Poor judgement continues in professional baseball.
The baseball industrial complex is cruel and insensitive to victims of foul ball injuries.
Take the case of a fan who was hit in the head on Sunday May 19, 2024 by a 110MPH foul ball at a Toronto Blue Jays game.
The fan posted about the incident on social media, then someone tagged Topps, the baseball card company. Topps replied, and put together a ‘custom card’ featuring the fan’s selfie of her heavily swollen forehead, and framed it with the words: ‘FAN WEARS 110MPH FOUL BALL LIKE A CHAMP.’
Topps should be just as ashamed as all of professional baseball ought to be that fans continue to be maimed by dangerous foul balls. Turning this into some sort of sick joke is adding insult to injury.
“Where have our standards gone? Why does anyone, let alone a long-running respected brand like Topps, think it’s ok to make fun of foul ball victims?” Skopp said.
This poor judgement is reminiscent of the 2020 pandemic-era move by Major League Baseball to place cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands and then offer prizes when a foul ball struck the cardboard cutout.
“The very real human victims of foul balls who I talked to back then found this very insensitive. I’m sure they’ll be just as shocked to learn about Topps’ custom card for a foul ball victim in 2024,” Skopp said.
All of professional baseball has known this fan injury crisis has been happening for decades, they’ve admitted warning their own families to sit behind the netting, yet this has remained an open secret for too long.
“Instead of making fun of victims, isn’t it time for baseball to apologize to the victims? Then take immediate action to stop dangerous foul balls from ever reaching fans’ heads in the first place. Anything less is disrespectful,” Skopp said.
About Foul Ball Safety Now
Foul Ball Safety Now! is a campaign started by Jordan Skopp, a Brooklyn realtor, lifelong baseball fan, and author of a forthcoming book about the wildly overlooked scandal in the professional baseball industry – the all-too-frequent incidence of fans being maimed by dangerous foul balls due to the lack of extended protective netting, and related failures to educate fans about their assumed risk at the ballgame. For more information, visit Foul Ball Safety Now https://www.foulballsafetynow.com/
