Safety first: Yankees to
Leading off for the Yankees in 2018: Fan safety.
The details of the expanded netting at Yankee Stadium — championed by the Daily News and city councilman Rafael Espinal — were made public by the team Wednesday.
The Yankees finally caved to mounting pressure when they announced in October that more protective netting would be put in place in time for the start of the 2018 season. Now we get the details. The netting, which will be partially retractable, will be attached to the roofs of both dugouts and stationary netting will extend beyond the far ends of the dugouts toward the foul poles.
The height of the net above each dugout will be nine feet during games. The bottom portion of the nets above the dugouts will be able to be lifted up to three feet so that fans can still interact with players during batting practice.
More from the Yankees press release:
“Beyond the dugout, netting will extend to Section 011 on the first-base side and Section 029 on the third-base side. The netting in these locations will rise to eight feet above the playing field (approximately 5.5 feet above the wall surrounding the field of play), and will remain in place from the start of batting practice through the end of the game.”
Although several teams — including the Mets — have expanded the netting, the Yankees were slow to react. The cries for more fan safety intensified last September when a toddler was struck by a 105-mph line drive off the bat of Yankees slugger Todd Frazier.
The girl, who was almost 2 at the time, suffered facial fractures, bleeding on the brain and an imprint from the ball’s stitches on her forehead, according to her father.