40 years ago today: A death at Dodger Stadium, and still the only one of its kind at an MLB game | Farther Off the Wall. I remember my dad taking me to a Dodgers game, had to be in the very early ’70s, putting me at about 9 years old. We’re sitting in box seats behind home plate, tickets he got from his boss at work. An amazing experience for a kid to see a game. A foul ball was hit into the stands, and there was a hush over the crowd as ushers came down to tend to the person who might have been injured. Everything seemed OK.
“Did you know that a kid was killed recently by a foul ball?” I heard it, but I couldn’t believe that was true. Consider that in the course of a typical major-league baseball game, about 40 balls are hit into the stands — foul balls, mostly. Added up over the weeks, months and years of games, the millions of balls hit into the stands has resulted in only one fatality at big-league contest. Yet, it was 40 years ago today — on May 16, 1970, a Saturday night — in the bottom of the third inning of a Dodgers-Giants game at Dodger Stadium. Maury Wills led off with a double. Who’s responsible?