NEW YORK — A little girl, a strawberry blonde, was hit in the face with a 105-mph line drive Wednesday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. A fan sitting near her said, “There was so much blood.” In the arms of her grandfather, her small body was limp as he carried her out of the stands.
The girl was hurt, and hurt seriously, and it became a gut-wrenching moment that should be a call to action for the numerous major league teams that have yet to go beyond the modest measures that Commissioner Rob Manfred had asked for to better protect the sport’s fans.
The question is, did Lonn Trost, the New York Yankees’ chief operating officer, and his fellow team executives hear that call? It would be interesting to know, especially when the Yankees could have, and should have, done more on this front before Wednesday’s incident occurred.
Manfred’s request, in 2015, was that all 30 teams extend stadium netting so that it reached from behind home plate, where it had always been, to the beginning of each dugout.
Every team, including the Yankees, did so. But a third of the teams, including the New York Mets, took Manfred’s advice a step further and extended their netting to the far end of each dugout. In the case of the Mets, it even went beyond that.
This summer, they stretched the netting at Citi Field halfway into the outfield. In response, Trost offered what amounted to a verbal shrug.
“We have fans that are communicating with us that they are upset that we’re even considering it,” he said of any additional netting at Yankee Stadium beyond what Manfred had asked for. Trost’s statement certainly suggested that the Yankees were as mindful of their high-paying fans who didn’t want extra screens interfering with their views as they were with keeping everyone safe.
At that time, in late July, Trost said that the Yankees were consulting with the architectural firm that built their stadium about the feasibility of installing extra netting. He said the Yankees would think about it and study it and look at it. “We don’t think this is a three-day job,” he said.
Well, then, is it a 60-day job? Because that’s about how long it has been since Trost made that statement. I bet it could be a three-hour job if that little girl in the stands on Wednesday night was your child.
Yes, the Yankees also put a statement on their website in early August saying that they were seriously exploring additional netting, but they have said nothing on the matter since then. On Thursday, they issued a statement saying that their “thoughts and prayers were with the injured girl” and that they were in contact with her family.
But thoughts and prayers are not enough.
Meanwhile, across town, the Mets look like champions for extending their netting and doing so proactively before something awful happened.
After all, safety changes in sports almost always seem to happen only after disasters happen. It was only when a 13-year-old girl was killed by a flying puck at an NHL game in 2002 that the league called for mandatory netting to be installed at both ends of the rink.
So now the question is what will it take for Major League Baseball to make every team do what some teams already have and extend the protective netting even more. You’d figure that a toddler getting hit in the face would be the tipping point.
For decades, there have been harrowing incidents at baseball games in which fans were injured. In 1970, a 14-year-old boy named Alan Fish was killed by a foul ball at Dodgers Stadium. Many years and many injuries later, a Boston Red Sox fan in 2015 was hit with a broken bat at Fenway Park and suffered serious injuries.
At a news conference after the Fenway incident, Manfred stated that the sport’s “first and foremost concern remains the safety of our fans.” But he also noted that the issue was complicated. Some fans, he said, absolutely want to sit close to the field, without any netting obstructing their view. So much for safety being “first and foremost.”
And at the end of 2015, when Manfred made the suggestion to all 30 teams that they add some additional netting, he also cited another complication — that each stadium is designed differently.
These complications all seem to be an excuse to let some teams off the hook. But in the end, safety issues never go away.
Consider what NASCAR has been through. For years, NASCAR officials and racetrack owners have struggled to balance fan safety with the desire of some to sit as close as possible to the track.
In 2013, in what certainly wasn’t the first big crash at Daytona International Speedway that injured spectators, more than 30 fans were hurt when debris flew into the stands. One of the injured fans said he suffered a traumatic brain injury because of it, and this year finally settled a lawsuit with NASCAR.
After that 2013 crash, the speedway was renovated. Its website touted that “the front row will be moved up 12 feet to improve trackside views.” Unsaid, likely on purpose: to improve the chance that you won’t be hit by a flying tire.
No sport wants to acknowledge that its fans aren’t safe. What it should acknowledge is its duty to do everything in its power to keep them safe. And that’s where baseball should find itself right now.
On Thursday, Manfred took note of Wednesday’s incident in a statement and said that baseball officials would “redouble our efforts on this important issue,” although how much pressure he will apply on reluctant teams remains to be seen. One club, the Cincinnati Reds, did announce on Thursday that it would become the latest team to extend the netting to the far end of the dugouts.
Players know this is the right thing to do. Many, including the Yankees’ C.C. Sabathia, say they won’t let their families sit in the stands without protective netting in front of them. They’ve long called for ballparks to be safer for fans.
If you saw the look on Todd Frazier’s face on Wednesday after his line drive hit the little girl, you would know why.
Frazier, who has two children who are younger than 3, crouched. He rested his head on his bat. He looked like he was about to cry.
It’s time for teams to have those human emotions, too — and act on them. It’s called doing the right thing.
