@ kramer - First, I want to challenge your math.  You said that such an accident resulting in death is a one in a million chance.  If one were to accur every ten years, and there are 30 major league teams, which probably average 2.5 million fans per season, that would make the odds of you being killed at a MLB game 1 in 750,000,000.  I think there is a MUCH greater probability of having a fatal fall in the bathtub, so I would assume that to prevent that from happening, we should no longer bathe, or install a harness that would prevent us from falling and dying. 
Just as I don’t like a net in front of me when I’m watching a sporting event (it makes me dizzy, and it’s hard to take pictures with an auto-focus camera), I would HATE IT if everybody stunk like they live in a third world country, and NOBODY’S putting a harness on ME!  Require a signed waiver of liability when purchasing tickets for seats in a high risk area. Wouldn’t that have more teeth in court, Craig?

Wooden..how often are they actually injured? I was hit in 1969 by a line drive by Lee Maye (the Senator, not the Red without the “e”). It was a bad bruise for a week. But I wasn’t really hurt.

I don’t know, Jack. I’m not so insensitive to question the extent of injury of children that are bawling because they just got hit by something that’s a third the size of their face. But I now have a better idea as to what kind of parent would let them sit there.

Jack—

I agree that the close proximity of NBA fans to the game and the players is neat, but I don’t see many NBA games disrupted by fans reaching onto the court to grab loose balls. Basketball is also free of dangerous projectiles like foul balls and bat fragments (our original topic here), although there is quite a bit of risk involved in catching a diving Shaq.

I don’t buy, however, that placing some sort of barrier between the fans and the field ruins the game. We already have netting behind home plate, and fans pay good money to sit behind that screen. Hockey fans do the same to sit behind the glass (and now the net). It would take some getting used to, but I think it would improve the quality of the game.

I think I could live with 5 feet or so of net along the foul lines. That should stop the most dangerous bats and liners.
However, I firmly believe that if you’re sitting in the danger zone it is your responsibility to watch the field.

Jack:  I don’t get the Gary Busey joke, I admit, but I fully agree with the Jason to whom you were responding.  Wearing a helmet to sit in the stands sounds absolutely horrendous. 

Also, having a bunch of “education” foisted upon us as fans about how to avoid getting brained by a foul ball would negatively impact the game more than the simple, obvious solution of a net or plexiglass.

You may be right that lawyers would jump all over the lawsuits if adding “some” protection (a net) implied that “full” protection should exist, but in my extremely I-am-not-a-lawyerly opinion, you aren’t right.  There already is protection behind the plate, and thus I don’t see how the argument changes by adding additional protection when you go from “some” protection to “some more”.

I also don’t think that in-game fan-player interactions are good.  The Bartman-Alou incident was the most extreme negative example, and while it can be exciting to see a guy reach into the stands to make a play, it can be really lame to see a player bitching and moaning about fan interference too, and it detracts from the play in my opinion.  Putting up barriers which could be leapt into/over to make plays could make it more exciting without the element of suck that fan interference introduces.

I always sit behind home plate where there is a net, because I have small kids and also because I couldn’t catch a line drive even when I was a kid standing on the field with a glove.

But I think Jack is right - how many major and minor league hockey and baseball games go on each year, and how many people are hurt?  While it’s easy to forsee someone getting seriously hurt or killed, it just doesn’t happen much.

That said, one stadium set-up for the minor league team in Myrtle Beach was dangerous, in my opinion - Myrtle Beach:
http://www.myrtlebeachpelicans.com/bbt/seatmap/

They have a picnic area down the right field line, but it juts out almost right to the foul line.

I’m curious as to how those signs will improve people’s reaction times to those of major-league athletes. A foul ball can come off a wooden bat at 90mph+ yet there are seats less than 100’ away from HP without netting. That’s roughly one (1) second to react, assuming (A) you’re expecting it (B) nobody deflects the ball in the interim (C) the ball is travelling in a straight line. Maybe some folks are aware of those variables, but I suspect the VAST majority are not, as we’ve already seen here.

How did we end up discussing assumption of the risk in a premises liability case?  The law on such matters is frankly well-settled and has been so for several hundred years.  AOR really doesn’t come into play in such cases.  Frankly, I always found it somewhat odd that the NHL had no screens behind the net, despite the fact that pucks frequently end up in that area.

If we change the nature of the stadia, i.e. lessen the foul territory, bring the seats closer or locate the concession areas in locations still subject to foul balls, then I suppose we change the duties owed to the licensees/invitees. 

As such, I suspect that it will become the configuration of the particular stadium that will mandate the type of protective barriers that should be required, as opposed to a league-wide edict.

Here in Columbus, OH, the netting behind the plate runs from (essentially) the inside edge of each dugout, effectively doubling the area of the netting.  Frankly, it seems reasonable to me.  I don’t think the team owes a duty to protect against all hazards, instead only to protect against reasonable hazards. 

I don’t know if it’s still true, but when I went to a game in Mobile, AL a few years ago, their netting covered essentially the entire area from 1st to 3rd.  That greatly reduced the enjoyability of the game for me in an otherwise nice park.

By the way, on that Jackets case, the team and the NHL still have a pretty nice subro. lien on the med-mal claim as Children’s really should have run the MRI.

Craig-

Good point also.  I had thought about that (cozy) relationship.  One thing I don’t know though on the Jackets/Cecil case is who paid the money.  The team?  The NHL?  SMG (the arena mgt. co.)?  If the 3 entities split it up somehow, then it wasn’t the tort that precipated a change, but instead PR.  Which I suspect may actually be the true catalyst for change (despite the claims to the contrary from ATLA or whatever the hell its called now).  No team wants to be known for its dangerous venue, tort claims or not.