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Tuesday, July 23, 2019
White Sox host 1st MLB game with foul pole-to-pole netting
CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago White Sox have become the first team in the major leagues to extend protective netting from foul pole to foul pole, starting Monday night against the Miami Marlins.
The extra netting at Guaranteed Rate Field was in place for Chicago’s first home game since the All-Star break. The White Sox announced the safety measure last month, a week after a foul ball at the park sent a woman to the hospital with her head bleeding.
On Sunday in Cleveland, another fan was hurt by a foul. Indians star Francisco Lindor said he was told his line drive put a 3-year-old boy in the hospital.
“It’s a great idea,” White Sox pitcher Evan Marshall said. “It’s a shame it wasn’t done sooner and just almost a standard across baseball, I think. Finally the players are speaking out because everybody is tired of seeing people get hit.
The expansion of the nets is not just something in MLB- at my hometown stadium, they substantially increased the size of the netting between last season and this one.
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Heh.
This is a really good reason to buy cheaper seats, or stay home and watch the game. I've never liked sitting behind home and watching the game through the net.
Maybe we're the only ones who actually watch the game. In any case, I'm not sure why someone's age, sex, or race invalidates their opinion.
The vast majority of my baseball watching is through a screen/fence for that very reason. After a very short time, you don't even think about it.
That said, the two photos of Leury Garcia seem really weird to me. I think it is in part because the net is 325 feet away from home plate. But I think it's also because the netting isn't at a 90 degree angle and instead goes over the top of those seats as well.
Maybe the game experience would be different, but I don't think I'd like sitting in those first few rows way down the rightfield line. That's not me arguing that there shouldn't be netting there, just that my gut tells me that I'd want to find different seats.
I approve the screens, but does this also mean that reach-in catches (or Jeter-like dive-in catches) of pop flies in the first row or so are now impossible?
Yes. Even the borderline ones where players are just leaning in are much more unlikely. I believe it does sort of shrink the foul territory.
That's unfortunate. Perhaps they should be working on a missile defense system to eventually replace the screens.
Some sort of speed inhibitor would work - similar to what happened when a ship went through the portal in season 3 of The Expanse. It's a controlled velocity sector where any object going faster than, say, 50 MPH is slowed to the limit. Sure, this is fictional alien technology, but let's get our brightest minds on it.
In reality, I personally am not the biggest fan of sitting behind the nets. On the admittedly rare occasions when I bought seats in the lower bowl, I'd make sure to get seats past the nets and bring my glove. I never got a foul ball, but I was ready. I also watch every pitch of the entire game (at least while I'm in my seat), so I understand I'm not typical. I think this development is necessary to keep people safe, so I'm in favor. This just means I won't ever spring for those seats again. Outfield bleachers or nosebleeds it is!
It's unavoidable*. Just as you can't go into the stands to catch a pop-up behind home plate.
* Absent eliminating the front row of seats.
The nets don't completely cover the lower bowl. You're still much more likely to get a foul ball in the lower bowl than the nosebleeds.
Personally I'm a huge fan of sitting behind the plate. No danger of line drives but there is the opportunity of pop fouls.
------
The netting is only vertical (just like behind the plate). Foul balls were still plentiful. My uncle, who turns 70 in a month, caught his first ever foul ball in these seats at that game. Then, he happened to catch another one the very next night (but on the LF side). What a weird coincidence.
World's biggest fan of baseball netting?
Same here. I love to sit in the second deck in Oakland, behind the plate (Section 217). You're right below the press box there. Great view of the game.
sidenote: 538 had an article on fall balls recently that was interesting, on where hard fouls go.
We Watched 906 Foul Balls To Find Out Where The Most Dangerous Ones Land
Spider-Man far from Home: Just like our netting!
David, The Market has spoken. And The Market demands more netting.
You live by The Market, you die by The Market. Suck it up.
You live by The Market, you die by The Market. Suck it up.
I'm confused. Did this happen because teams all of a sudden couldn't sell seats down the 1B and 3B line, or because a bunch of people were complaining?
The first one is the market, the second isn't.
Teams are putting these up, because they think it will increase their bottom line. That's pretty much what businesses do. And that is pretty much the essence of free market behaviour.
I generally tend to try for seats further down the lines to avoid watching through netting.
I'm fine with - I suppose even moderately support - things like this, but I do find that when I'm seated behind the netting, it takes an inning or so to get over the annoyance of the view.
So, I want it both ways.
That seems like the optimal solution to me.
i don't think it's a huge impact on demand, but i'm pretty sure it's non zero.
Not when the concern for the bottom line is based upon fear of ridiculous lawsuits and hyperventilating bad press.
There were already plenty of seats that had zero foul ball risk. That was the market answer. If you don't want to pay attention all the time, or have a small child you're worried about, pick those seats.
Unfortunately, our society has adopted the mantra that whenever anything bad happens to someone it's the fault of somebody else with deep pockets.
My analysis of media, society, and politics reveals a quite different set of someones who always seem to be at fault.
Really? You don't think we're the most litigious society on earth, by a large margin?
No, actually I don't....
In fact, the data suggests that forget "by a large margin" -- we're not even the most litigious country period.
#sigh
I don't think you even understand the concept of the market. Nor is this in any way responsive to what I said; even if "the market" actually had spoken, that in no way means I can't criticize it. If a ballot initiative passes that you don't like, you're not required to stop criticizing it because "You're a fan of democracy and the people have spoken."
Fortunately, our society has decided our reaction to 2 year olds with skull fractures should be something other than "hey, you should pay attention, kid."
Uh, that's not "the data." That's not even any data. That's a random google result.
I'd probably go with, "You should pay attention, parents of kid."
I'd probably go with, "You should pay attention, parents of kid."
Exactly.
It's referencing this --
3rd world countries can be strange - some are obsessed with red tape and bureaucracy.
There was a New Yorker article more than a decade ago about professional litigants - not lawyers, but regular people that sue other people as their primary form of income. It focused on people that troll around California looking for minor ADA noncompliances - like a toilet paper roll being a few inches to high or low in a restaurant bathroom - finding one of these things is an easy $4,000 or so, and some of these people had dozens (or hundreds?) of ongoing lawsuits. It's so bad that it said many motels in California simply do not rent out their designated ADA compliant rooms, they just sit unoccupied 365 days per year, for fear of such lawsuits. (Seems like you should be able to spend a few bucks on a consultant to bring the room up to snuff pretty quick, but what do I know)
That said, even paying attention you're going to have balls screaming at you, and we fans are not major league caliber fielders. People are still going to get hurt. I can also see the point that with current hitting strategies, we're probably seeing foul balls headed into the stands faster than at any previous point in history. I don't like sitting behind the netting, but if it's not so intrusive that people will gladly still sit there, this makes sense.
- literal parent of a kid who got a skull fracture at a game
Okay, the website linked to is by an advocacy group that says things that are just not true, like, "Second, all courts have rules that greatly discourage the filing of frivolous or baseless lawsuits. Plaintiffs who file such lawsuits, and sometimes even their lawyers, can be subject to serious sanctions and penalties including monetary fines and damages." But the data isn't from that website; it's from something called "Exploring Global Landscapes of Litigation,” by Christian Wollschlager.
I don't have access to said article — it's not a book, despite what the website says — but googling reveals that it was published 20 years ago and reporting on data that is 20-30 years old. And it's not even clear what it's measuring. Is it raw number of lawsuits filed? Is it throwing together small claims, divorce, tort, commercial litigation all in one basket? Does a class action suit — which is nearly unique to the US — count as one lawsuit even though it may involve scores, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of plaintiffs? How is ADR factored in? And how was the data collected in the first place?
I don't know enough about (read: almost nothing) the German legal system to know how much litigation there is or of what type, so many there is more, or a lot more, in Germany, but that isolated datum is not really helpful. And other sources give very different results.
I'm not against taking steps to prevent it. I'm against taking these steps to prevent it.
OK, so what steps would you support?
I hope I never get this cynical in my old age. It seems to me that the teams' concern is that they don't want anyone to get killed, and that that concern is driven by a notion that killing people is a bad thing. In that case, the libertarian response of "Nyah nyah, it's your own stupid fault for putting your kid in a spot where he or she could have gotten killed" doesn't really register.
I think it's a reasonable point! That said, my cost benefit analysis lands me on the pro netting side, irrespective of my personal experience.
Benefit: Might save some kid some day
Cost: My freedom!!!!!
I just don't think this is an instance of that.
Also, players have gotten increasingly more vocal about wanting increased netting - they don't want to see this stuff in their workplace. (As I've related before, the nearest player to me during my kid's accident looked worried and horrified.)
Also, if they were driven by opposition to people being killed, they'd have done this decades ago and it would be MLB-wide.
I was responding to what I perceive as the libertarian take on this.
There have been a spate of stories recently about people getting hit by foul balls. It's possible that this is merely driven by greater media access - if you got hit by a foul ball in 1979, it wasn't going to be shared on Facebook and featured on ESPN.
But it's also possible that the instances of people getting hit have been increasing - the newer parks are constructed with seats closer to the field, and there are a lot more people attending games now than in 1979. Given the fact that every player is now a power hitter, it's also possible that there are more screaming line drives being hit. Nobody was ever scared of a foul ball off the bat of Mario Mendoza.
If you can find examples of people like Francisco Lindor calling for more netting "decades ago," knock yourself out.
Totally think both are true. Add to the second point more distracted fans (which you can blame them for, but teams are still in a position to respond or not to it). As to the former, this is exactly the sort of thing (relatively unlikely, visually evocative negative outcome) that people overreact to and new media is good at feeding fears about. (Again, I'm pro- more netting.)
It's possible that the way hitters and pitchers (and fans) are now is causing this to be a much greater risk than it was decades ago: More foul balls, quicker bat speeds leading to higher exit velocity, more in-game distractions (namely phones). I find it likely that baseball had your viewpoint: the goal shouldn't be to try to completely eliminate ALL of the risks associated with getting hit by a foul ball since it's impossible. But now that the risk of injury and death is greater due to the factors mentioned above, it changes the calculation. They're still not eliminating all risk, but it's worth it to eliminate most of it. That seems reasonable to me.
Not that I don't love the idea of seeing this (because I really, really, do), but I'm leaning towards an advancement in technology that would make the netting less unsightly.
I don't really find the netting distracting at all when I sit behind it, but it doesn't seem like we should be far away from netting that is less obtrusive (thinner/stronger).
This has real potential ... we deaden the ball, but we sell the idea with a sanctimonious "won't someone think of the children" plea.
Anti-gravity fields triggered by baseball velocity.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sympathetic towards the "let's not do anything drastic, life is inherently dangerous" argument, but... this netting is so far from "drastic". The only reason I even noticed it when I was at Monday's game was because I knew they had installed it, and I wanted to make sure I noted it. Once the game started and I was watching the action on the other side of the netting, I never noticed it once.
fortunately i couldn't afford a couple hunnert bux for a seat so this would not be an issue for me cuz i'd sit in the $30 a pop "cheap" seats
i disremember people getting hit by foul balls all the time like this even 10 years ago and got no idea why it is happening so much but since it is and since the ballplayers get very upset about what they do (not intentionally) injuring other people, nets it is
so david
if not netting, what do YOU think the teams should do?
even if small children have 100% of their attention on the game, they STILL don't have the ability to catch screaming liners. i've seen grownups with GLOVES ducking or trying to duck foulballs. how many ADULTS actually manage to catch the foul balls???? ive never seen ANY kid catch one of those fouls into the lower decks, even a kid TRYING to catch a foul going 100+ MPH. Now i know that the fielders catch that kind of ball going that speed but they do it PROFESSIONALLY and they have really good quality gloves, too
More importantly, what could possibly make you think your comment was appropriate? There are plenty of good ways to mock Nieporent's position here without resorting to cheap, mean-spirited ad-hominems.
it is not only children/babies who get hit
not real too many people of any age can hit or catch a 90 MPH baseball and adults get hit too. like i said, i hardly eve see anyone actually catch a foul ball in the lower deck with either glove or hands
Yeah, but they're the ones who cry about it.
Anyway, I've been sitting in those seats for years and have never managed to get a foul ball anywhere close to me. Including at minor league games where there is much less competition for foul balls. And I don't like watching games through netting. But I'm not wedded to the foul ball thing; if there were netting that were actually unobtrusive, I wouldn't have an objection. I've just yet to see any that isn't distracting.
Points taken, though I think most adults, if paying attention to what's going on, could at least duck a d/or partially block their head/chest from an incoming ball. Not ideal, but a lot less dangerous than doing nothing. Also, most adults can appreciate the risk they're subjecting themselves to, while most children cannot.
If unclear, none of the above is intended as an argument against netting.
But more importantly, what safety measures would/do you support? Both BBC and I have asked.
Maybe the White Sox are using special, cutting-edge netting, but like I've said, I was in the tenth row, probably 150 feet from home plate - fairly close to the netting and positioned so that I had to look through the netting at far from a 90 degree angle when watching the batter - and I wouldn't have known the netting was there. This is a photo I took from my seats.
To those of you implying that people should just "deal with it" when it comes to the fact that foul balls will occasionally injure fans... why can't you "deal with it" when it comes to an extremely minimal amount of obstruction that the nets bring?
I can and will, by 1) buying cheaper seats, and 2) going to fewer games. Not exactly what MLB was going for. The people most interested in watching the action generally pay for the better seats. If you're going to stare at your phone anyway, sit in the upper deck.
But overall, this is minor compared MLB's other efforts to make going to the park unappealing.
All I see is netting. Is there an actual baseball field behind it?
Looked like a nice day at least, judging from the blue triangle in the upper corner.
Now I'm sure Snapper thinks the world was made safe enough by 1959 and their work was done. But someone who genuinely wanted to emulate his forebearers would be trying to make his world safer as well. If prior generations have taken the low hanging fruit, get a ladder.
I never sat behind the screen in a big league park. The seats do not exactly go wanting. I have seen them in smaller parks, and frankly, unless you're doing photography, there are more important factors as far as visuals. Yeah, if I want to photograph the sunset, I'll stop my car and get out, but I can still appreciate the sunset looking through my windshield.
The screens are going to go in, so ready your tears of rage. No team is going to want to get sued if someone gets hurt and your team is a holdout. It's going to be an easy call for them.
And for every one of you, there will be 5 people going 'hey, I now have a much less stressful time when I go to the game with the kids, we'll go more often"'
The Yankees at least have an announcement every game that if you feel unsafe in your seats they will move you. So, even if you screwed up your initial purchase, there's hasn't been a need to feel "stressed".
Who are these who are unable to select seats that aren't exposed to line drive fouls? It's like 70% of the ballpark.
snapper there's like 100 threads in the last year alone in which you describe in endless detail how little you like going to baseball games. Let's not pretend anything has changed here because of some netting.
I mean I would have worded this a bit less aggressively but yes, this is absolutely the best parts of these threads. Get off yer phone and catch the screaming liner in your mouth like a man would!
I go to a couple of games a year for my nephews. I won't sit behind netting. So, the the extent the Yankees make all the lower deck netted, they're going to sell cheaper seats to me for those 2 games.
More importantly, what could possibly make you think your comment was appropriate? There are plenty of good ways to mock Nieporent's position here without resorting to cheap, mean-spirited ad-hominems.
co-signed
Barry's comments are way out of line.
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