Cleveland Indians: Extending netting is a smart and necessary idea

The Cleveland Indians will extend protective netting at Progressive Field this season, which is not something fans should be mad about.

Nothing beats seeing a Cleveland Indians game in person.

Progressive Field is a beautiful park and after the renovations, I honestly don’t believe there is a bad seat in the house.

The most expensive seats in the stadium are right behind home plate and the dugouts, where some fans have viewed the game through netting, while others had a clear view to the field.

But things are changing in 2018 as the Indians will add netting that extends to the end of each dugout, according to an announcement made by the team on Wednesday.

This naturally caused some outrage among fans on social media who declare this is a travesty, but it’s nothing to be mad about.

No one should die or be seriously injured attending a baseball game. Yet a few times every year, someone is seriously injured by a line drive fouled into the stands. The players look on in horror while an unfortunate fan has their life put in danger.

It is not like this netting is made of thick black wires or anything like that. It is about to be 2018, the technology is there to make it barely noticeable.

I previously worked for a minor league baseball team that extended netting and the first thing that happened was we received angry calls about how this would ruin the in-game experience. All we could do was listen to customer concerns, but you have to wonder how that same person would react if they were drilled by a foul ball.

Some people genuinely would accept such an injury as part of the game, but there is no reason for thousands of people to be put in danger just because a few voices are angry about a move that causes no harm. It prevents harm.

A main complaint to this is that people who don’t pay attention at games are those who get hit. That’s just insane. Even if you are paying attention and wearing a glove and standing up for every pitch, there is no way you are going to catch a screaming liner heading right at you. One deflection off a chair and that ball changes course before your brain can process what is going on.

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Anger over this should blow over, and I hope no one makes too big a fuss over this. Baseball games should be a safe place for fans of all ages to go and take in a game. No one should ever be leaving the stands on a stretcher. And after years of that happening, adding more netting is something that had to be done.