Proceeds with Caution: Foul Ball Injury Scandal Taints Charitable Intent – Foul Ball Safety Now

The Toronto Blue Jays fan who was smashed in the forehead by a 110 MPH foul ball recently earned a lot of media attention, accelerated by her decision to auction off a number of Topps baseball trading cards featuring her injured likeness and claiming that she’s donating partial proceeds to a children’s hospital in Canada.

“This fan may be famous right now, but for all the wrong reasons,” according to Jordan Skopp, founder of Foul Ball Safety Now. “Is this hospital being brought into a conversation that they don’t want anything to do with? Who wants to be associated with an assault on a fan that could have ended in death? This is Major League Baseball’s dark secret, and it’s no laughing matter,” Skopp continued.

These incidents will continue to happen regularly as long as professional baseball fails to ensure the safety of all fans who enter their ballparks.

“Topps glorifying a fan injury sets a bad precedent. What are they going to do? Make a card every time a fan gets smashed in the face?,” Skopp said.

Victims of foul ball injury and death would likely find this insensitive, just as they did with the cardboard cutouts fans were encouraged to purchase during the pandemic, another distasteful media stunt baseball pulled that put profit above human dignity.

“Hospitals need to have their guard up and consider whether to accept donations that are scandalous. It’s a certainty that more victims will be slammed with foul balls – and that’s not the guaranteed outcome anyone should cheer for or hope to benefit financially from. We deserve better as fans. Nobody injured by a foul ball should be glorified or celebrated. Apologize and focus on real solutions to this ongoing crisis,” Skopp said.

The media frenzy around this story is symptomatic of what’s wrong with the baseball industrial complex. Topps was just the first commercial interest to exploit this incident. Others have since pounced on it, offering the injured fan $100 in free hot dogs, for example.

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/