How one fan's story contributed to a conversation about MLB's safety netting
Six months after a terrifying scene, Major League Baseball's parks have extended the netting to protect more fans than before.
It was the fifth inning of an afternoon game cheap nfl authentic jerseys in the Bronx between the Twins and the Yankees last Sept. 20. A toddler, soon to turn 2, was sitting on her grandfather's lap behind the third-base dugout. Then-Yankee Todd Frazier ripped a 105 mph line drive that struck her in the head.
The girl's father, Geoff Jacobson, told ESPN.com that her six days in intensive care were the longest in the lives of the Jacobson family. He said his daughter had skull fractures, bleeding on the brain, both eyes swollen shut and the impression of the baseball's stitching on her forehead. She had a feeding tube and was hooked up to machines monitoring her for seizures.
In the moments after his foul ball hit her, Frazier and both teams were silent -- some players were crying. Play was stopped for more than five minutes as emergency personnel tended to the girl.
The accident and the aftermath became national news.
"I'm in my family room and my son says, 'Turn on the TV,'" said Jay Loos, who was hit by a foul liner past first base at Wrigley Field less than a month before. Loos was permanently blinded in one eye and suffered broken facial bones in the accident.
"I said, 'Oh my god' and had tears running down my good eye."
Loos, who has now had three eye operations, said that when he was in the hospital, he was consumed with fear that it would happen to someone else.
When it happened to Jacobson's daughter, it immediately intensified cheap nfl jerseys from china the scrutiny and the pressure to extend safety netting at all ballparks.
"That was the tipping point -- unfortunately, it took that," said Rick Cusick, who also lost sight in one eye after a foul liner struck him in 2016 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
