When I went to baseball games as a little kid, I dreamed of a foul ball arcing into the stands so I could reach my gloved hand up and snatch it from the sky.
That’s not exactly how it happened for 10-year-old Jennifer Dempsey, who was hit in the face by an errant ball before an Orioles game last season, resulting in a fractured skull and broken cheekbone requiring nine hours of emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Now Dempsey’s family is suing the Orioles for $75,000 in damages.
The lawsuit notes that Dempsey and her stepdad were directed to stand by the right field wall, since they’d arrived early and the main seating area wasn’t open yet. That’s when the ball sailed over the wall and hit her in the face. “As a ten year old, she would not have been able to see batting practice over the right field wall where she was directed to stand,” the lawsuit states, according to the Baltimore Sun.
