MLB Announces New Recommendations for Netting In Ballparks

Major League Baseball announced today that it has recommended the addition of protective netting at ballparks for all 30 teams, heading into the 2016 season. Reports of the recommendations are that the League is suggesting to each of its teams that they expand protective netting and other safety devices to cover the areas just off the edges of both dugouts and the area within 70 feet of home plate.

These recommendations, which are up to each team to execute on their own, come following a year in which several fan safety issues, including people being hit with batted balls and broken bats, occurred.

Of course, a couple of the scarier instances of fans being hit during  games happened at Fenway Park last year, when one woman was hit with broken pieces of a bat in June and another woman was hit in the face with a foul ball along the same third base line a few weeks later. Luckily, both women were able to battle back from life threatening injuries.

An NBC Sports report says that the Commissioner's Office does have a consultant, who specializes in stadium architecture and protective netting, on retainer to assist any clubs looking to better equip their stadiums based on the aforementioned recommendations.