Royals’ new safety netting debuts at The K, and first baseman Eric Hosmer approves

The ball boomeranged off Neil Walker’s wooden bat, and Dmitri Williams popped up from his seventh-row seat at Kauffman Stadium. He placed his arms in front of his chest and cupped his hands to form a makeshift glove.

His wife opted for a different response to the foul ball by the Mets’ second baseman. She ducked.

Then they remembered one of the stadium’s newest additions.

“Oh, yeah,” Williams later recalled thinking, “The net.

“Ain’t gotta worry about that no more.”

As the Royals opened their 2016 season against the Mets on Sunday, their home stadium debuted its added safety netting. The additional protection — extended during the offseason following a recommendation from Major League Baseball — stretches from the old backstop screen to the outfield ends of both dugouts.

Williams said it’s his third year sitting in the lower bowl, and he even once got his fingertips on a foul ball but couldn’t quite corral it.

“I guess I had my chance,” he said. “But I get it — it’s for safety, and it’s nice to know that if maybe I’m not looking for a pitch, I’m not going to get blasted in the side of the face.”

Williams worried about arriving to his seat Sunday with an obstructed view. Instead, the netting was hardly noticeable, he said.

That sentiment was echoed by Lee’s Summit West High School senior Grey Rogers, who sat along the first-base line.

“It’s really not as distracting as everyone said it was going to be. It’s not that bad,” Rogers said. “I noticed it when I sat down, but you kind of forget it’s there after awhile.”

The offseason measure had at least one prominent supporter — Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer.

“Some of the times (when) you leave seats for your family, it’s right behind the dugout or it’s five rows up, and I certainly don’t feel comfortable with my mom sitting that close,” Hosmer said.

The issue hit particularly close with Hosmer, who recalled a game during his rookie season in Cleveland in which he struck a woman in the face with a foul ball.

“I remember (manager) Ned (Yost) asking me if I wanted to finish the game because it was such a terrible feeling not knowing if the lady is going to be OK or not, not knowing what’s going to happen,” Hosmer said.

The protective netting comes at a cost. The wave of fans searching for pregame autographs have a much narrower window to reach players and coaches.

The new setup allows for a space on the home-plate end of each dugout for players to greet fans. But the days of hanging over the dugout to secure a signature are over.

“That’s kind of the (bad) aspect of it — you used to be able to get an autograph or a ball right in front of you,” Rogers said. “You can’t do that anymore.”

This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Royals’ new safety netting debuts at The K, and first baseman Eric Hosmer approves."