Fans appreciate safety aspect of Petco Park’s extended netting, but it changes game experience

Among the favorite baseball memories for Poway’s Ben Hout was going to games at Petco Park as a kid and being able to interact with players behind the Padres dugout.

“I came to Petco all the time and would get autographs from them,” Hout said before Thursday’s season-opening game against the Brewers. “I’d always take my glove and toss it over there and they’d give me autographs. ... I don’t do that anymore, but if I was that age I’d be bummed now.”

Young Hout’s disappointment would be due to the extended netting, which has changed the experience for fans sitting on the field level.

Major League Baseball recommended teams extend the netting to the edges of the dugouts this season for fan safety. All 30 teams complied.

The Padres went even further, extending the approximately 24-foot high netting three sections past the dugouts before it tapers down and connects to a spot adjacent to where the ballgirls sit along each foul line. The net has a green tint to minimize the obstruction for fans.

Fan safety has been a growing concern in recent years from batted balls lined into the field-level seats.

The tipping point for the Padres, however, may have come from a bat, not a ball.

Last May, a woman sitting behind the visitors’ dugout was hit in the head by a bat that flew out of the hands of Padres hitter Hector Sanchez. She was fortunate not to be seriously injured.

“I see the reason why because of line drives that come through here,” said Hout, who was sitting begin that same dugout. “As a kid you’d come here and get autographs and they’d toss you balls and stuff, but I guess I’d rather have the net there and not get a line drive hit to my face.

“It does kind of obstruct my view a little bit, but it’s not bad. I think I’ll get used to it by the end of the game.”

Discussion coming into the season concerned how the extended netting would impact the view of fans as well as the interaction with players.

There’s one other element to be considered — players no longer will be able to reach into the stands to make a play.

Remember two years ago when Padres third baseman Yangervis Solarte tumbled into the stands to snared a foul ball hit by the Giants’ Angel Pagan — and came up with the ball covered in nacho cheese?

The net now extends past where Solarte made that play.

Padres broadcaster Mark Grant has as much fun as anyone — and more — with the fan interaction at the game.

In fact, on the Solarte play, Grant quipped: “Excuse me, sir, but there’s a third baseman in my nachos.”

But Grant sees a bigger picture here.

“We’ve seen things happen in the stands,” Grant said. “I think having the netting is really going to eliminate problems. It’s two-fold. I think it’s going to be good for the players as well. Think about it, the last thing a player wants to do is smoke a foul ball over a dugout and have to worry about it. They’re human beings, too. ... It’s for the players’ well-being and it’s also for the well-being of the families.”

On Thursday, reaction was mixed, although several people interviewed said they would reserve judgment.

Virtually everyone understood safety taking precedence over all else.

A sampling of opinions:

From Clairemont’s Terri Wood, sitting in section 113: “It’s always been wide open in baseball and you know the risks and you just deal with it.

“Right now it feels like I’m at a hockey game, waiting for someone to come ramming up against the fence. It’s not going to have the same flavor of what we’ve known before.”

After the game, Wood was not pleased, saying via text: “We don’t like it at all! We lose the ball easier! On a day game the sun glints against it making it even harder to see the ball. We no longer feel part of the game but distanced!”

From Linda Vista’s Barbara Cooke, who was sitting with Wood: “For me, the jury is still out. I need the safety net because sometimes I talk too much. ... Kudos to the Padres going above and beyond. They went a little further to protect us.”

From San Diego’s Tomi Arbogast, sitting behind the Padres dugout in section 105: “That ball comes off that bat so hot that even if you’re paying attention, you have no chance. And you want to get up close. You want to feel like you’re in the game. ...

“That ball is $6.50 at Walmart. Why would you risk your life for a ball that happened to be in a game that happened to have grass stains on it. Life’s not worth that.”

Padres COO Erik Greupner said the team will try other ways to allow players to interact with fans, especially young ones.

“We did start last year a kids-only autograph zone down on the field,” Greupner said. “That’s intended to allow kids access to the players without having to fight through bigger people.”

The foul ball experience will definitely be different. So, too, will be those occasions when a player ends up with the ball at the end of the inning.

Visiting players would frequently flip it to a fan sitting behind their dugout. When he was playing first base for the Padres last season, Wil Myers seemed to get great joy from throwing a ball several rows up into the stands.

“During the game it’s really a question of how foul balls get into the stands,” Greupner said. “We have a plan for that as well. We think we can accommodate safety concerns of fans while also giving them as much connectivity as possible to players and foul balls.

“… The plan is the first baseman will actually flip a ball to one of our batboys and those will be collected and distributed to fans.

“We think outfielders will continue to be able to do what they’ve done in the past in terms of distributing foul balls.”

That will come as a relief to Myers now that he’s in the outfield.