Scary Fenway incident puts fan safety in spotlight

It didn't take long for Kansas City Royals broadcaster Jeff Montgomery to realize he was in trouble. When his producers started this season by positioning him in the photographers' well, just next to the third-base dugout during home games, it seemed like an innovative way to give fans a unique perspective, especially with Montgomery's back to the action as he spoke to viewers through the camera. But after a couple of line drives buzzed in his direction during the first week of action, everybody started to rethink the plan.

"I was getting texts from all kinds of people telling me that I'd better be careful down there," he said.

Montgomery brought up that story as he talked about the latest, and scariest, reminder that Major League Baseball needs to think long and hard about what happens once people actually are too close to the action.

When Oakland Athletics infielder Brett Lawrie's bat broke on a groundout and a piece struck fan Tonya Carpenter in the head Friday night at Fenway Park, it inflicted so much damage that police initially said the injuries were life-threatening. Reports now say doctors have upgraded the 44-year-old woman's condition to fair, but that shouldn't change the need to discuss why she was in that position in the first place.

Once again, there has to be a serious conversation about how baseball can keep fans engaged and safe at the same time.

Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal recently reported that this issue came up during the past two collective bargaining sessions between the players and owners, once in 2007 and again 2012. On both occasions, the union proposed the idea of running protective netting from the backstop (where it currently exists in all stadiums) all the way down the foul lines and as far as the foul poles. The owners reportedly rejected the idea because they feared it would interfere with the overall fan experience. First-year commissioner Rob Manfred is reconsidering the wisdom of that stance today.

Speaking ahead of the amateur draft at the MLB Network studios Monday night, Manfred told reporters that the sport must "react strongly" to what happened in Boston. "When you have an issue like this, an incident like this, you have to go back and re-evaluate where you are on all of your safety issues, and trust me, we will do that," Manfred said. "Just like we are on a variety of issues right now at the beginning of my tenure."

Montgomery, who enjoyed a 13-year career as a reliever and has worked as a Royals game analyst since 2010, agrees that owners need to reconsider the safety strategies at their parks.

"I'm surprised there haven't been more injuries or deaths, just because of the way the balls and bats fly at such a close range," Montgomery said. "I'm pretty sure that if you look at baseball in Japan, they have netting that extends all the way down the line. I can remember being a relief pitcher and watching bats and line drives flying right over the dugout. And when that happens, you have fans who aren't paying attention or they're playing with little kids. It's amazing that you don't see it more often."

Montgomery said older parks, such as Fenway or the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field, often present some of the biggest challenges in this regard. While many of the newer stadiums have been built with more foul territory between the base paths and stands, older venues tend to be more snug and intimate. It's great for fans who want feel as if they're a part of the game. It's a little different when a 6-foot-6, 240-pound slugger like Miami's Giancarlo Stanton rips a foul ball into the seats or a splintered bat like Lawrie's sprays into the crowd.

There has been one recorded incident of a fan being killed by a foul ball at a major league game -- a 14-year-old boy at a Dodgers game in 1970 -- and recent studies have shown that plenty of people in the stands get hurt on a regular basis. A Bloomberg News story published last year said that roughly 1,750 fans suffer injuries every year because of batted balls, most of them foul, at major league games.

The dangers of the game remain just as apparent this year. On Memorial Day, fan Eileen Depesa snared a bat that soared into the Comiskey Park stands after Chicago White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers lost his grip during a swing. Depesa got to keep the souvenir but later told local reporters she was more concerned with preventing the baby behind her from being struck by the bat. A few weeks earlier, emergency medical technicians carted a woman out of Pittsburgh's PNC Park after she was hit by a foul ball. She had been walking to her front-row seat and had her back to the field when Chicago Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro fouled a ball into the netting behind home plate with so much velocity that it struck the fan as well.

The woman was alert when she left the park, but Cubs manager Joe Maddon said he was shaken by the incident.

"[Outfielder] Chris Coghlan thought the ball hit the wall," Maddon told reporters after the game. "That's how loud it was. The umpire said the same thing. It was that really hard, cracking sound. The fact nobody is getting up, and there are ice bags -- we had no idea what was going on. Couple guys saw it and thought it was horrid."

Lawrie was similarly disturbed after seeing what happened to Carpenter, who was sitting near the field between home plate and the third-base dugout, beyond the netting that shields fans in the area behind home plate.

"I've seen stuff go into the stands," Lawrie said. "I've seen bats fly out of guys' hands and into the stands and everyone is OK. But when one breaks like that, there's jagged edges on it and anything can happen. It's one of those things where it's just -- yeah, one of those things."

Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis recalled an incident while he played in the minor leagues.

"We had some really good family friends when I was at Triple-A Albuquerque who had season tickets right above our dugout," he said. "This was back when I had two kids and I looked over in the middle of the game and my wife and two kids were sitting with them. I literally stopped the game and walked halfway and told my wife to get behind the net. I've just seen too many balls fly up there and, no matter how aware you are -- and people are saying, 'Well, if you're not on your cellphone' and things like that -- no, it doesn't matter."

Added Dodgers manager Don Mattingly: "The balls going into the stands are always frightening. These ones that get shot opposite our dugout by a righty or over this dugout by a lefty are always kind of frightening. You see a lot of balls that go in there quick."

Baseball fans are warned of the potential dangers with fine print on tickets and signs in the stands, but those might do more to protect teams from legal liability than keep spectators safe. When fans injured at games have tried to sue -- as a woman who had her jaw shattered by a broken bat at a Dodgers game did in 2008 -- they find that the clubs have only so much legal responsibility during games. That woman, Susan Rhodes, eventually dropped her suit against the Dodgers and bat manufacturer Rawlings because her lawyers couldn't overcome the presumption of risk that fans assume while in attendance.

One big reason baseball should update the way it thinks about fan safety is simple: The game is more dangerous because the athletes are better. Even though the game has moved beyond the era during which the use of performance-enhancing drugs ran rampant, there are still plenty of strong players with ample bat speed to inflict serious damage with line-drive foul balls. Just as prevalent are pitchers who can throw in the mid to upper 90s, which only increases the likelihood of balls jumping off bats with frightening possibilities.

Montgomery also pointed out that fans have plenty of distractions during games.

"There will be about 250 pitches thrown in any given game, and you can bet that nobody is watching all 250 of them," Montgomery said. "They'll be talking. They'll be dealing with children. The reality is that the closer you get to home plate, the more aware you have to be of what's happening around you."

As for possible solutions, Montgomery wondered what retractable netting could do for the sport if owners really continue to worry about fans' sight lines. Arizona Diamondbacks assistant hitting coach Mark Grace, a veteran of 16 major league seasons, recently told the Arizona Republic that baseball should outlaw maple bats because they are "too dangerous." Maple bats are prone to shattering into large pieces that can fly into the stands, while ash bats usually splinter into shards that remain on the field. (The bat Lawrie used in Boston was made of maple.)

Manfred did mention that his sport has tried to do more to ensure safety, including changing bat regulations in 2009 in hopes of decreasing a rash of broken bats. The Associated Press reported that multipiece bat failures declined by 50 percent since that change. Still, that won't help people forget the sounds of Carpenter's chilling screams last weekend or the sight of her being wheeled out of Fenway Park, her life endangered. As a sign behind the first-base dugout in Fenway Park reads, "BE ALERT: FOUL BALLS AND BATS HURT."

"When something like this happen, we talk about it and then we forget about it until the next one comes," Montgomery said. "We shouldn't let that happen again."