Bocce Balls!

I wrote this for my philosophy class. I will have the oppertunity to post more of papers as it's a writing intensive class. Hey, it's something!
-------------------------------------------------------



Imagine that you are at a friend’s house for a BBQ and some Bocce Ball and you also suffer from colorblindness with a red/green deficiency (for matters of style, I will from now on assume the red/green deficiency when mentioning colorblindness). Your friend meant well by bringing out his set of Bocce Balls as he was merely offering a fun yard game to play. He didn’t realize that the balls are manufactured in the two colors that your eyes cannot see correctly—red and green. Instead of enjoying the day, you are left sulking in your Budweiser as once again your handicap has been overlooked. This situation could have been avoided if the manufactures of Bocce Balls would stop to think about their color selection. I will guide these manufacturers toward a new color scheme by: arguing against the current Bocce sets of red and green, offering support of the change through a list of profitable possibilities, and by offering a better scheme to replace the current red and green sets that seem to dominate the Bocce isles of our finer retail stores.
First, let’s take a look at the most common color choice of Bocce Balls: red and green. Keep in mind that they are not the bold, distinctive reds and greens observable on stoplights. No, it is now trendy to paint the balls in muted olives, or subtle tints of rust or brick, which look like a dull grey to the colorblind. When thrown onto a grassy lawn, the muted-green ball is immediately lost to a colorblind participant as the poor chap cannot distinguish the green ball from the green grass (same goes for any nearsighted person, for that matter). To make matters worse, the opponent’s red ball is painted in the very color that a colorblind person has a hard time separating from green… which is the color of his own ball! You can imagine the frustration of our poor colorblind player as these balls are being thrown at a distance. If he’s lucky enough to pick out the ball from the grass, it is a struggle to tell to which team that ball belongs! Both the red and green balls look a sort-of grayish. With this said, it now seems quite shortsighted and silly to choose red and green as the standard Bocce colors.

Now that I have demonstrated that red and green are poor choices of color for Bocce Balls, I will now offer reasons to change that are in the best interests of the manufacturers (to answer the WHO CARES? counterargument) while offering new color schemes as replacements. Our new color scheme must meet two simple demands: they must stand out when placed in grass, and each color must be distinguishable from the other in the eyes of the colorblind. Imagine alternatively colored Bocce Balls that break away from the traditional red and green sets. Breaking away from the stale red and green will make any brightly colored, contrasting set of Bocce Balls stand out from its competitors on the store shelves. Think of the possibilities of the contrasting colors: what Minnesotan football fan wouldn’t buy a purple and gold bocce set to both represent his Vikings pride and to appease his colorblind pals? The colorblind-friendly choice of orange and blue could be marketed toward both fans of the Florida Gators and the Denver Broncos. Imagine introducing your child to the game of Bocce with a Grover and Big Bird set with contrasting blues and yellows. With each new scheme, we introduce a new world of marketing ($$) possibilities. The manufacturers can’t afford not to change!

Not only have I demonstrated the need for change in Bocce Ball color, I have also shown a profit potential that could add incentive to the manufacturers beyond helping the minority of colorblind people. This argument rests… the ball is now in the courts of the manufacturers.

(note: I do know that there are already multi-colored and even glow-in-the-dark sets on the internet, but these are not found in mainstream locales. Plus, this was more of an exersize in argument rather than a serious attack on the Bocce community. I have never played on a set that was not green and red, though as they are truely the most popular color.)