Diamonds For Women

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Dodgers president Stan Kasten says now that the team will extend its netting.
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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That's good because I think it's necessary.

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During my trip last week, a three year-old boy was injured by a foul ball off the bat of Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor--another scary incident which prompted Lindor to speak out in support of more netting. The incident took place in the sixth inning of a 5-4 win over the Royals.
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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So, here's the latest, from the L.A. Times:

"A Lawsuit Could Make Baseball Teams Liable for Foul Balls That Injure Fans"


Summer Johnson was 12 when the foul ball smashed into her face. She had come from Georgia to Long Beach to watch her big brother compete for a spot on a team representing the United States, and she left with a damaged eye. She can no longer see out of that eye.

Here is what the law traditionally has said about such incidents: Too bad.

However, a California appellate court ruling this week jeopardized a legal doctrine cherished by the baseball industry. The court did not defer to the so-called Baseball Rule, under which fans are expected to understand and assume the risk of injury from a screaming line drive, or from the jagged fragment of a broken bat.

“This is one of the few courts that hasn’t said, ‘No, this has always been the rule, the teams don’t have any liability,’ ” said Nathaniel Grow, an Indiana University law professor who has written about the Baseball Rule. “They’re actually going to reinterpret and rethink that, and potentially change the law in this area. That makes it significant.”

Even with the shield from liability, major league teams have expanded protective netting in recent seasons, in response to a series of horrific injuries and a fan death at Dodger Stadium. Now, the appellate court ruled, that netting might provide a basis for modifying the doctrine that teams assume no responsibility for fan injury.

The century-old doctrine demands only that teams protect the most vulnerable fans, generally those directly behind home plate. A 1929 New York ruling that said a fan accepts at his or her own risk “the chance of contact with the ball.”

Johnson filed a lawsuit in 2014, alleging negligence in failing to warn her of the dangers of a foul ball or provide her reasonable protection from one. She was not seated behind home plate.

In 2017, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ross Klein threw out Johnson’s case, citing in part a 1997 state appellate court ruling that acknowledged foul balls could cause injury to fans.

“If such foul balls were to be eliminated, it would be impossible to play the game,” the 1997 ruling read. “Thus, foul balls represent an inherent risk to spectators attending baseball games.”

Johnson appealed. Her argument that USA Baseball, the organizer of the event at Blair Field, should have offered clearer warnings and more netting, might or might not succeed. But a three-judge panel unanimously ruled that she should have the chance to make her case and ordered Klein to let her try. The judges cited what they called “the modern, practical view of the importance of protective netting,” noting that all major league teams and many minor league teams have added netting without altering the nature of the game.

“You’re not obscuring the game by having this additional protection,” said Thomas Dempsey, the attorney for Johnson.

“You still have an opportunity to get souvenirs. You still have those pop flies that land in the stands, but you don’t have those screaming line drives where you don’t even have the opportunity to realize that something is coming at you with that speed, and with that force.

“You see that stadiums have changed. The people in control of the games have realized you can have fan protection that does not interfere with your view of the game.”

Sevan Gobel, the attorney for USA Baseball, did not return a call for comment.

Johnson was injured in 2013, and Grow said it is unclear whether she could rely on major league teams upgrading netting at a later date to say that the Blair Field netting should have been upgraded at the time of her injury. However, he said, the ruling eventually could affect minor league, college, high school and even youth games within California.

“There are definitely super-broad implications there, at least within California,” Grow said. “Anywhere fans could potentially be in danger, at any level, I would assume that opinion could apply.”
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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A woman is suing the Cubs over a foul ball injury she suffered at Wrigley Field in 2018.
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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Yankees broadcaster John Sterling was hit in the face by a foul ball during Saturday's Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium. The ball that reached the booth was off the bat of Rojo Chingon! And he actually signed it for Sterling later.
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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Not just a name or a foul ball victim, but a departed loved one. Get out your Kleenex, and be forewarned, some of this reflects poorly on the Dodgers' organization.

From the L.A. Times:

"Five Years After His Wife Was Killed By a Foul Ball at Dodger Stadium, Erwin Goldbloom Still Mourns"

BY BILL PLASCHKE
AUG. 27, 2023 5 AM PT

Five years later, the foul ball still screams, its journey still silences, an impact eternal.

Every night before going to bed, Erwin Goldbloom walks to the office of his quiet Camarillo home and taps up a YouTube video on his computer.

It is the sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Fascination.”

It was their song.

“She was beautiful,” he says.

Five years ago, Linda Goldbloom accompanied her husband of 59 years to Dodger Stadium for a Saturday night game against the San Diego Padres.

She had the best seat. She had the perfect view. Loge level, third row, on the right side of home plate, Erwin on the aisle next to her, the batters directly in front of her.

She wore blue. She cheered loudly. She stood and sang at the seventh-inning stretch. She sat back down and focused on the field as a one-run duel crept into the start of the ninth inning.

Then a foul ball hit her in the face and killed her.

Five years later, Erwin, 90, serenades his late wife’s spirit with a nightly love song while pondering a web of endless cruelty.

Of the 53,528 people at Dodger Stadium that night, why did the ball find her? How could a game that gave her so much life so directly cause her death?

And why was the protective netting so low?

The pain was compounded when the Dodgers initially didn’t acknowledge her death, and there was no public recognition of it until Erwin’s daughter, Jana Brody, contacted ESPN nearly six months later.

In fact, even though it was only the second death by foul ball in major-league history, there’s a good chance many are just hearing about it now.

Five years later, her widowed husband lives with it daily.

“Life isn’t fair,” Erwin says, choking back tears. “I wish I had been in her seat.”

It was the final night of their 10-game season-ticket allotment. It was potentially the final inning of that final game. They were so close to going home.

“We never left a game before it ended,” Erwin said. “We’re true fans.”

They were, indeed, die-hards, with partial season tickets for more than 20 years and a Dodgers history that dated to their courtship days in the Coliseum.

They attended World Series games, playoff games and even Sandy Koufax’s perfect game. They unconditionally loved the Dodgers and built a life draped in blue.

“My mom would love packing a lunch and going to the games,” Jana recalls. “It was a fun, easy time to be with dad.”

Linda worked for CBS radio and later in clothing stores; Erwin coached wrestling and taught health and physical education at Pierce College while also becoming a renowned wrestling referee. They had built a strong family life together in West Hills with three children and seven grandchildren.

“I was pissed off because it was like the Dodgers were saying, ‘We’re above this, we don’t want people to know because they won’t come to the game.’ To them it was just another incident.”

— Erwin Goldbloom, on his wife dying after being hit by a foul ball

After they both retired, Dodgers games were their entertainment, their date nights, their popcorn-scented bond.

The Saturday of August 25, 2018 was one such occasion. They used the last of their tickets for the game against the Padres. They were accompanied by Erwin’s brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Eve Goldbloom.

Erwin and Linda, 79, sat in the third row, Michael and Eve sat directly behind them.

When the game reached the ninth inning, the Dodgers led 3-2 with Kenley Jansen on the mound. It was typical Jansen hold-your-breath time. The idle conversation between the couples ceased.

“We know baseball, we were focused on watching the game, we weren’t turning around chatting,” Eve recalls. “I saw exactly what happened, and I remember it like it was yesterday.”

The inning started with 6-foot-5, 285-pound Franmil Reyes, a hulking giant who had homered in his previous plate appearance.

Jansen started him out with a ball, then a called strike, then another ball.

Then Reyes swung from his heels and caught the edge of the pitch and sent the ball blistering back over the netting behind home plate.

There was no time to react. There was no time to move. In an instant, the ball was smashing against Linda’s right cheek, and she immediately slumped in her seat.

Sitting directly behind her, Eve immediately knew something was terribly wrong.

“That ball came back like a bolt of lightning, a white bolt of lightning,” she remembers. “I have sat in nearly every seat in that stadium and I’ve never seen a ball coming back into the stands with that kind of speed.”

The ball hit Linda so hard, it ricocheted off her face to the row above her, bounced off Michael’s chest, and then clattered up several rows.

“Linda never stood a chance,” Eve remembers. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it hit her in the head.’”

Erwin quickly stood and leaned over her.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“I am not OK,” she said.

After a lifetime together, it was their last conversation.

By the time medical personnel arrived, Linda couldn’t walk, so two emergency medical technicians carried her up the aisle and into an ambulance and rushed her to what is now Los Angeles General Medical Center.

Erwin rode in the front seat. He didn’t hear her vomiting. He didn’t see the medics insert a breathing tube. He initially couldn’t recognize the dire nature of her condition. Foul balls aren’t really killers, are they?

“I thought she was going to go in, get checked out, sign a few papers, and we were going to go home,” he recalls.

She never made it home. She underwent emergency brain surgery and never regained consciousness. She died four days later.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s report listed the cause of death as “acute intracranial hemorrhage due to history of blunt force trauma.” It cited the foul ball as the reason for the injury.

The family sent an email to relatives and friends announcing her death while noting that “the end came suddenly by a foul ball at Dodgers Stadium.”

Death by foul ball. The coroner’s report was clear. The family didn’t try to hide it. But nobody seemed to want to acknowledge it.

The Dodgers did not reveal the death for nearly six months, later telling the New York Times, “the Dodgers generally do not make reports of accidents that take place at Dodger Stadium. We avoid doing so out of respect for the privacy of the persons involved and their families.”

The media had no idea what was happening and did not mention the incident in game reports, noting only that after the Padres’ Austin Hedges tied the score with a home run in the ninth, the Dodgers eventually won 5-4 in the 12th. End of story.

If reporters had known of the eventual death, it would have been big headlines, not only out of respect for Linda’s life, and not only because it was only the second time in Major League Baseball history that a fan died after being struck by a foul ball … but also because the first death also was at Dodger Stadium. Alan Fish, 14, died in 1970 after he was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Manny Mota.

“People needed to know what happened to Linda, and the dangers of sitting in the stands, yet it was ignored, and I couldn’t understand it,” Erwin says. “Why didn’t the Dodgers just say a woman died at a game last night? Isn’t that something they should do?”

Five years later, the anger remains.

“I was pissed off because it was like the Dodgers were saying, ‘We’re above this, we don’t want people to know because they won’t come to the game.’” he says. “To them it was just another incident.”

Nearly six months later, equally upset by the lack of public understanding and certain that the tragedy could have been prevented with more protective netting, Brody made her mother’s death public through ESPN’s William Weinbaum.

“Every time I told her story to people, their mouths would fall open, and they would ask if the Dodgers did anything,” she recalls. “They didn’t, and that had to change.”

When confronted with the death, besides the statement to the New York Times, the Dodgers also told ESPN, “Mr. and Mrs. Goldbloom were great Dodgers fans who regularly attended games. We were deeply saddened by this tragic accident and the passing of Mrs. Goldbloom. The matter has been resolved between the Dodgers and the Goldbloom family. We cannot comment further on this matter.”

When contacted for this five-year anniversary story, the Dodgers again declined further comment.

The family couldn’t successfully sue the Dodgers because of the Baseball Rule, a legal term that holds that teams are not responsible for injuries that occur from a foul ball. They eventually settled with the team for a confidential amount, then Brody went on a publicity blitz aimed at forcing all teams to expand and heighten the protective netting.

At the time of the accident, it was the first season that all 30 teams had installed netting from behind home plate to the far end of the dugouts. But it wasn’t enough to save Linda’s life, so Jana and Erwin kept pushing through media interviews until teams began increasing the height and length of the netting.

Finally, a year after Linda’s death, the Dodgers added eight feet to the netting behind home plate and above both dugouts, enough to have saved Linda’s life. They also extended the netting beyond the dugouts and to the elbow bend in front of the field level seats. Since then, every team has extended the netting and all minor league teams are required to install netting by the start of the 2025 season.

Brody, whose book “Sit Behind The Nets!” chronicles her family’s tragedy and its ensuing quest, only wishes change had not come so slowly.

“I’m just mad that it’s taken so long to get the word out,” she says. “And now they’re saying minor league baseball has until 2025? That’s three years’ worth of injuries.”

Still, five years later, it is Erwin’s only solace.

“Every time I see a foul ball hit into a net, I think, I just saved somebody’s life,” he says.

He still watches baseball, only he does it alone, from his couch. He surrendered his season tickets and will never again set foot in Dodger Stadium, hauntingly located only 10 miles from where his wife is buried.

“I can’t go back there. Too hard. Too many memories,” he says.

But he doesn’t blame the players. He still cheers for the Dodgers on television. And he knows Linda would be cheering with him.

“She’d go to bed early and I’d stay up and watch the end of the games, but I knew she was always there,” he says. “She was always a Dodger fan.”

Five years later, Erwin’s summer evenings no longer end with Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser, but with Nat King Cole, memories of his late wife forever more powerful than any foul ball.

“We loved that song,” he says.
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"The Dodgers have always occupied an enormous place in the history of the game. If the Yankees are the most successful team in baseball history, the Dodgers are the most essential. Their legacy is unique."

-Baseball Hall of Fame

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This is such a sad story. It's true it doesn't make the Dodgers look too good - maybe they could do something now to memorialize her, and the other victim from many years ago. I do remember the story very well when it was originally mentioned. I'm glad Mr. Goldbloom is still a faithful Dodger fan!