"My condolences"? Gee, you seem to be a little over dramatic here. To me, condolences are reserved for true tragedies such as deaths or learning you have a serious illness. Get some perspective. Anyway, I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill and most people won't even notice after a game or two.
The last one I recall was at an Arkansas Traveler's game. My son (9 at the time) was standing on the first base fence because they were going to allow the kids to run the bases between innings. The coach had turned his back to walk farther back in the coaching box and was caught by a liner just below the edge of the helmet.
I appreciate the effort made here and while I don't have the research or numbers I do have something that may not have been taken into consideration in your research. Of those 53,000 foul balls hit into the stands, how many were line drives into the newly protected areas? How many of the injuries occurred in that area? How many of those foul balls were pop ups or long fly balls that dropped further back into the stands, into upper levels or down the outfield line? How many were hit at a trajectory, speed or distance that makes them less likely to injure a person or to a spot where a person may have considerably more time to see and react to the ball? How many injuries occurred in those areas? My point being that there is a certain area being deemed as a greater risk for injury and I'm guessing that is based on the idea (and probable fact) that the most serious and potentially life threatening injuries occur in that area. If I've read your post correctly, you're including the entire ball park and every foul ball reaching the seats in what you've presented here and I don't think that it's very credible given so many variables that you haven't considered.
I wonder what the ratio is of food poisoning/choking/etc. on ballpark food out of 31.6 million spectators. Perhaps further investigation will result in mandatory sauteed, diced Fenway Franks.
But a lot of people are saying it doesn't actually affect how they watch the game. And no one has actually seen a game at Fenway with the new nets. The mega-net, if you will.
And is that ratio higher or lower than women drugged by your dude Cosby?
I've looked for a little more context on those numbers and in fact they are "ALL INJURIES REPORTED TO THE FIRST AID STATION" related to foul balls. On Foulballz.com there actually is another discussion of the same and to use their language it is like this: "This means if I get in a scrum and come out with an injured wrist and I elbowed some old lady in the ol’ kisser going for it and she fell over the seats and tripped up a kid who scraped his knee and jostles a guy with a tray of beers coming down the aisle steps who then stumbles flips over the railing and spills his beer into the eyes of a couple on their first date, and we all report our individual injuries, then we have one foul ball accounting for 5-6 injuries." Further in his extrapolations (which I leave to you to decide their validity) he states there are likely 200 spectators per year who require immediate evacuation for their injury across major league baseball and only about 5 of those per year are from the direct impact of the foul ball. The other injuries are presumably from the attempts to catch (we've all seen the ankle/wrist injury and face plant in an attempt to catch a low velocity foul pop up) or dodge a foul ball and the net will only reduce that number slightly.
Right, but so what? Should MLB impose a litmus test before selling tickets to fans? "Are you REALLY interested in watching the game, and will you pay STRICT attention at all times to avoid getting hurt by a foul ball? Cuz if the answer is no, then we're not selling you this $100 ticket."
I don't know about "unreasonable", but the net is a serious change to the game experience from those seats, at least in my own opinion. When I purchase tickets to the Sox or any other baseball game, my prime goal is to get as close to the field as possible so that my kids or I can chat guys up pre-game, get a foul ball, get an autograph, have a ball tossed to us after an inning, or otherwise be engaged in a personal way. The net eliminates like half of those outcomes, and makes other ones harder.
I wasn't handwringing, I was pointing out what was causing the change. It's an overreaction to a very rare incident that will make the game a bit less fun for lots of people. I won't lose any sleep over it, but as noted above, it will change my buying habits.
So, what's the problem? I stopped sitting in Section 32 & 33 when it became beer free.
I think if there was data to support the need for a net, due to the incredible danger of not having one - maybe more people would be fine with it. I am not a proponent of changing everything because one thing happened once.
Just me: One of the rhythms of the game is (if you're fortunate enough to have landed "dangerous" seats) the routine where you talk, drink, daydream, etc. between pitches and then (particularly coordinated with the hand-ness of the batter) you stop everything for that 2 seconds that the pitch is thrown and pay close attention to the ball. Then you go back to picking your nose.
Does raise an interesting tangent, though. Did Liverpool owner Henry think about the fact that fans behind the net now can't flee onto the field in the event of a fire or other issue in the stands?
Really? This is a Southwest 737:
Sure we do. We just don't watch baseball games we paid $200 a ticket for through them. I am in my office right now looking out the windows. Guess which window has the shittier view? Hint, it's the one that has the screen.
So, if someone wants to pull out stats on how often someone is hit by a foul ball, is it good form to pull out a "fires in baseball stadium" stat now?
My general observation is that at lower levels of pro ball, the nets cover more space than at the major leagues...because nets cost less than baseballs (I once was sitting with an independent league gm as a player fouled off 4 or 5 pitches on the way to a broken bat single, and he said, "damn, that's a $200 single").
