Barring negligence, a Fenway fan hurt by a busted bat during a Major League Baseball game yesterday will likely receive no compensation for her “life-threatening” injury.
The woman, who was sitting with her husband and son near the third base section of the stadium, was struck in the head by a shard of wood that sailed her way after slugger Brett Lawrie shattered his bat on a ground ball in the second inning.
The victim remains in “serious but stable condition,” a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department said today.
Over the years, the MLB has seen other spectators injured in similar ways and in various degrees, but rarely paid out compensation when bats became potentially lethal projectiles, since, in the long history of the sport, it’s not that uncommon an event.
Baseball game attendance is therefore considered an at-your-own-risk activity, because most fans are aware of that probability and many have seen such flying objects themselves.
On that note, Boston’s famed Fenway Park reportedly has very limited protective netting in the area where the female fan hurt by a broken bat on Friday was watching the contest between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics.
That surprising shortcoming, however, still might not be enough to charge the team or stadium owners with criminal negligence and medical liability.
As to pursuing Lawrie himself, he probably summed it up best when frankly addressing reporters about the bloody batting mishap:
"When you're behind home-plate and you're along the third base side and first base side,” he explained, “You've really got to be heads-up for foul balls -- for anything coming into the stands -- because it's so close there's really no time to react."
