You let adults who can afford field level seats to make their own decisions regarding the risk. And if they feel it is too risky, let them change seats, which I’ve noticed stadiums encourage. Don’t over-compensate for negligible risk.
Also, Construct is an idiot, but using bad arguments to counteract his/her idiocy isn’t fruitful.
I don’t see that as a small number. What is total attendance at MLB for a year? Hell, the Royals alone just passed 2 million fans, so that is potentially 47 people injured this year so far at the K. That’s not huge, but hardly negligible.
A small rate for a common occurrence will still lead to a large number.
I think you and i just disagree on what is “negligible risk”, and that’s okay. I don’t think there has been any research shown in this thread that definitively states what that risk is for people sitting in the rows closest to the field along the infield baselines. Unfortunately, that hurts both our arguments.
Maybe not fruitful, but I was intentionally using bad arguments to point at his bad argument. Meh, it worked in my head. 
I was never seriously drawing an apples/apples comparison in that post.
And I’ll add that no team/stadium/organization is required to track or report on fan injuries or incidents. If anything, I would wager they are under-reported.
I’ll go put on my tinfoil hat now.
It’s not a small number. It’s tiny. It’s next to nothing. Now, if you said 47 deaths, or 47 hospitalizations, maybe I could get behind screens. But that isn’t the case. And it certainly isn’t the only risk at a stadium. Many have steep staircases being navigated by tipsy/drunk patrons, their hands full with snacks. Every year a tiny percentage of fans fall over the railing. Maybe we should wrap the stadium in bubble wrap, or maybe bouncy-house stadiums.
Just about everything we humans do has the risk of a bad outcome. This is just looking at making things worse for a tiny benefit.
Also, if you’re really concerned about broken bats, push for a minimum handle diameter.
Here’s an article on the incident. The players themselves are sick of it. That’s argument enough for me. I know I’d have nightmares from the sound of baseballs bouncing off unprotected skulls.
[QUOTE=Ryan Gose]
A day after the injury, Gose was still affected by it and no matter how many times it happens, fan injuries mess with players’ heads.
“Yeah, cause you don’t want that to happen to people,” Gose remarked. "She didn’t do anything wrong she just wants to enjoy a game. Now put up a net and people will still enjoy the game. You’re not gonna lose that many people or that much money putting up a net. I guarantee it.
“I know that you buy at your own risk but eventually there’s gonna be lawsuits. Eventually. I know you buy those tickets at your own risk, I realize it. But there’s something that they can do to prevent it. So why not just do it?”
[/quote]
In all my years of going to baseball games, I’ve been grazed twice by a foul ball. Once when I was a kid in the bleachers down the left field line where the ball grazed my arm and smacked into a kid a few rows back. I suspect I’d’ve been in a lot of pain had my arm been a couple inches higher. The second was as an adult, again past third, where the liner came in, bounced off an empty row behind, grazed me in the lower back, and eventually rolled to a stop further down the row. Again, that bounce would have probably left a bruise had it hit me square. Those are the two closest times I’ve ever gotten to actually getting a foul ball in 25 years. Still don’t have one, and I probably would have taken the bruised back if it got me the ball.
So I’m closer to this issue than some people, though I’ve obviously been lucky. I still don’t want netting all the way down the lines. If you can’t pay attention, sit higher. Or behind the plate. Or in the outfield. I’ll never understand the people who spend good money to go to the park and ignore the game, and my sympathy will be pretty low if you get clobbered by your own distraction.
You’re wrong. For the umpteenth time, telling people to pay attention is not the solution. Read the below excerpt for the story that quimper posted one post above yours.
[QUOTE= Bleacher Report story]
The ball that Anthony Gose hit for a foul ball and struck the fan left the pitcher’s hand at 96 mph. Once hit, a ball picks up speed, and the baseball that hit the fan was a low line drive screamer. Sitting in the first row, the fan was surrounded by dozens of people. The distance from home plate to her seat is roughly 80 feet — maybe 85. She had no room or time to move or react. At the speed that ball was traveling, the fan had between 0.6 to 0.7 seconds to react.
“Even if you’re paying attention you can’t react that fast,” Gose said on Saturday. “We can’t react that fast in the dugout, and we’re paying attention to the game. You’re sitting there, and you can’t react fast enough in the dugout. Guys are just (barely) getting out of the way. A fan who’s never seen anything moving that fast at them in their life? No chance. Zero chance in this world, a fan sitting right there over our dugout could react — and we can’t react that fast in the dugout.”
[/QUOTE]
That is Anthony Gose, a goddamn professional baseball player, saying that even THEY can barely (and sometimes not) react that fast.
I think that there is a reasonable argument to be had about this issue, but by continuing to simply tell people to “pay attention,” you’re undermining your own credibility and mischaracterizing the nature of the danger.
A screaming line drive that goes into the crowd less than 100 feet from the bat is not merely something that can be avoided by paying attention, at least not for all fans. Yes, there are some people that will always be able to get out of the way, or stick a hand or (if they have one) a glove up to stop or deflect the ball.
But plenty of people can’t do that. I’m trying to imagine my mother (at 72 years old) trying to get out of the way of something like that. Or my wife, for that matter. Or even me, if i were relaxed and not on the sort of heightened alert required for fielding baseballs at 100+ miles per hour. You can be paying attention and still not be ready for something like that. Should seats in that area require that someone be of a certain age, and experienced in dealing with high-speed objects?
And all of this assumes that only one person could possibly get hit. Even if i am fast enough to get my head out of the way, ducking might cause the ball to travel another ten feet or so and smack some other poor bastard in the face, someone who might have been unsighted or distracted by my own efforts at evasion. If i move to the side and the ball clips the top of my seat, it could deflect off and still catch someone in the face at high speed.
Personally, i actually prefer watching the game from a little higher up, looking down on the field, and i also can’t afford to sit in the really good seats very often, so all this is rather moot in terms of my own experience at the ballgame. But you pretending that it’s merely a matter of paying attention is a rather disingenuous take on the issue.
When Anthony Gose says that a fan behind and above the dugout has zero chance to react in time, he is [del]just wrong[/del] grossly exaggerating. I’ve been there, I’ve reacted. I’ve seen people react in front of and around me, too, well enough to avoid injury at any rate. Sure I’ve seen people nailed a couple times–but only a couple times.
Among other things, the angular difference between a liner into the stands and one at the dugout (much less a fielder), makes a difference.
Look, step back and think about it for a moment: many games include a moderately hot shot (not a fly) somewhere into the stands, at some point–yet serious injuries to fans are still rare, rare enough to be newsworthy. Most of the time, it’s cause for a round of “oooh!”… and the game goes on. It cannot be the case that fans are sitting ducks; the body count would be far higher.
Sure. But must they or you sit in these specific areas? This is a fraction of the ballpark we’re talking about. Not behind the plate. Not in fair territory bleachers. Not anywhere on the upper deck.
Can we not have some seats that are close and unscreened, for people that would expressly like to watch the game this way?
Why doesn’t he leave the Chicago Cubs out of this?
Oh, that’s easy. See, you fence off that section of the seating, with a turnstile gate. To operate the gate, you take a comprehensive statistics examination on a touch screen provided for the purpose. A passing score opens the gate to admit one person; a failing score issues you a ticket to the left field bleachers.
And the section is protected from entry from behind by a tall chain link fence.
“The one that got away” – I get it, but just get a ball at the gift shop or ebay already. I have gotten caught out by a foul ball (yes, wording is deliberate) and the fucking thing left stitch marks on the palm of my hand for two weeks. 0/10 would not repeat. 1st/3rd base line seats are pretty much the worst in the house anyway, if you care about things like seeing pitch type/location.
Bingo. We have hundreds of thousands of games, with millions of at bats. About 1750 fans are injured each year (though we don’t know how many serious injuries). Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? 2014 attendance was 73,739,622. That is a 0.002% chance of being injured at a ball game by a batted ball. Can someone get hurt seriously? Undoubtedly. But everything we do carries some risk, and trying to mitigate 100% of the risk of living 100% of the time is a fool’s errand.
ETA: quimper, few seats are good for seeing pitch type/location. I like the field level seats because you can see player expressions, something that is lost in the 200+ seats.
Let’s flip that around from the player’s point of view then. There were something like 850 players on the opening day roster (750 on the 25 man rosters and 100 on the DL). That means that on average their actions result in serious injury to two or more humans a year, and even more if you factor in pitchers not batting that often. No one needs that shit on their conscience. Put up the fence already.
This Gose guy says he wants nets because, eventually, there will be lawsuits. He’s wrong about that, at least in Illinois. The stadium is not responsible for spectator injuries UNLESS a barrier is provided and fails (not counting height & width of barrier). A ball comes through that net, expect a lawsuit.
Hockey & baseball have minimal deaths and injuries. Basketball hardly any unless Metta World Peace is involved.
Want to compare those numbers with motor racing? Nets won’t help debris from flaming cars stay back, so we put them in a hotel and make them watch closed circuit? There’s a reason I’ll never, ever buy a ticket for a Blue Angels show, so until baseball implements jet airplanes into the game, one ticket near the unnetted foul line, please.
I find this also. I attended a Jays game at Rogers Centre earlier this year, and sat behind the net. I also attended a few games of the local collegiate-level team; again, behind the net (and much closer to the front than I was at the Jays game). In neither case do I notice the net once the game gets going.
Emphasis added.
Most injuries are not serious, though I welcome anyone defining what constitutes “serious” versus a bruise that needs an icepack and an advil, and then to quantify the risk. Exaggerating the danger doesn’t help your case. The only thing a net will do is save me significant money as I won’t be heading back to the stadium. I’ve sat behind the net. I notice it.
This is just hyperbole and poor mathematics.
Of the 1750 injuries in a year, even the article linked states that the vast majority are minor injuries. And I quote from said article “While the typical injury is minor, like a bruised hand or a bloodied lip, a small number are more serious”. They do not actually specify what that “small number” is, however. You could state that their actions result in “an injury” to two or more humans a year, but I’ve accidentally caused minor injuries to more than two humans this year myself already. I assure you I am not crippled by guilt.
I would also like to point out that putting up a net doesn’t actually eliminate injuries. I note that there is no indication in that article about how many of those injuries occurred behind the freaking netting. Some of them have, I assure you. I have personally witnessed several minor injuries from foul balls behind the netting at Chase Field this year - including one possible concussion.
I also know that all the ushers at field level at Chase Field have serious first aid kits and fairly extensive first aid training they refresh every year. I asked about the training and I can see the kits (they’re underneath the stools the ushers hang out at, if you’re curious). They can make it to any seat in the house in less than 30 seconds - and have evac routes planned for anyone seriously injured to be at the team medical facilities in less than 5 minutes from anywhere on the field. You’ll see them every time a ball goes into the stands - they haul ass over, check out anyone who might have been injured and then signal either an all-clear or request for additional help.
I maintain that the chance to interact personally with players that the lack of netting affords is a big part of what makes going to the game in person great. Putting netting up all along the baselines would effectively eliminate that - and would bother those fans who don’t want to watch the game behind a net. It certainly does bother some fans, if not all. If you’re not comfortable with the risk of sitting in an area without net, then every ballpark I’ve been to is happy to move you to another seat for no additional cost - at Chase Field at least (the only ballpark I have a ton of experience with), all you have to do is ask the usher and they’ll arrange it for you - they even make it a point to try and keep you in the same level if it’s even remotely possible.