Fan Killed by foul ball at dodger stadium this season

A California woman died in August as a result of being hit in the head by a batted ball at Dodger Stadium, according to a Los Angeles County coroner's report obtained by ESPN's "Outside the Lines" and details her daughter revealed to OTL in December.

Linda Goldbloom, a mother of three and grandmother of seven, died on Aug. 29. The coroner's report states the cause as "acute intracranial hemorrhage due to history of blunt force trauma" and states that the injury occurred when she was struck in the head with a baseball during the Aug. 25 game at Dodger Stadium.

Television coverage of the Padres-Dodgers game that night did not follow the flight of the ball or show where it ended up. No media outlet has reported what happened, but Goldbloom's family didn't keep it a secret and included this sentence in e-mail notifications on the day she died:

the accident happened in the top of the ninth inning, when San Diego's Franmil Reyes fouled back a 93 mph pitch from Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen. The ball was hit a little to the first-base side of home plate, it sailed into the Loge Level -- just over the area protected by netting -- and it struck Goldbloom's head as she sat in section 106, row C, seat 5.

"Ushers came down and asked if she was all right, and she said no, then EMT came and rushed her to the hospital -- she threw up in the ambulance," her daughter, Jana Brody, told OTL.

Goldbloom, a longtime Dodger fan, was celebrating her recent 79th birthday and 59th wedding anniversary with her husband, Erwin, brother-in-law Michael and sister-in-law Eve.

Brody was 100 miles away and celebrating her own wedding anniversary when she got the news that her mother was going to have emergency brain surgery after midnight at L.A County-USC Medical Center.

For three days, Goldbloom was unresponsive, Brody said, except when a nurse saw her move one finger one time upon being asked if her name was Linda. Her eyes never opened at the hospital, and a ventilator kept her breathing.

On the night of Aug. 28, Goldbloom's whole family and a rabbi gathered around her to share memories and say goodbye before abiding by her wish that she not be kept alive by machines if doctors deemed it impossible to restore her quality of life.

After Goldbloom died the next morning, the Dodgers made no public comments about her death or what caused it. When OTL contacted the team Monday, more than five months later, a spokesman provided this statement:

"Mr. and Mrs. Goldbloom were great Dodgers fans who regularly attended games. We were deeply saddened by this tragic accident and the passing of Mrs. Goldbloom. The matter has been resolved between the Dodgers and the Goldbloom family. We cannot comment further on this matter."

In Major League Baseball's 150-year history, there were two previous reported instances of fans dying after being struck in the stands by balls that left the field of play, including one nearly half a century ago on a foul at Dodger Stadium:

Clarence Stagemyer, 32, died one day after he was hit in the head by a thrown ball on Sept. 29, 1943, at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Senators third-baseman Sherry Robertson fielded a grounder hit by Cleveland's Ken Keltner and threw it over the head of first baseman Mickey Vernon, and the ball struck Stagemyer in the first row of the stands.

Alan Fish, 14, died four days after he was hit in the head by a foul ball on May 16, 1970, at Dodger Stadium. L.A.'s Manny Mota was batting against San Francisco's Gaylord Perry when he hit a liner down the first-base line, near the dugout, that struck Fish two rows from the field