Baseball Encourages Teams to Extend Netting Down the Foul Line

By Jordan Kobritz   In December during the annual Baseball Winter Meetings MLB announced new guidelines designed to extend ballpark netting. The recommendations follow a season during which a number of serious injuries at ballparks around the country garnered extensive publicity.   MLB’s new policy is not a mandate. Teams are “encouraged” to extend the netting from behind home plate a distance of 70 feet down each foul line, or to the ends of the dugouts nearest to home plate. Th