Our responsibility to ourselves
03/20/2002
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The next time you're at a sporting event, whether it's at the professional or amateur level, do yourself a favor:
Think of 13-year-old Brittanie Cecil and her family.
Brittanie, an eighth-grader at Twin Valley South Middle School in West Alexandria, Ohio, was struck in the head by an errant puck during last Saturday's Blue Jackets/Flames NHL game at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. After a few frightening moments, she left the game under her own power, holding a jacket to her head to help control the bleeding, seemingly an indication that she would be just fine.
But two days later, Brittanie was dead.
Her death, believed to be the first ever fan fatality at an NHL game, is heart-wrenchingly tragic, but as is the case with many of life's misfortunes, there is something to be learned here. It's a simple lesson, one that public address announcers remind us of before the start of nearly every sporting event.
As spectators, we have to pay close attention to the action on the field of play. At all times.
We all love to go to baseball games to hang out with a few buddies, gnaw on some peanuts, down a couple beers and have a good time. But one inattentive moment, one unnoticed foul ball, and a great day at the ballpark can quickly take a disastrous turn. I'm not trying to be melodramatic here -- it's the truth. Do you think young Brittanie Cecil and her father, who had taken his daughter to the Blue Jackets game as an early birthday present, expected to wind up at the hospital later that evening? Obviously not. But one wild shot off the stick of Columbus center Espen Knutsen immediately and irrevocably changed everything for the Cecil family.
A hockey puck is an extremely hard piece of one-inch thick frozen rubber. A baseball is an extremely hard jumble of cork, rubber, yarn, twine and leather. And unfortunately, once these extremely hard objects leave the field of play, we're all in danger.
I'll never forget the moment I realized just how hazardous being a spectator could actually be. We were at an Indians game last season, sitting in the upper deck at the Jake down the third-base line, when someone hit a foul ball straight back behind the plate. I'm not talking about a little pop-foul here -- this thing was a lined shot that ricocheted into one of the nearby loges and hit a girl, probably about Brittanie's age, in the face. She'd been talking to someone with her head turned so she never saw the ball coming, and when she was hit she immediately clutched her head in obvious pain. Seconds later, a man I assumed to be her father carried the girl out of the loge as everybody who'd seen the incident quietly and anxiously watched.
I don't know what happened to her -- I can only assume she made a full recovery -- and I'm also not sure just how seriously injured she was. But as someone who's been nailed by a couple baseballs during my playing days, I'm pretty sure getting hit in the head with a screaming foul ball wouldn't tickle. I'd also be willing to bet that a ball hit that hard into the stands could be just as lethal as that errant puck was on Saturday. But had this girl been attentive to what was going on down on the field, she may have been able to get out of the way.
Think about how many times a batter fouls a pitch off down either the right field or left field line and into the stands. A little bloop won't likely hurt anybody because there's plenty of time to react. But what about those blistering liners that find the stands? You've got a split second to either throw your hands up in front of your face or duck. You pick, but you'd better pick fast.
Sitting in those lower box seats can be deadly -- it's almost like playing third base without a glove. And without the big league experience. Why make it even more dangerous by simply not paying attention to what's going on? Those seats are great, so close to the field that you can smell the pine tar, but they come with plenty of risk and, especially if you have young children, plenty of responsibility as well.
Of course, wayward baseballs and hockey pucks aren't the only dangers at sporting events -- people get themselves into potential trouble all the time thanks for poor judgment. How many times have you seen somebody lean over a rail in the upper deck of a stadium just to try to snag a foul ball or a field goal? If they make the catch everybody from the ushers to the play-by-play guys in the press box applauds. But lean out too far and they're in some serious trouble.
Please, trust me when I say that a baseball isn't worth the risk. Go out and buy one if you really want a ball for your collection, or come to the game early and get a few during batting practice. Just don't risk your life for one. Ditto for footballs.
The bottom line is we all take on a certain amount of risk whenever we got to a sporting event, whether it's a baseball, hockey, football, basketball or water polo game. Imagine how great it must feel to have an NBA player, diving for a loose ball, jump into your lap and knock you out of your courtside seat. We've all seen that happen. But the more alert we are at these games, the less likely we'll be to wind up in the hospital with a head wound or a broken arm.
Unfortunately, none of this really matters to Brittanie Cecil's family right now, and I'm certainly not suggesting that she wasn't paying attention during that fateful hockey game last week. But the fact remains that the Cecil family will not celebrate a birthday this week. Instead, they're mourning the loss of their daughter, a young girl who, according to Kari Summers, a former soccer teammate of Brittanie's, "... was so happy all the time. You never saw her in a sad moment."
As I said earlier, this apparently is the first fan fatality in the NHL's long history, but I think we all agree that even one is too many. Please, do your best to make sure it doesn't happen again the next time you're at a game.
Okay, lecture's over.
In the Bullz-Eye
The Toronto Raptors. Vince Carter and Co. have now lost 17 of their last 18 games after Tuesday's 112-80 embarrassment in Minnesota versus the Timberwolves. The Raptors, unquestionably one of the more talented teams in the East, nonetheless find themselves four games behind the Charlotte Hornets for the eighth and final playoff spot at 30-38. With just 14 games remaining on the year, Toronto looks to be in serious trouble.