After the
For 9-year-old Shannon McGuinness, struck by ball at Yankee
Ayoung girl rests peacefully in the stands along the third-base line at the Yankee Stadium on a balmy, late-summer afternoon. The sun is out and temperatures approach 80 degrees with a light breeze as the game’s stars mill about the field, shagging fly balls and fielding grounders. Fans buzz with excitement as players step in and out of the batting cage. The soothing smells of baseball float through the Bronx air — hot dogs, popcorn and fresh cut grass.
A loud crack reverberates through the park. A white-and-red blur rockets into the seats beyond the visiting dugout. The baseball, weighing 5.25 ounces, a rubber cork wrapped in yarn and sealed with animal hide, crashes into the head of the unsuspecting young girl. Chaos ensues. Stadium employees rush to the scene. A panicked murmur spreads through the crowd. The date is Aug. 28, 2003. The young girl is nine-year-old Shannon McGuinness of Pearl River, N.Y., and in an instant she’s fighting for her life, lapsing in and out of consciousness in the stands of Yankee Stadium.
The batting practice line drive that struck an inch above Shannon’s right temple fractured her skull in eight places.
She’s rushed to a nearby hospital for surgery. She would spend the next five days in intensive care followed by about another week in a hospital bed before being discharged. But it was just the beginning. Frequent migraines. Memory loss. Learning disabilities stemming from traumatic brain injury disorder. These are the obstacles Shannon has faced every day of her life since that ball struck her in the eye, something she knows could have been prevented.
Fourteen years later, she watches as another young girl suffers the same unnecessary fate while sitting in the stands along the thirdbase line at the new Yankee Stadium.
“I can’t believe this happened again,” says Shannon.
Says Ed McGuinness, Shannon’s father who was with her that day back in 2003, “It’s re-living a bad dream.”
On Wednesday, Sept. 20, in a home game against the Twins, Yankees third baseman Todd Frazier turns on a 94-mph fastball inside and smacks a screaming line drive into the seats. The ball hits a young girl in the face, halting the game while the players look on with tears in their eyes, unable to hide the pain and horror they feel churning in their stomachs.
In the clubhouse after the game, several Yankees, including Chase Headley and Aaron Judge, call for extending protective netting along the first- and third-base lines, a measure the Daily News has advocated for and championed for years, along with City Councilman Rafael Espinal.
Espinal has a bill that would mandate all stadiums in New York City extend netting down both baselines.
“I don’t want to have to legislate this,” Espinal told the News in May. “I would rather have the teams take this opportunity to do it themselves.
“Other teams are doing it. I’m baffled as to why this is such a big deal for the teams here in New York.”
The Mets, taking matters into their own hands, extended their protective netting over the All-Star break in July. Four teams (Reds, Mariners, Padres and Rockies) announced they would do the same after the young girl was hit at the Stadium two weeks ago (The family has opted to keep her name and age private). There are now 10 teams with netting down both baselines, and while commissioner Rob Manfred recommends all teams do the same, it’s still up to the discretion of each team to do so.
The Yankees remain unwilling to sacrifice the value of those seats to ensure the safety of their fans. After Shannon’s accident, the team started erecting temporary nets along the lines during batting practice; however, they take them down before first pitch.
Which begs the question: When will enough be enough?
Does a fan have to die for the Yankees to finally give in?
“That’s honestly exactly what I’m thinking,” says Shannon, now 23 and working toward her master’s degree at the University of Arizona. “I feel so lucky today and every day to be alive. I have confidence that MLB will do the right thing and put up netting. But I definitely don’t know what they’re waiting for.”
Ed McGuinness, who still copes daily with the emotional toll of that catastrophic August afternoon in 2003, is begging the Yankees to stop this from ever happening again.
“I know they have a business issue to contend with, and I guess those are the better seats or very expensive and some people that own them don’t want it,” says Ed. “But at the end of the day, I think the safety of the fans has to weigh in. If you have to sit behind a screen to keep everybody safe, I think that’s probably a fair tradeoff, right? If some kid does die, it’d be unimaginable for everybody stands and smashed into Shannon’s head, just above her right eye.
“Her eye socket,” says Ed, going back to that day, the worst of his life. “was just crushed.”
Eddie, still just a teenager, checked his sister’s pulse. Kelly was inconsolable. Ed tried to get Shannon to drink some water, “but she kept passing out.”
“You just get on automatic pilot and say, ‘What do I have to do here to save my daughter?’” says Ed.
Help arrived, and stadium attendants sped Shannon to the triage facility inside the Stadium.
“They came right in and said, ‘We need to get her to the hospital,’” remembers Ed.
EMTs loaded Shannon into an ambulance and took off for New York-Presbyterian, racing over sidewalks to avoid the large crowds. They reached the hospital, and doctors immediately recognized the severity of the situation. They diagnosed Shannon as having a fractured skull. They worried fragments of bone might puncture her brain.
“The news just kept getting worse that first day,” says Ed.
Shannon went to the operating room that night for neurosurgery. The family — now joined by Ed’s wife Peggy, grandparents, aunts and uncles — waited helplessly.
“It was,” says Ed, pausing to hold back his tears, “just about as awful as you could