The 11 Best Pairs Of Glasses In Sports

Solid list, but you missed Ato Boldin’s goggles from the 2000 Olympics.

Does not any “fashionista” cringe in horror recalling  Minnesota Twins’ superstar, Kirby Puckett’s, “Here yesterday, gone this morning,” exit from the game?

Woke up next to his wife, could SEE her out of one eye, only. The other? Sight lost forever. Incurable.

Sad? Sadder? Sadist! Had Kirby regularly visited his opthalmologist, who would have checked, painlessly, the “pressure” in each of Kirby’s eyeballs, the tragedy might never have occured.

No, I’m not a physician. Nor do I sell “dark glasses.” Nor, as an all-season, outdoor, kid  who tried to excel at sports, did I succeed. I worked summers peddling door-to-door; was a Teamster/common laborer at Monmouth Park;  climbed for the local Davey Tree Expert Company and did odd jobs to pay my way through New York City’s Columbia College.

My esteemed, maternal grandfather, eye, ear, nose and throat surgeon (my mother revealed to me) purposely failed to prescribe eyeglasses because he feared his grandson would hesitate to become the baseball player granddad’s only son never became. Granddad was a nationally-ranked, seven-day bicycle racer. As a pitcher,  he lost his Princeton scholarship when he threw his arm out.

I learned at age 64 the potentially-deadly distinction between ANY so-called “dark glasses” and those which give one-hundred (not a FRACTION less) percent eye protection from the sun’s invisibly-laserlike, ultraviolet A, B and C rays:  (1) life-long, robust macula, optic nerve…(2) what Kirby’s, perhaps needless, tragedy.

I suppose it was my heritage which made me ultra-selective of  eye doctors. Oh, yes, my dedicated, ambitious first wife worked for a local GP, then doubled for my opthalmologist, long retired by the time I first needed eye surgery, 1996.

I drove 100 miles back there to his successor, had a cataract removed and replaced with an intra-ocular lens.  As I left for home, my doctor gave me a complimentary pair of Solar Shield brand dark glasses which fit securely and comfortably over my prescription pair.

Later, I discovered what I can only praise as a virtual compendium in which a (now retired) Phoenix opthalmologist meticulously convinces whoever invests the time to read, word-for-word forevermore, thus stepping out into daylight, will never do so without wearing ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT UVA-B-C protective dark glasses: ones which fit over Rx glasses, as I, or “regular.”

A shopper will discover the brand I wear to be available in a variety from really-dark to much lighter colors. Each guarantees 100 percent eye protection;  depth of color has no effect upon security. Moreover, you may select “Polarized” as an extra feature.

For decades, living solely on Social Security retirement, whenever (rarely) I need to replace them, the investment has practically no impact on my budget. The Solar Shield brand, if not the greatest (ABSOLUTE) eye protection yet least-costly sunglasses, I haven’t found anything that beats ‘em.

Allan Wikman
Kingston, UlsterCountyUSA
845 + 802-0403

Wade could not look like a bigger douchebag.