Fenway injury reminds fans ballparks cannot guarantee safety

The baseball world watched in horror when Tonya Carpenter took a stray broken bat to the head at Fenway Park last Friday. Baseball executives at all leagues of the sport have yet to say whether they will add new protective measures, and some say there is little to be done.

During the second inning of last Friday night’s Boston Red Sox game, Brett Lawrie of the Oakland Athletics hit a ground ball, and his broken bat headed into the stands. Carpenter, struck hard in the head, suffered what police initially said were life-threatening injuries. Now she is in “fair condition.” Lawrie sent her flowers.

Major League Baseball (MLB) announced it will “re-examine fan safety at ballparks, and we will fully participate in that process.” Minor league affiliates are also ready to re-examine procedures, but are unclear about what changes, if any, should be made.

Bill Wanless, spokesman for Boston’s Triple-A minor league affiliate in Pawtucket, R.I., said team officials in his league have not yet met to address possible changes: “It’s an awful situation and we don’t take that lightly, obviously.” Gary Ulmer, president of the Louisville Bats in Cincinnati’s farm system, said, “We’ve talked about it, and I know that other teams have talked about it. I don’t know if there needs to be a change.”

Every ballpark, both at the MLB and minor league levels, has protective nets in place to guard fans from foul balls and stray bats. Nets must at least extend around home plate to the beginning of each dugout. Ulmer said expanding screens all the way past the dugouts would be a radical departure from past practices: “Some fans would not like it, and some would find it comforting … but there is always going to be a risk no matter how much screening there is.”

While not minimizing Carpenter’s incident, Tom Kayser, president of the Double-A Texas League, emphasized the extreme rarity of fan injuries.

“There are over 2,300 major league games a year,” he said. “In our league we play 560. And how many times is someone injured beyond a bruise or a contusion? Fortunately, it is a rare occurrence.”

Kayser said Double-A executives will have a meeting at the end of June, and there is sure to be mentions of fan safety: “But there’s really not much that you can do other than extending the nets. You can’t take the field and move it—you’ve got a finite amount of space.”

Kayser explained the challenges of expanding ballpark nets. Extending screens means implementing a new support system, and some parks can’t house such renovations. Structures might have to be built into the stands themselves, obstructing some views.

Fans need to pay attention while they are at baseball games, Kayser said. All stadiums use warning signs and print caution messages on tickets. Kayser said upcoming meetings will probably focus on additional warnings, and not forcing ballparks to re-engineer netting systems.