Sports Illistrated Article:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/brant_james/04/29/Jam...

For MLB: Get Safer:
Much of the field wrecked at Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Talladega, a cyclotron of a racetrack where the imminence of calamity is both titillating and realistic. Robby Gordon went nose-first into a concrete barrier approaching 200-mph. Such impacts once killed drivers. Carl Edwards's No. 99 Ford was launched by a tap from race-winner Brad Keselowski as they tussled near the finish line, flitted like a feather and tore into the catch fence. Eight fans were injured, some with broken bones. It was bad, obviously, but it's not like the fans were sitting in the splash zone for a Shamu show. The thick steel cables and wire mesh were an indication these fans had a ringside seat for Armageddon.

Baseball is different. Prized, generally unencumbered (read, unprotected) box seats offer superb sight lines and a sense of envelopment without the need for earplugs. They also make fans targets. Sharp line drives are part of the accepted risk for fans when they shed the protection of a backstop screen. Shards of maple bats are not acceptable, and they penetrate the seating area with great frequency. Any projectile -- whether it's car parts or bats and balls -- is dangerous. The NHL got it right by erecting high netting behind goals when 13-year-old Brittanie Cecil died after being hit by a at a Columbus Blue Jackets game in 2002. Baseball can fix its problem without the cargo net, however, if it follows NASCAR's lead in equipment safety by ridding the sport of the harder but brittle maple bats. There's no need to standardize bats like NASCAR has with its race car, but it could rid the sport of a menace to safety.