Cleveland Indians star Francisco Lindor hit a child with a foul ball during a game Sunday, the latest incident that has renewed calls for adding netting to provide more safety at Major League Baseball stadiums.
In the bottom of the sixth inning of his team’s game against the Kansas City Royals, the All-Star shortstop sent a scorching foul ball down the first base line, hitting a 3-year-old child, reports Cleveland’s NBC affiliate, WKYC.
The Indians said they could not release any information on the incident, Cleveland.com reports.
“He’s in the hospital right now,” said Lindor, according to Cleveland.com. "I came over immediately and tried to find out where he was. The paramedics were checking him here."
"Once I got out of the game, they let me know that he’s doing OK. He’s doing good. He’s in the hospital getting checked out. He’s talking and answering questions and his eyes look good. That’s a good sign. Hopefully, every test they run on him comes back good. You don’t want that to happen to anybody, especially a little kid.”
After the game, Lindor, 25, said Major League Baseball needs to extend netting at stadiums.
“I encourage every MLB team to put the nets all the way down. I know it’s all about the fans’ experience of interacting with players and I completely get that," Lindor said. "You want to have that interaction with the fans, getting autographs and stuff, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure everybody comes out of this game healthy, and we gotta do something about it. It sucks. Everybody feels bad. And if we can put all the nets a little bit further down, I think it would be a lot better.”
The impact of what a baseball can do was also seen in New York over the weekend where Yankees first baseman Luke Voit took a 91-mile-per-hour fastball in the face during a game against the Colorado Rockies. He would later score in the inning before being taken out of the game later. He would return to the starting lineup on Saturday, although he was wearing a face guard for added protection.
"I thought broken jaw. My teeth were going to be all scattered everywhere," Voit said Sunday, reports ESPN. "I grabbed my face. So I was like, 'Uh-oh.' ... But then, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Just a scary thing."
In May, Chicago Cubs outfielder Alberto Almora, Jr. was left in tears after he hit a foul ball that struck a young girl during a game against the Houston Astros, fracturing her skull.
"Right now I'm just praying and I'm speechless," he said afterward. "I'm at loss of words."
Last month, another fan was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Los Angeles Dodgers star Cody Bellinger at Dodger Stadium.
“I saw it literally hit her face, so that was tough,” Bellinger said after the game.
Dodger Stadium was also the site of another incident last season, when a 79-year-old woman was struck and killed after being hit in the head by a foul ball.
In 2017, a young girl was struck by a foul ball at New York’s Yankee Stadium, which caused the team to say it would add netting.