Letter to District Attorneys November, 2024

I’m Jordan Skopp, the founder of the advocacy campaign Foul Ball Safety Now, reaching out with an urgent appeal for your help to address the ongoing crisis of fan injuries in professional baseball. I’ve identified the _______________ Park in your district that deserves your attention. 

I have been advocating for fan safety since 2019 after I witnessed a horrific injury on national TV when a little girl was seriously injured by a foul ball at an MLB game in Houston, TX. Ever since then, I’ve been investigating the lack of adequate netting throughout professional baseball in cities across the country. I quickly learned that no rules or regulations are applied or enforced at any of these professional teams’ ballparks to ensure fan safety. Furthermore, an antiquated liability protection known as the ‘Baseball Rule’ shields team owners and leagues from consequences when fans are injured, often leaving the victims with crippling medical costs that would otherwise be subject to legal recourse.

This well-produced 5-minute ESPN video from 2019 is EXHIBIT A, a powerful smoking gun that will enlighten you about just how bad the situation is with the current netting status in the _________ ballpark in your jurisdiction. 

Your jurisdiction includes _______________ which is among the 70 I’ve identified across the country that still had no netting past the ends of the dugouts during the 2024 season. Major League Baseball has acknowledged this problem exists throughout the minor leagues, and issued a requirement on December 7, 2022 that all minor league ballparks should extend netting. However, the league gave all the teams until opening day 2025, allowing two full seasons of baseball to proceed with dangerously inadequate protections in place to safeguard fans. 

I remain skeptical that all 70 ballparks will make these improvements in the offseason this winter, and regardless of any progress, based on everything I’ve learned thus far, the risk of serious injury or death will likely persist into the future without the combination of regulatory oversight and law enforcement accountability to ensure that effective action is taken to stop fan injuries.

At a minimum, I am urging your office to step up and advocate that no children under 18 should be allowed to attend games with or without parents until these facilities are deemed safe by independent experts. 

I know of at least two children who were critically injured in the summer of 2023 in professional baseball. A little girl was critically injured at the Peoria Chiefs’ Dozer Park on July 28, 2023, hit by a foul ball down the right field line that sent her to the hospital where she was placed in the critical care unit. A 3-week-old baby girl was seriously injured in Hickory, NC when a foul ball hit her in the head in August 2023.

I also have documented at least 45 children who have suffered serious injuries, most of them head injuries, from foul balls since 2008. Most of these occurred in the MLB stadiums primarily, but some happened in the minor leagues, where 3x as many games are played each season, and where netting lags behind. 

It is challenging to know the full scale of the problem or to identify the actual numbers of fan injuries, due to a lack of media coverage or any consistent tracking of fan injuries by the leagues and municipalities, but it’s clearly too large, and it is still happening.

It also continues to happen at MLB stadiums that have extended netting to varying degrees in recent years, demonstrating that such voluntary efforts are not working to stem the problem. This summer, a Toronto Blue Jays fan was struck in the head by a foul ball and suffered a concussion. An 8-year-old boy was struck in the eye by a foul ball on May 17, 2024 at Dodger Stadium – the same ballpark where the two known fan fatalities from foul balls occurred (Alan Fish in 1970 and Linda Goldbloom in 2018) — and where netting has been extended and raised, again demonstrating that piecemeal voluntary measures aren’t enough. A fan was blinded by a foul ball at a Pittsburgh Pirates game on July 1, 2023, providing another example of a stadium that has extended netting but is still not adequately protecting all fans from serious risk. 

Keep in mind that this problem has been well known for decades, it didn’t just suddenly occur to professional baseball to do something about it in 2022. It took years of advocacy, and high-profile horror reels of children being crushed by foul balls at MLB games, to compel MLB to finally issue its supposed requirements of its minor league affiliates.

I’ve conducted over 70 interviews in the course of my own investigation, including dozens of victims and family members. Many of them no longer go to games and have turned their backs on baseball, feeling they were not treated fairly. 

I’ve also conducted compelling interviews with MLB and minor league players, and other insiders to the game. It’s been shocking to hear players and other insiders admit to me that they warn their own families not to sit in exposed seats, yet nobody is alerting the rest of us to the dangers.

Let’s step up together and give this issue the attention it deserves now, and should have rightfully all along. 

My ongoing advocacy campaign, Foul Ball Safety Now, seeks to hold MLB accountable for the legacy of unnecessary fan injuries and deaths, and to compel action at the highest levels (courts and Congress) to end the Baseball Rule and require adequate netting to ensure that all ballparks are certified as foul-ball safe.

I look forward to hearing from you, and will be happy to supply any additional information needed to address this matter urgently.

 Thank you,

Jordan Skopp