The gloomy vibe that splattered over Miller Park on July 6 had less to do with the Milwaukee Brewers’ eight-game winning streak coming to an end as it did with the spectator who took a line shot foul ball to the face.
A woman sitting a few rows behind Brewers’ dugout in ninth inning of that game was unable to get out of the way of the screaming liner off the bat of Atlanta’s Eury Perez, and the game was delayed for nine minutes as emergency medical staff attended to her.
The Brewers telecast crew lamented the bloody incident, and quickly corrected the initial observation that “there’s nothing you can do about it.”
They spoke of the need for Major League Baseball to extend the protective netting behind home plate.
It beggars the imagination, with so many things being done today in the name of security and safety, why this is even a question.
Of the “big four” team sports, only baseball and hockey have fan-safety issues involving flying projectiles. It took a death at a National Hockey League game for the league to act on theirs. A 13-year-old girl died in 2002 after being hit by a deflected shot at a Columbus Blue Jackets game.
The NHL since mandated that all stadiums have protective netting installed behind both end lines. It was a natural progression in the sport’s evolution, and a move for which someone probably should have seen the need much earlier.
In the fairly recent past, only a few players in the NHL wore helmets, and many reading this can recall the days when goalies – goalies, the ones paid to get in the way of 100-mph slap shots – played without protective gear for their face and head. Common sense eventually dictated that any player on the ice interested in the uninterrupted functioning of brain activity would do well to cover his noggin.
The idea of a goalkeeper without a facemask falls somewhere between laughable and psychotic, as did the old baseball tradition of hitters stepping into the box without a batting helmet. Adding strangeness to this bit of masochism is that it took place in a time when the brush-back pitch was standard fare, and a fastball off the coconut was considered the hitter’s fault for not getting out of the way.
Baseball has since legislated to protect hitters, with today’s umps ejecting pitchers who appear to be throwing at someone, or who have hit an opposing batter after a “warning” was issued.
So far, though, not much for protecting the fans, apart from various posted signs and ticket stubs telling them to always be alert. The ones helped most by these warnings are teams that can point to them when lawsuits are brought.
About 1,750 spectators get hurt every year by batted balls, mostly fouls, at major league games. The majority of the injuries are minor – “minor” being defined as an injury happening to someone else. But you don’t have to research very long to unearth some grotesque, life-threatening harm sustained by fans in the recent past.
The Atlanta runner on first base when the foul ball struck the Brewers fan was Andrelton Simmons, whose postgame comments on the matter included, “ … sometimes you wish the net was bigger and covered the people who don’t have a chance to react. I wouldn’t sit that close.”
The last part is worth noting in that it comes from someone with hand-eye coordination and fast-twitch reactions commensurable to play shortstop in the major leagues. If an elite athlete admits to the helplessness in a random, lined-foul-ball situation, there is an issue to be addressed, and it’s not enough to tell fans to be alert.
Even the most alert fans with the best reactions are sitting ducks, if the fan a few rows ahead gets a partial hand on the line drive and re-directs it their way.
Opponents of the extended protective netting cite their obscured view of the action behind the mesh, or the thwarting of their chance to go home with a souvenir.
Hmm. No foul-ball souvenir, or a line drive off the temple? I think I’ll go with no souvenir. If it’s all about a memento, and not just enjoying a game, buy a cap.
