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Ballpark Safety Issues Lead To Calls For More Protective Netting At MLB Venues

The problem of ballpark safety at MLB venues has "led to increasing calls for more protective netting in the lower parts" of ballparks, although that push has "raised concerns about how the added netting would affect the view for fans -- many occupying expensive seats," according to Wallace Matthews of the N.Y. TIMES. On Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, the barrel of Yankees 1B Chris Carter's bat struck a young fan in the head while he was "sitting about a half-dozen rows from the field, a little bit past the third-base dugout." The extent of the boy's injuries have "not been made public." Two years ago, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred sent out a memo urging teams to "extend the netting behind home plate to the inner side of both dugouts, a distance of 70 feet from home plate." An MLB spokesperson said that all 30 teams "have now done so, and nine have extended the netting 20 feet further." However, neither the Mets nor Yankees have "taken that step." N.Y. City Council member Rafael Espinal Jr. this month proposed legislation calling for "mandatory netting only to the 90-foot mark." However, by the time the bill was introduced, Espinal had "determined that the netting should extend all the way down the sides of the fields to the left-field and right-field foul poles, taking an aggressive approach to safety that is more common in Japanese baseball" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/26).

SOMETHING TO MONITOR: USA TODAY's Brent Schrotenboer notes a 42-year-old man named Rick Garrity last week was exiting Wrigley Field when he "apparently tried to climb a 36-inch rail on a ramp leading from the upper deck." He then "fell over the rail, plunged a significant depth and died the next day from the accident, becoming the latest death from falling at America’s big stadiums." Bob Gorman, co-author of the book "Death at the Ballpark," said that out of hundreds of millions of fans in MLB parks since '69, there have been "25 deaths from falling in stadiums, including some involving inebriated victims and suicide." In this case, the Cubs "asserted the rail and its height did not contribute to the man’s death at Wrigley." Schrotenboer: "But what if the rail had been 42 inches or higher, as safety experts say they should be?" MLB has a "responsibility to reasonably address the safety of their millions of loyal fans," said a lawsuit filed on behalf of the family of Greg Murrey, who died after falling from the upper deck at Turner Field in '15. Cubs VP/Communications & Community Affairs Julian Green said that the rail in question "had a height that was 'grandfathered in' and 'up to code' at the time it was built, though when that was is not clear" (USA TODAY, 5/26).

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