Woman hit by Fenway Park broken bat "responsive"

BOSTON - A woman seriously injured by a broken bat at Fenway Park during a game between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox on Friday night has been upgraded from serious to fair condition at a Boston hospital.

A brief statement released Monday by the family of Tonya Carpenter confirmed the improvement and added that she was "responsive."

"We would like to thank everyone for their continued support, especially the fans at Fenway Park, first responders, Boston EMS, Boston Police and her care team at Beth Israel Deaconess," the statement said.

Carpenter was struck in the head by Oakland player Brett Lawrie's bat as she sat near the field between home plate and the third base dugout.

Forty-four-year-old Carpenter of Paxton, Massachusetts, had posted a Facebook photo from the game before the accident. A friend said Carpenter was there with her son and a friend.

Alex Merlis, of Brookline, Massachusetts, said he was sitting in the row behind the woman when the broken bat flew into the seats just a few rows from the field between home plate and the third base dugout.

"It was violent," he said of the impact to her forehead and top of her head. "She bled a lot. A lot. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that."

Concerned about a rash of flying broken bats and the danger they posed, Major League Baseball studied the issue in 2008 and implemented a series of changes to bat regulations for the following season. Multi-piece bat failures are down about 50 percent since the beginning of the 2009 season, MLB spokesman Michael Teevan said.

Though dozens of fans at big league ballparks are struck by foul balls each season, there has been only one fatality, according to baseball researchers - a 14-year-old boy killed by a foul line drive off the bat of Manny Mota at Dodger Stadium in 1970.

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