Foul Balls and Failed Responsibility: More Evidence of Baseball Leagues’ Failure to Protect Fans, More “Backs Turned” and Silence From Baseball Beat Writers
It’s been a busy week in the ongoing saga of baseball fans injured by foul balls while Major League Baseball and beat writers continue their campaign of deafening silence.
We’re learning more and more about the amount of data that MLB stadiums have on foul balls and fan injuries. This week, NBC News reported on their investigation into hundreds of incidents of fans hurt by foul balls in Major League Baseball this season. Deadspin also reported on its own findings that at least 16 MLB fans were seriously maimed by foul balls this season.
Despite this new evidence, there are still several key elements missing from these media pieces.
Neither NBC News or Deadspin mentioned that Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are pressing Major League Baseball to fully disclose the extent and depth of fan injuries, as a prelude to a potential Senate investigation. Apparently, neither NBC News nor Deadspin contacted those Senators for an update or comment. Without ongoing media coverage of the Senators’ inquiry, I wonder if the Senators will ever follow through?
Isn’t there enough compelling evidence available to Congress — including the new information in NBC News and Deadspin — for them to act now to compel the league to protect all fans? There is no good reason to delay. Next season is too late for anyone who might be injured during the playoffs and World Series.
Imagine how the victims and their families must feel to learn that there is so much data being collected on risks to fans from foul balls. How many of the victims and family members would have chosen not to go to the game, or leave their children at home? And would Major League Baseball have taken the appropriate action long ago — installation of extensive protective netting — if the true data on fan injuries had been fully reported and disclosed, instead of suppressed and covered up?
I’ll be going to journalism schools to talk to upcoming sports writers about the failure of their predecessors, and to spark conversations about what could’ve been done differently, and what must happen going forward.
Let’s face it, over the 105 years since the Baseball Rule emerged, there have been tens of thousands of professional baseball games played. Each season roughly lasting 265 days, and each game lasting roughly three hours. Imagine how many opportunities that presented for beat writers to talk about foul ball injuries, and to educate fans about assumed risk at the ballpark?
That’s several generations of beat writers and journalists who failed miserably at their jobs. The vast majority have said nothing about this. Imagine all the lost chances to share their personal commentary advocating for more nets?
Today, beat writers are irresponsibly silent. Their coverage of this important baseball issue has long been essentially non-existent. I’ve seen this firsthand, as I’ve been reaching out to them personally, and have received no adequate responses to my inquiries to beat writers.
Some told me they don’t think it’s part of their job to inform fans of risk. Why not? The only baseball journalist who talked to me evaded the question by hanging up the phone. When I asked him again on Twitter the next day, he blocked me. What are baseball journalists afraid of?
Their job is to inform their audience about everything that happens at the game.
They’ve failed the baseball community, they’ve failed the fans, they’ve failed the players — especially those players who have spoken out with outrage over the failure of the league to install safety netting to protect all fans.
They haven’t been truthful with their readers about how dangerous it is to sit in unprotected seats. Would people have chosen to sit in those risky seats if the true story about physical devastation and financial ruin had been written about all along? Sharing foul ball data and reporting about it for all these years would have created heightened awareness of these very real risks. People who were hit may have thought differently before attending games. And fans might have demanded that protective netting be greatly extended, if the problem’s true magnitude had been properly reported.
Where is the clock that any beat writer could’ve started to count the number of days of inaction by the league? Any writer since 1913 might have done that service to the baseball community and the fans. None did so. 105 years and counting — still hardly a peep from the journalists in baseball.
Don’t you think these writers have warned their families not to sit in dangerous seats? So why haven’t they provided all fans the same level of care and concern? What a double standard!
Sorry, no hall of fame for any and all baseball writers who have failed to inform us.
Same for close calls — where is the data on those? Let’s assume that roughly 80% of the time it’s a close call and 20% are direct hits on fans — so where was all the coverage of close calls? Has there been any at all?
Let’s think of this through the lens of analogy — imagine a brick falling from a building and smashing into your head. If you’re lucky enough to survive, do you think you’d deserve the right to sue the building owner? Do you expect the media would cover the incident and the aftermath?
What if the brick only comes close, smashing into the pavement next to you. Close call. Isn’t that enough to generate some outrage and get the Department of Buildings involved to take action against the irresponsible building owner?
So what’s the difference when a baseball smacks into an empty seat in an area that clearly needed to be protected by netting — what do you expect might happen? Typically nothing actually happens. Perhaps the broadcasters and journalists in the booth laugh nervously and say ‘that was a close call,’ and now back to the count. Or maybe, ‘did you see that fan jump or spill their beer/popcorn?’, again laughing it off and returning to the game.
Imagine the wasted opportunity every time this has happened in baseball history — all those missed chances to talk to the fans about foul ball injuries, assumed risk and the Baseball Rule.
And how about the beat writers who have even more opportunity than broadcasters to address this in their newspaper columns and online blogs and videos.
Reporters basically have to go out of their way to not report on these close calls and injuries. Isn’t it noteworthy that a seat was cracked by a foul ball — let alone a fan’s face?
Since the writers have failed so miserably, I wonder whether their silence is deliberate.
Now wouldn’t that make for a juicy Senate investigation?
My previous work on this issue:
September 26 Medium.com article: https://medium.com/jordan-skopp/when-will-major-league-baseball-fix-the-veritable-kill-zone-for-fans-c5f8293c9287
September 11 Medium.com article: https://medium.com/jordan-skopp/major-league-silence-and-excuses-from-baseball-teams-and-broadcasters-keep-the-public-at-risk-51cc05d53af5
September 5 Medium.com article: https://medium.com/jordan-skopp/enough-is-enough-is-enough-mlb-is-complicit-in-dangerous-foul-ball-deaths-and-injuries-and-the-36abdb32361f
August 28 Medium.com article: https://medium.com/@SkoppJordan/as-congressional-investigation-looms-over-foul-ball-injuries-to-baseball-fans-brooklyn-realtor-a64ab01662fa
August 20 press release: bit.ly/2MsLJN8
August 13 press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/baseball-as-calls-grow-for-action-on-fan-foul-ball-injuries-brooklyn-realtor-extends-offer-to-pay-for-extended-protective-netting-at-stadiums-300900454.html
August 6th press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/citing-baseball-fan-injury-epidemic-from-foul-balls-brooklyn-realtor-offers-to-pay-cost-to-install-protective-netting-at-mets-and-yankees-stadiums-300896724.html
