Woman hit in face by foul ball at Little League Classic field is suing MLB, Williamsport, and the Crosscutters
The complaint was filed Monday in the Lycoming County Court of Common Pleas.
Every summer, Williamsport, Pa., becomes the epicenter of youth baseball as the Little League World Series hosts its annual tournament.
And since 2017, Major League Baseball has brought in two teams to play an August regular-season game at Historic Bowman Field, giving Little Leaguers a chance to take in major league action just five miles from the Little League complex.
But in addition to making memories for Little League ballplayers, the home of the Little League Classic has also been a hazard to fans, a new lawsuit says.
Deborah Barbella, of Livingston, N.J., attended Bowman Field for a Penn College of Technology baseball game on May 2. She sat behind the first base dugout when a foul ball hit her in her face, breaking her jaw, nose, and eye socket, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday in the Lycoming County Court of Common Pleas.
The suit accuses MLB, the Williamsport Crosscutters, and the city of Williamsport of carelessness and recklessness leading to the injury.
MLB and the Crosscutters did not immediately return requests for comments regarding the lawsuit. Williamsport Mayor Derek Slaughter declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The Crosscutters, one of six teams in the MLB Draft League, have used Bowman Field as their home stadium since 1994. The team was the class A short-season affiliate of the Phillies from 2007 until the MLB restructured its minor leagues in 2021.
However, the injury at the center of the suit did not take place during a Crosscutters game. Barbella was struck by a foul ball during the second game of a United East Conference playoff doubleheader between Cairn University and Penn College, which used Bowman Field as its home stadium until 2026.
Bowman Field, which opened in 1926, is owned by Williamsport and leased to MLB to host its Little League Classic games.
Barbella was struck because Bowman Field did not comply with a 2022 dictate that all minor league baseball stadiums install protective netting that extends from foul pole to foul pole by opening day 2025, the suit says.
The netting at Bowman should have been extended even before to comply with major league rules because it hosts games between MLB teams, the suit says, such as the Little League Classic.
But when Barbella attended a game at Bowman, the suit says, only those sitting behind home plate were covered by a netting canopy. The net in front of Barbella was lower and stopped at the end of the dugout.
“Our goal is to achieve justice for a woman whose life was permanently altered by an allegedly foreseeable and preventable incident, and to hold the League and the stadium accountable for their delay,” John Morgan, founder of Morgan & Morgan law firm representing Barbella, said in a statement.
Williamsport officials discussed the netting problem in a Feb. 13, 2025, city council meeting, according to the complaint. Council approved a contract with a construction company for the netting that day, saying the project needed to be done “very quickly,” but the work never started. The city reopened its bid for netting installation in March 2025 but couldn’t find a company that would agree to take on the project with opening day as a deadline, the suit says.
The city decided to install a temporary netting system to allow more time for the permanent netting’s installation.
“Despite being aware that the netting at Bowman Field needed to be changed prior to opening day in 2025, the Defendants failed to make any changes to the netting system at Bowman Field,” the suit says.
With the exception of the 2020 season, the Little League Classic has brought a regular-season MLB game to Williamsport to open the final week of the Little League World Series since 2017. This year’s edition of the game will feature the Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves on Sunday, Aug. 23.
The Phillies have played in two Little League Classic games. They lost, 8-2, to the Mets in the second annual Little League Classic in 2018 and lost, 4-3, to the Nationals in the game’s 2023 edition.
When the Phillies took the field for the Classic in 2018, it was the first time the team had played at Bowman Field since it suffered a 5-1 loss to the club’s class A-affiliate, the Williamsport Grays, in an exhibition game on July 31, 1962.