Until a major overhaul of baseball spectator safety approaches takes place, it is undeniable that every year there will be people struck by balls and bats due to the unsafe conditions in ballparks and stadiums across America. Many will suffer life-altering injuries, often involving head trauma and lasting impacts both physical and psychological.

All told, there are thousands of fans who’ve been seriously injured at ballparks throughout modern baseball history.

Most of these injured fans had no idea they were in harm’s way, whether they were inside or outside the ballpark. And once they experience the pattern of injustice and blaming the victim that happens all too often, many of the injured will choose to be done with baseball – turning their backs on the game in disgust.

Who would want to be inducted into that exclusive club?

Unfortunately, we learn about a lot of inductees to the injured fan club in our research.

Just in the last year of 2025, FBSN has consulted with two separate law firms to assist in cases filed on behalf of injured fans. One case involved a woman standing outside the minor league ballpark in Modesto, CA when a batted ball left the field during batting practice and struck her head as she waited to enter the ballpark. She suffered atraumatic brain injury. Instead of the team addressing the matter immediately by takingappropriate safety measures and providing care for the woman’s pain and suffering and long-term needs, she was left with no choice but to get legal counsel and sue. That case ended in a settlement.

We were also contacted by another law firm preparing for a trial on behalf of an infant baby who was struck in the head by a thrown bat at an MLB game. The family faced a long and hard road ahead, since the team decided not to own up to the incident from day one. The child grew up with serious medical issues following this 2017 incident. The family was left alone and had to seek legal counsel and wait. Just imagine if the team had acted immediately and the child was provided access to the best doctors right away — let alone the family receiving compensation for their time lost from work as they cared for the baby after the thrown-bat incident — those would have been responsible actions and great comforts to help bring a more promising prognosis for the child and for the family. Unfortunately, that was not the story. The case, we learned, was settled after seven years, with the family only getting basic care for the child. Where’s the humanity in that?

Foul Ball Safety Now has documented at least 45 children who’ve suffered serious injuries, mostly to the head, since 2008. Most of those injuries were at MLB games.

Since there are 5x as many more games played through all professional minor leagues, we believe the number of child injuries must be a lot higher. Check out Exhibit A-1 to review our assessment and methodology.

Lots of existing research points to the same conclusion we’ve reached – that baseball has a long way to go to safeguard fans from serious injury. Check out the 2019 ESPN Investigation at Exhibit A, as well as the NBC News analysis that discovered hundreds of reported injuries between 2012-2019.