That study doesn't go into detail on how serious the injuries were. It says "the typical injury is minor, like a bruised hand or a bloodied lip, [but] a small number are more serious." What's the small number? I don't know. Is it 10 that require serious medical attention and are traumatizing (which I think we can all agree we should try to eliminate)? 100? 5?
Posting one link doesn't make a post "well-researched." (Especially when you misread the link and say all 1750 require an ambulance trip, which isn't true unless they do that for bruised hands now.)
I covered a lot of this in the MLB forum last year and nothing I brought up has really been addressed:
http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/class-action-lawsuit-against-mlb-re-fan-safety.10231/#post-1290676 I would think that if only one fan has died that the number of serious injuries is similarly low. But I don't know.
There are greater sources of risk at MLB games that are going unaddressed, there is still a risk from foul bals going screaming down the line beyond the dugouts, and we haven't had an honest data-driven discussion of how much the risks are. I usually can't afford to sit there so it doesn't really affect me but it bothers me that the main arguments for the screens are anecdotal.
Just pull up HitFX and tell me "Look, X% of balls that pose a serious risk to fans re: reaction time are going to be stopped by the new net. There were X injuries that required an ambulance trip and we think X of these would have been prevented." Then at least we can argue about whether reducing that risk is worth it.
First of all, I didn't say every injury required an ambulance trip. There are tens of thousands of balls hit into the stands that don't cause any injury, just like there are hundreds of hit batters that don't cause any injury. But, there are more balls hit into the stands that cause injury than there are hit batters. I was making the point that imagine if that many of those hit batters were actually injured. MLB and the players' union would be tying themselves into knots trying to figure out a way to make it stop. It wasn't all that difficult to follow.
As to your larger point, no, the study doesn't get into detail about the severity of the injuries, but in my opinion, and I would hope most rational people's opinion, the severe injuries we do know about are more than enough to justify putting up additional protection. The study does get into detail about how some of the most severe injuries happen to children, and older folks. Fans with less of an ability to get out of the way, or are more likely to be distracted. They cite 5-10 instances of serious, serious injuries in a 4-5 year period. I'm guessing they didn't get all of them, and the folks on this site could probably add dozens that they themselves have seen. I don't attend many games anymore, but when I was going to 10-20/year, I would need two hands each season to count the number of folks I would see leaving with broken bones in their face, eye injuries and many others leaving on stretchers.
I don't think we need a study to determine that there are plenty of serious injuries happening at stadiums all over the country, probably on a daily basis, but even if not, I think there is more than enough information out there to justify adding as much netting as possible to protect the fans. If you need such a study, then tell us, where do you draw the line? One kid with brain damage? 2? 10? Apparently, a bloody lip is no big deal, but how about 5 teeth knocked out? Would that be considered "serious" in your study? Do stitches count, or do we need a certain amount with broken bones?
When I read stories like these, I don't need any more information. Put the nets up and call it day:
"A 6-year-old girl hit by a foul at a Braves game underwent surgery in 2010 after the ball shattered her skull and pushed fragments into her brain. A 7-year-old in Chicago sustained severe brain swelling from a foul liner in 2008. Fouls sent an 18-month-old to a Seattle hospital last season and a 12-year-old in New York to intensive care in 2011.
“I remember eating a pretzel. It was very sunny so it was very hard to see the game,” said Shlomo “Eli” Shalomoff, 15, who was seated in the first row of the outfield stands at the 2011 Mets game when a foul drive fractured his sinuses, requiring surgery. “Next thing you know, split second, I see the ball, and my head flies back. I remember the blood pouring out in a very uncomfortable way. Then I fell on my side. My mom was screaming.”
"There have been numerous close calls. Seated about 10 rows from the field behind the Chicago Cubs on-deck circle on July 10, 2008, Peter DiAngi was bending forward to retrieve his soda when the batter lashed a scorching drive foul. A second later, DiAngi saw his 7-year-old son Dominic, who’d been standing on his chair, fall limp onto his back, passed out. It was Dominic’s first game.
“He looked like he was dead,” DiAngi said. “The foul ball came directly at him and knocked him up and over the back of the seat.”
Wrigley Return
Dominic spent a week at the hospital, his brain swelling to the point that doctors considered surgery. Clergy and Cubs players came to visit. Later, Dominic needed to re-learn how to walk and climb stairs because his balance was off kilter. There’s still a small area of his brain that doesn’t get blood, said DiAngi."
"In 2010, outfielder Melky Cabrera, then on the Braves, rocketed a foul into the seats five rows behind the visitor’s dugout, fracturing the skull of a 6-year-old seated with her siblings and mother. Rushed to the hospital, she began vomiting and lapsed into what court papers called a “seizure-like state.” A surgeon stitched up the lining of her brain while inserting 11 metal plates in her skull. She has lingering medical issues, her lawyer, Mike Moran, said, declining to elaborate.
Like I said, I'm sympathetic to the folks whose sight lines are seriously affected by the new netting, especially given what they are spending on tickets, and in my opinion, there has to be a way to minimize that impact. The NHL and NASCAR have both increased the safety netting around their "fields of play" in recent years, with barely a blip on the radar from the fans, so I'm guessing it can be done. Unless of course, the loudest opponents of these nets are just the 40 year old children that are worried about not being able to catch a foul ball anymore, and they just don't want to make that argument publicly for fear of the deserved ridicule they would receive. So, I'm all for a discussion about how to rebuild these nets, and I'm sure there are plenty of very smart engineer type folks around here that could weigh in on that, but to me, the argument as to whether the nets should exist in the first place should be all but settled, just by force of the sheer number of injuries, whether they be "severe" enough or not.
