Within minutes of Major League Baseball's announcement that all 30 teams will have extended-protective netting in their ballparks in 2018, the congratulatory texts and emails were flowing in to Andy Zlotnick, the New Yorker who was a driving force behind this sweeping change in the sport.
Many were from others who, like him, had suffered serious injury from foul balls at ballparks over the last several years, and in that sense Zlotnick was proud to know his relentless pursuit of action helped make a difference.
"It's good to know there's a power to our collective voice," Zlotnick said by phone. "I started out chirping, thinking nobody would listen, and I found that if you keep chirping, pretty soon you can make a cacophony."
Yes, this was a day to celebrate, considering that as recently as 2015, not a single team in the majors had more than the standard, behind-the-plate netting in their ballparks.
And yet it was a bittersweet day as well for Zlotnick, in part because he is in touch regularly with people whose lives, like his, continue to be impacted by foul ball-related injuries, and in part because Commissioner Rob Manfred didn't implement change sooner to prevent still more injuries.
In particular, Zlotnick remains furious the Yankees didn't respond to cries for action, or even to the threat of legislation last year by City Councilman Rafael Espinal, which may have prevented last September's incident at the Stadium, when a two-year old girl was hit in the face by Todd Frazier's foul ball, requiring her to spend several days in a local hospital.
As it turned out, the girl's injury was what Zlotnick calls "the tipping point" that forced the Yankees, and then so many other teams, to extend protective netting to the far ends of each dugout, and, in some cases, even farther.
But Zlotnick, who communicates with Geoffrey Jacobson, the girl's father, says he is haunted knowing that quicker action could have prevented the injury.
"I told Geoff I felt terrible I wasn't able to get people to do something before his daughter got hit," Zlotnick said. "It was such a tragic, unnecessary thing. By then more than half the teams, including the Mets, had taken action, but it was the Yankees' foot-dragging and stubbornness that allowed it to happen."
Jacobson didn't respond to requests for comment on Thursday's announcement by MLB, and Zlotnick said he wouldn't speak in detail about the girl's condition, out of respect for the family's wish for privacy.
But he indicated that while the toddler has resumed a relatively normal life, concerns about the long-term ramifications from her injuries are unavoidable due to her age.
"All I can say is the family is cautiously optimistic," Zlotnick said.
The Yankees, meanwhile, said through a spokesman that they have remained in contact with the Jacobson family, and will continue to do so.
Other than that, both New York teams referred all comment regarding Thursday's announcement to their statements at the time they announced plans to extend their protective netting _ the Mets in July, the Yankees in January.
The Mets installed their new netting at the All-Star break, seemingly in response to City Councilman Espinal's threat to get a law passed that would require both New York teams to extend netting all the way to the foul poles, as is the case in all pro ballparks in Japan.
On Thursday Espinal, in a statement, put a happy face on MLB's announcement, congratulating the Mets and Yankees, as well as Manfred, while saying, "When New York City acts, the nation follows."
In truth, however, Espinal was baffled by the Yankees' refusal to comply on the netting issue, especially after the Mets agreed. Still, people close to the situation believe his threat of legislation did prompt the Yankees to begin making plans to extend the netting for the 2018 season.
In any case, it was Zlotnick whose badgering of the City Council about the issue finally convinced Espinal to get involved.
"I was trying for about a year to get someone there to pay attention to it," Zlotnick said. "I was finally introduced to Espinal, who invited me in, listened to my story, read some of the articles that had been written, and decided it was a major safety issue."
The irony is that Zlotnick's injury, the result of a foul ball at Yankee Stadium in 2011, wouldn't have been prevented by the new netting. He was sitting at field level down the right field line on a rainy day, and says fans' umbrellas prevented him from seeing a line drive that hit him in the eye and required surgery to repair facial bones.
"Every waking moment my face still throbs," he said.
Zlotnick has been denied by the courts in attempts to sue the Yankees for damages, and indeed teams have been practically universally protected by what is widely known as "The Baseball Rule," a reference to printed warnings on tickets that fans are responsible for their safety.
He continues to appeal, and it remains to be seen whether courts will see the extended netting in ballparks as an acknowledgement that teams bear some liability.
In any case, Zlotnick said he began advocating for change in 2015 when he saw news accounts of serious injuries that season in various major league ballparks. He reached out to other injury victims as well as the media, and he helped bring more public awareness via newspaper columns, as well as a segment on HBO's "Real Sports" that began a groundswell for change, ultimately leading to Thursday's announcement.
"I'm very relieved that fans will be safer in the future," he said. "But it's still really upsetting to me that so many people I've gotten to know have had their lives impacted by serious injuries and have been left holding the bag with huge medical bills. That's something the commissioner really needs to address.
"But all in all, this is a good first step for more safety. I think it happened because public opinion changed over the last couple of years."
For many reasons, among them the frightening exit velocity off bats these days, the more intimate ballparks, and our iPhone culture, it seems clear that change to provide more fan protection was inevitable.
But it also seems safe to say Zlotnick's efforts were a catalyst in forcing MLB to confront the issue. Unfortunately it surely took Frazier's fateful foul ball last September to assure that all teams would act to prevent even greater tragedy.
