Baseball Ballpark Safety
winter baseball meetings in nashville … the commissioner of major league baseball recommended expanding the netting at ballparks across the country in order to better protect fans. abc-7’s darren hunt spoke with chihuahuas g-m brad taylor today about those recommendations. he joins us live with that story. darren? rick and estela, we wanted to know whether southwest university park will have to make any changes … before the start of the season in april. commissioner rob manfred’s recommendations include encouraging clubs to expand the netting behind home plate … in order to shield fans from line-drives and bats in field level seats. the netting should extend between the near ends of both dugouts … and also notify fans in certain areas there are safer seating options if desired. these recommendations were made after several dangerous incidents last year in major league baseball … one woman suffered life-threatening injuries when a broken bat hit her in the head in boston. our ballpark is not immune from these issues … in fact i was at a game last year when this bat flew into the stands behind the home dugout, hitting a man in the head and a woman in the knee. but chihuahuas g-m brad taylor told me today the new recommendations won’t change a thing at southwest university park. brad taylor: “we’re compliant … the great thing about being in a two year old facility is that this meets the recommendations, it’s already within what was suggested so, you know, we’ve got options for people that want to be behind the net, don’t want to be behind the net, but we’ve also been at practice since we opened the ballpark to let people know you’re attending a baseball game, you need to pay attention.” some were surprised the commissioner didn’t go further in his safety recommendations for ballparks. we’ll talk about that at six … as well as whether minor league parks like el paso’s are considering metal detectors … which became standard in all major league parks last season. rick/estela. wine lovers — get ready to cringe:
