Arizona has had high unemployment for a couple of years so they probably love Major League Baseball coming to their state for spring training each year. How about Major League Baseball hire 6 bat boys per game. Three bat boys for each team, each bat boy covers 3 innings of the game. Isn't hiring many bat boys better than endangering the ballplayers when they have to stop a slide at the last possible moment to avoid a bat that is sitting in the base path?
During a 2010 spring training game between the Cleveland Indians and the Los Angeles Angels, Luis Rodriguez, who was fighting for a roster position on the Indians and appeared to have suffered some type of injury, instead shook off the injury and kept on playing in the game.
The possible injury appears to have been caused by a bat left in the basepaths that prevented Rodriguez from sliding into home properly. Because Rogriguez could not slide, it gave the catcher a full on view of the batter turned baserunner who was now trying to advance to third on the throw home. If the catcher's throw to third base had been off just a bit he could easily have struck the baserunner in the jaw.
There literally could have been two injuries on the same play, both caused by one errant bat that was not immediately picked up after the hitter had tossed it to the ground to run out his double. If there had been no bat on the base path, the baserunner coming home could hae executed a proper slide into home. The dust kicked up by the slide plus the partially blocked field of vision the catcher would have experienced and the catcher might not have even bothered trying to throw to third at all.
On another note...
Besides baseball players risking injuries because of lack of bat boys, even the cameras appear to be left out in the sun without lens shades to deflect the sun rays from the lens. It sure looks like not enough of the local people have been hired to help out. Cameras without lens shades produce poor images like the image above. Cameras with the proper lens shade can produce an image like the one below.
As you can see from the two images above, the second image more closely approximates the proper contrast of the image, but it was the top image that what was repeatedly broadcast during a 2010 exhibition game between the Indians and the Dodgers. While all the other camera angles looked fine, this one particular angle looked all washed out. I have re-corrected this one particular camera angle to show how it could have looked if a lens shade had been provided.
Why doesn't Major League baseball hire young adults as bat boys and rovers for the camera crews and other baseball personnel? Multiply 10 hired positions per game by the six to eight games a day that are played and that would be 60 to 80 jobs per day in Arizona for the local community.
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