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Dreaming in red: Blind woman soaks up sounds of Busch Stadium

She can only see when she’s asleep.

“In dreams,” Joan Johnson said, “everything is color.”

Eyes open, all she sees is black. Except here. At Busch Stadium. Because she’s day-dreaming.

She lost her sight in her early teens, but she remembers the fields in Florissant from before, back when her dad would pitch in the games, back when her childhood crush was the game.

“I never could see perfect,” said Joan, now 75, “but I could see enough.”

So she sits alertly in Section 265, watching a Cardinals game she cannot watch. She cradles a black portable radio by her left ear, because she’s deaf in her right ear.