‘We’ve all been sitting ducks’
Foul-ball safety group calls for more netting at ballparks
On a beautiful day in July 2015, Stephanie Wapenski and her husband were seated on the third-base line between home plate and the start of the visitor’s dugout at Fenway Park, having scored coveted tickets to a Red Sox-Yankees game.
Wapenski saw Didi Gregorius of the Yankees swing.
“Then I saw a flash of white, and then just silence,” she said. “I sat there with my head in my hands. My husband really thought he was going to lose me. The tone in his voice when he cried out for help is something I never hope to hear again.”
Wapenski suffered a concussion and a facial injury that required more than 30 stitches. But the doctor who treated her at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center told her that had her head been turned just enough to be hit in the temple, the outcome might have been fatal.
Now, Wapenski and a nonprofit are calling for all major- and minor-league ballparks to be certified by an independent netting council made up of engineers, architects and other experts to make sure that when fans are allowed to return to ballparks once the coronavirus pandemic is under control, no one else is injured by balls that can reach speeds of more than 120 mph.
“There’s a need for outrage because we’ve all been sitting ducks,” said Jordan Skopp, founder of Foul Ball Safety Now. “It’s predictable. It’s not if someone will be seriously injured; it’s when.”
A Major League Baseball spokesman said that on Feb. 1, 2018, Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that all MLB ballparks would have protective netting extending to at least the far ends of both dugouts by Opening Day.
But the following year, a 79-year-old woman died from a foul ball that flew over the netting behind home plate at Dodger Stadium.
On Dec. 11, 2019, Manfred said that for the 2020 season, all 30 clubs would have netting in place that extended “substantially” beyond the far end of the dugout.
Fenway Park’s netting system has twice been expanded, first in 2016 and again in 2018, said Zineb Curran, a Red Sox spokesman.
“The club was proactive with the most recent expansion, going well beyond the far edges of the home and visitor’s dugouts,” Curran said.
Children are at particular risk if they are hit by foul balls. From 2008 to 2019, Skopp said, at least 39 youngsters were maimed at major-and minor-league parks.
But a tort law ruling known as the “Baseball Rule” makes suing over injuries difficult. Most teams have disclaimers on the backs of tickets and throughout their stadiums.
The Major League Baseball Players Association, however, has twice called for stadiums to follow the Japanese model, which has netting from foul pole to foul pole, rejecting the claim that it would block the view of high-priced seats.
“If Japan does it,” Skopp said, “we can do it.”