Lindor Wants More Safety Netting at Progressive Field After His Line Drive Puts 3-Year-Old in Hospital

In recent years, large swaths of safety netting has been added over stadium seats at Progressive Field. But following an incident during yesterday’s Indians game that sent a 3-year-old to the hospital, shortstop Francisco Lindor is asking that even more be put up to protect baseball fans.

The Indians ended up beating the Kansas City Royals 5-4 during the afternoon matchup, but Lindor’s errant line drive that hit a toddler in the sixth inning was all he could focus on during the game. Following that inning, he was reportedly looking around for someone who could update him on the kid’s status.

“It stinks, man,” Lindor told the Associated Press following the game. “You don’t want to get nobody hurt. I have heard the kid is doing well. He’s in the hospital. He’s getting checked and all I know is he’s in stable condition and he’s doing good.”

The Athletic‘s Zack Meisel reported that Lindor now wants not only Progressive Field but all MLB parks to implement more safety netting:

So far, Indians representatives have not released a comment on Lindor’s request. This summer, the Chicago White Sox will become the first team in baseball to implement netting from foul pole to foul pole, after multiple children have been seriously injured by foul balls in stadiums around the country these past few years. Currently, Progressive Field’s netting only extends from dugout to dugout.

“You don’t want [a hit] to happen to anybody,” Lindor said. “Especially a little kid.”

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This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2019.