lookout!

[nymr83]

Dopey fan not even watching as line drive barely misses his head.
http://gfycat.com/NeatMeekHuman#

[seawolf17]

Holy moley. Two inches and that guy is dead.

[Ceetar]

Put down your phone and pay attention!

...what do you mean people have always been distracted and not paid attention and it has nothing to do with smartphones?

[Guest d'Kong76]

I've often said that I'm surprised more people aren't
seriously injured at ballgames. No common sense.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

If you sit along the lines on field level especially, you have to watch every pitch.

[Frayed Knot]

There were three people in that shot who absolutely were not looking--the two where the ball went right between their necks and the one in the blue hat two rows back-- and they were three of the four most likely victims. Everyone who wasn't likely to get smoked at least were paying attention enough to react.


At some point netting is going to start going up beyond just where it exists behind home plate. It took the death of a young girl for them to start doing just that in hockey and had this ball gone eight inches to either side this may have been the incident which started that ball rolling in MLB.

[Edgy MD]

That's the problem. The netting will go up after someone gets killed. Latter day stadia have placed the seats so much closer to the plate.

I snuck down to the front row after a long rain delay at a Bowie Bay Sox game. I was without my glove, and a Josh Barfield liner very nearly knocked my head clean off.

I have no idea how I managed to dodge it, and I still suspect that the ball didn't miss me at all, but rather somehow changed composition and phased through my head.

Or perhaps it did kill me, and this is my afterlife purgatory.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: That's the problem. The netting will go up after someone gets killed. Latter day stadia have placed the seats so much closer to the plate. I snuck down to the front row after a long rain delay at a Bowie Bay Sox game. I was without my glove, and a Josh Barfield liner very nearly knocked my head clean off. I have no idea how I managed to dodge it, and I still suspect that the ball didn't miss me at all, but rather somehow changed composition and phased through my head. Or perhaps it did kill me, and this is my afterlife purgatory.

eternally inept offense against the Marlins. That's your purgatory. Why did you drag me down here too?

[Edgy MD]

Blame Barfield.

[nymr83]

Frayed Knot wrote: At some point netting is going to start going up beyond just where it exists behind home plate. It took the death of a young girl for them to start doing just that in hockey and had this ball gone eight inches to either side this may have been the incident which started that ball rolling in MLB

Edgy MD wrote: That's the problem. The netting will go up after someone gets killed. Latter day stadia have placed the seats so much closer to the plate.

I don't think someone getting hurt is the problem. I think the rest of us losing out on the superior "no nets" stadium experience because some shmuck cant pay attention is the problem. Seriously, go sit somewhere else.

[Frayed Knot]

Well, of course nets and barriers exist now, the question will be if and how far to extend them beyond the current behind the plate area.
You wouldn't have to encircle the entire stadium obviously. But it'll be hard to prevent a groundswell to more them at least to the dugouts after someone gets either seriously injured or killed after being smoked by a foul ball.

[Edgy MD]

Nymr83 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: At some point netting is going to start going up beyond just where it exists behind home plate. It took the death of a young girl for them to start doing just that in hockey and had this ball gone eight inches to either side this may have been the incident which started that ball rolling in MLB Edgy MD wrote: That's the problem. The netting will go up after someone gets killed. Latter day stadia have placed the seats so much closer to the plate. I don't think someone getting hurt is the problem. I think the rest of us losing out on the superior "no nets" stadium experience because some shmuck cant pay attention is the problem. Seriously, go sit somewhere else.

I understand the libertarian worldview, but I was paying full attention and with all my relatively healthy faculties and the maneuverability of sitting in an aisle seat in a mostly empty stadium, it is still a matter of pure luck that leaves me here talking to you right now. At some level, a host bears some legal responsibility for the safety of a guest. You don't know the soup you're in until you're in it.

"The rest of us" would not miss out on much of anything, as netting would likely not encircle the stadium, but rather likely be two triangles of netting extending down from the top of the screen behind home plate to a point about 100-125 feet down the baselines, were the netting would meet the rail.

And we don't have a "no nets" stadium experience right now.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Maybe you could just have the stadium PA play "EV-RY-BO-DY WATCH THE FIELD! [clapclapclapclap...]" every thirty seconds or so.

[nymr83]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Maybe you could just have the stadium PA play "EV-RY-BO-DY WATCH THE FIELD! [clapclapclapclap...]" every thirty seconds or so.

Amazing.

[seawolf17]

If only there was some organized activity going on on the field that people could watch!

[batmagadanleadoff]

Someone'll have to get killed before they start extending those nets. $$$$ and risk-reward and cost of lawsuits all that jazz. I'm surprised no one's gotten killed yet, and that's what ML is saying to itself: 100+ years of baseball and no one's ever gotten killed yet. But those seats right at the edge of the netting are dangerous. There, you should never take your eye off of the play.

[Edgy MD]

I imagine folks have gotten killed.

According to this 2003 report, 35 fatalities had occurred to that date at major and minor league ballparks since 1900, though only five are "ball related."

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: I imagine folks have gotten killed. According to this 2003 report, 35 fatalities had occurred to that date at major and minor league ballparks since 1900, though only five are "ball related."

those ball-related ones are probably people lunching for balls...over the edge of the upper deck.

[Benjamin Grimm]

It's not reasonable to expect every fan to pay attention to every pitch. The score may be 10 to 0 and you're chatting with your friend. You may be helping your kid put mustard on his hot dog. Or paying the vendor for your beer. Or reading the "fun facts" on the scoreboard. Or any number of things.

[seawolf17]

Ceetar wrote: Edgy MD wrote: I imagine folks have gotten killed. According to this 2003 report, 35 fatalities had occurred to that date at major and minor league ballparks since 1900, though only five are "ball related." those ball-related ones are probably people lunching for balls...over the edge of the upper deck.

Still probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in person.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

seawolf17 wrote: Ceetar wrote: Edgy MD wrote: I imagine folks have gotten killed. According to this 2003 report, 35 fatalities had occurred to that date at major and minor league ballparks since 1900, though only five are "ball related." those ball-related ones are probably people lunching for balls...over the edge of the upper deck. Still probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in person.

I'm surprised you survived that fall.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

At a Norfolk Tides game in the 1990s I saw a foul ball go straight back, hit the front of the upper deck, and ricochet into the back of a spectator's head on the lower level. There was blood and the fan was taken away by paramedics. Can't imagine how it could have been avoided even by the most attentive fan.

[Zvon]

Couldn't they use a seamless plexi-glass kind of design in place of all netting set ups?

[Benjamin Grimm]

It would be so smudged with handprints and noseprints and glare. I think a fine-mesh screen is better.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, I don't think of plexiglass as any better to look through than netting. I've sat behind the netting the NHL started putting up a decade or so ago to guard the higher seats behind the goals following the death of that fan, and you don't even notice it. Since your eyes are focused for the distance of the ice, the nearer netting simply 'disappears' in the same way your thumb does if you put it up at arm's length in front of your face but focus on the scene in the middle distance.

Hockey of course also still uses glass for protection of the first few rows all around the rink but they also have to replace panels every once in a while when they either break or get knocked out of their frames. And, yeah, they're often not great to look through, particularly if you do so at an angle.

[Gwreck]

How about doing NOTHING. 5 ball-related fatalities from 1900 to 2003? Sounds like there's essentially no problem at all. Certainly no need to start putting up screens or some other nonsense.

Further, Every stadium has a policy that if you are in a seat that you have the risk of getting hit by a ball in, they will be happy to re-seat you. Plus plenty of disclaimers when you buy your ticket and everything else.

This is not a problem.

[Frayed Knot]

There wasn't a problem in the NHL either until that girl was killed. And fine print disclaimers only go so far legally and even less far from a public relations pov.

Look, I'm not saying I think this needs to be done immediately only that I think it IS going to happen (to some extent) eventually, and if that ball had smoked and either maimed or killed one of those guys yesterday then eventually may have been pushed up to, say, tomorrow. Certainly a dialog on the topic would have started and teams/cities would have to start answering questions like why nets and/or screens are an anathema in certain spots while similar protections are universal in others, particularly as more and more seats march closer and closer to the batters box.

[Frayed Knot]

Young boy plunked in the head off a vicious, sliced foul by Carlos Gomez yesterday in Atlanta.
Hospitalized at least overnight, but apparently going to be all right.

[Fman99]

Ceetar wrote: those ball-related ones are probably people lunching for balls...over the edge of the upper deck.

I like any gal who's willing to go lunching for balls.