MLB will require an expanded network in minor league stadiums
Major League Baseball will require all of its affiliated minor league ballparks to have protective netting extended along each foul line no later than the start of the 2025 season, the league and Sen. Dick Durbin announced Wednesday (D–Ill.) in a statement. The new policy is a victory for advocates who have long warned of the loose ball hazards—especially in the age of mobile distraction—although it doesn’t affect major league ballparks.
“Minor league baseball is an exciting option for families to spend time together and experience professional baseball up close and personal,” MLB Assistant Commissioner Dan Halem said in a statement. Referring to the clubs affiliated with their new designation since the 2021 restructuring of the MLB minors, the Professional Development League, he continued: “By taking this action, our PDL clubs have underscored their commitment to ensure that the fan safety remains a top priority.”
The announcement comes after the MLB Player Development League executive board voted unanimously to approve the initiative earlier this week. Clubs will have access to a consultant specializing in stadium architecture and protective netting to help them comply with the initiative, which the announcement says requires foul-post-to-post netting “unless the stadium configuration make this coverage unnecessary.” There will also be a mandatory height for the netting behind the plate that goes all the way to the end of the dugouts.
“I’m pleased that finally, after seven years of pushing them to do the right thing, and after so many people have been hurt along the way, they’ve finally taken some steps to make these stadiums much safer.” , says Andy Zlotnick. a Manhattan real estate executive and attorney who was hit in the face at Yankee Stadium in 2011. “I’m thankful the league figured it out.”
An NBC News investigation since October 2019, it found that more than 800 fans reported being injured by baseballs at MLB games from ’12-’19, though those numbers don’t include injuries at minor league parks .
Zlotnick has been one of the most vocal fan safety advocates in the country. Over the past seven years, he has formed a coalition of fans who have been injured at baseball games, and together, have shared their stories and called on MLB to do more to protect them. In doing so, they swayed public opinion and attracted the attention of Durbin, the Democratic Senate Whip, who used his position as the chamber’s second-highest-ranking member to pressure the league and push others to support additional networks in stadiums.
MLB and its teams in recent years have taken some steps to make their parks safer. At the 2019 Winter Meetings, commissioner Rob Manfred announced that all 30 MLB teams would expand the netting to their stadiums before the start of the following season, though there was little specificity as to how much the net had to arrive. As of August 21, only six major league ballparks had nets that extended fully from foul pole to foul pole, while 22 parks had netting that extended to the elbows, the area where the sidewall changes direction and angles away from the field. The remaining two—Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.—had extended it beyond the dugouts but not to the elbows. Still, fans attending MLB games were more protected than ever.
The same cannot be said for minor league ballparks. Previously, the decision to install the net was left to individual minor league clubs, many of which lack the resources to pay for a proper net. It would cost about $120,000 to extend the netting 300 feet down both lines in a typical stadium, according to Nathaniel Grow, an associate professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business who has written about fan safety in stadiums .
Now, there’s a uniform policy that all 120 affiliated minor league teams must follow, though it’s still unclear how they’ll cover the costs. When asked, MLB declined to say who would pay for the netting at PDL parks.
#MLB #require #expanded #network #minor #league #stadiums
