible. I didn’t know they would work.”
Colton’s father Jason Hurst handed him the EnChroma glasses that were developed in the early 2000s. Jason filmed Colton putting on the gift and his reaction in this priceless moment that became very emotional for everyone.
“I’m ugly crying, (his mother) is ugly crying, everybody else around us people who didn’t even know us is ugly crying,” said Jason.
Watching the Reds play as his first opportunity to see color was the perfect scenario for the life-changing gift.
“I’m just thinking ‘Wow! He can finally see what we see,” said Jason. “It’s stuff like that we take for granted. We see it every day.”
Hurst is from Nicholasville, Ky., and his team was in town for a tournament and went to the Reds’ game to try and generate some motivation for their weekend games.
“We traveled three hours and we’re going to win a championship (Saturday),” Hurst said who has played baseball since he was 5 years old.