The Glade 4.0

Why is it that baseball stadiums are still made so that a fan can even reach a potential homerun ball? I can understand the closeness of the seats down the foul lines as an informed and astute fan can make sure not to touch a ball that is just barely fair.

I don't understand why the homerun line on the outfield fence should ever be within reach of both the player and the fan. This leads to issues such as the one that caused the Phillies to play a game under protest against the Marlins.

There should be no way that the fan should be able to reach a potential homerun ball that the fielder has a chance of catching.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

The whole home run rule makes no sense to me, it seems application is spotty across the league. If it hits the top of the yellow line it might be, if it hits a rail and bounces back it might be, if hits the bottom of the yellow line it isn't, etc, etc. They need to come up with a comprehensive set of codes that all future statdiums need to adhere to in terms of field size, wall height and seating placement.

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No, that would be stupid.

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Maybe not such a strict set of code as to make all the stadiums exact, but there needs to be something in place to ensure that a potential homerun ball can not be interfered with.

ie. There should not be a seatrow that abuts the homerun line, or a gap between the last seatrow and the line.

I wouldn't advocate a bunch of cookiecutter stadiums all exact in dimension and shape, but something to physically prevent fans from interfering with a potentially catchable homerun ball.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

To me homefield advantage should be your fanbase, not a 40 foot wall in left field or a span of 800 yards from foul pole to foul pole. Basketball courts, tennis courts, football fields, **** every other playing surface in every sport has uniform dimensions. This allows you to watch athletes be athletic rather than exploit weaknesses/gaps built into the field that visiting teams don't see enough to be familiar with excluding the morass **** holes they pass off as turf in Pittsburgh and Chicago.

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I don't mind the stadium differences. There definitely are negatives to the variation, but I think there are positives that outweigh them. Teams play both top and bottom of innings in the same stadium, and home field advantage is balanced out over the course of a full season. Even being a hitter's park or pitcher's park, which isn't as big of a deal as it first seems anyway, isn't necessarily something that can be exploited... the Phillies of '08 were, despite being mostly the same players as today, a far different team than of '11 so if one stadium were to favor the old team it might very well work against the current.

That's a theoretical argument, but there is of course the practical one: making uniform stadiums across MLB would either take a very long time or a ton of money to make happen. This sorta trumps all the theoretical arguments we could have, sadly. It's not even just a money issue, either... as someone that really doesn't like the Yankees, I still feel like the game as a whole is worse for losing the old Yankee Stadium in favor of the (admittedly 'better') New Yankee Stadium.

I do agree with you though Foamy! It wouldn't really take all that much of anything to design stadiums to prevent interference. You wouldn't really need much room at all to stop it, and it can be done vertically or horizontally (or some combination) depending on how you would want it. I don't know if it could stop interference entirely, but just 2 or 3 feet in most places would stop the vast majority of cases of interference from happening.

It is a bit baffling that they don't make those adjustments.

The Japanese do something like this with their stadiums, from what I hear. When that guy died in Texas after Hamilton tossed a ball to him, most Japanese players were mystified. That just physically couldn't happen in a Japanese stadium, beyond the difference in game cultures.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

This might just be the silliest thread ever.

Baseball has been played in stadiums built to accomodate the size of the city lot it was played on for as long as it has been played. The game has changed over the years, but most of the parks and traditions have not. The game, when it began as a professional spot, and statiums like Fenway and Wrigley were much newer, was never about the homerun. The game was meant to be contained by the park it was played in, and due to the difficulty of getting a park built in the middle of a city, the stadiums all had different dimensions; the only uniformity being the area where most of the game was played: infield dimensions, distances to bases, angle of the field of play (90 degrees), the height of the mound, and the distance of the mound to the plate.

There are many advantages each team has built into their park: Length of the grass or lack of grass entirely, texture of the infield dirt, inward and outward pitch of the foul lines which lends itself towards helping more bunts stay fair or foul depending on preference, domed stadium or otherwise, different types of grass with different thickness, amount of fould territory, construction of the walls constructed as a boundry for play, city altitude, moisture contained in the balls used at each particular stadium, non-outfield warning track width, distance to the back-stop, size make and type of wood used by each batter for their bat, ect. ect. ect. It's one of the things that makes baseball so interesting.

As to the closeness of the fans to the field? That's also part of the ball-park experience, getting as close to the game as you can. Fans are encouraged to interact with the players at the edges of the walls before game, and makes the whole game smaller and more personal as an experience. Fans are an active and interactive part of the game.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar:

It seems that your argument always boils down to an appeal to tradition and for the most part, I agree.

Ok, I can get behind the subtle differences in lines, foul territory etc. But what I don't see as a necessary part of the game is the need for a fan to be able to reach a potentially catchable homerun ball. As Noggel stated, there are simple, subtle ways to ensure that the ball can not be interfered with without removing them from the closeness to the game.

We grew up season ticket holders for the Phillies. As far as closeness goes, you feel close to the game down along the lines anyway. I never felt close when I was sitting in the outfield and making the seats closer to the homerun line does nothing to make you feel that much closer. All it allows is the potential for a fan who doesn't know any better or is caught in the heat of the moment of a ball speeding toward them to potentially change the flow of a game.

A fan changing the outcome is not a part of the game. Making a subtle change to this would in no way affect the fan feeling of closeness.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

I will simply hire Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike to assassinate you if you **** with baseball ...

There will be no Doombots; no megalomaniacal plans ...

You will simply cease to exist.

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It isn't a fallacious appeal to tradition when we are talking about a sport which markets itself as "America's Pastime". Baseball, unlike any other sport, depends on this. Traditional statistics are benchmarks, and those benchmarks are sacred. It's the reason we don't care about All-Pro football stars who get suspended for PED use, but have banished an entire generation of baseball players from Cooperstown.

As to the seating, if it didn't effect the closeness to the game, why are those seats in the first few rows amongst those valued most by fans?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Wait... baseball fields aren't all uniform?

That's... retarded. And not in a good, Rainman kind of way. Almost like kids playing in the park. "That's a home run!"
"Nuh uh! It hit the line!"
Yuh huh! It totally was!"
"Nuh uh, Billy touched it, and he's just watching!"
"But that's ok here. Our park, Our Rules!"


That's why football is so much better And baseball sucks ***.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Did you even read what I posted? I said, for the most part, I agree.



Again, did you read what I posted? I am taking about the seats lining the outfield fence. Have you sat out there? Assuming you have, as I have too, a row or two back from the threshold of the homerun isn't going to make much of a difference. As season ticket holders, I remember each year our tickets kept creeping around the stadium, closer and closer to the infield and away from the outfield, you know, closer to the game.

You are acting as if I want to rewrite the rules of the game. I am just suggesting that stadium layout address the fact that it is at all possible for a fan to touch an inplay, potential homerun ball. I am not suggesting nets or backing seats up 50 ft from the fence, just a subtle change. Is that so difficult to comprehend? Much, I'm sure, has changed in baseball over the years of it's existance, surely a small change that can only be for the better isn't so much to consider.

@Khross:

Go Phils!

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

**** the Phillies ...

I'd sooner root for the god damned piece of **** Boston Red Sox than the Phillies ...

Hell ...

I'd root for the mother ****' New York Yankcheats before the damn pedo-Phillies!

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Pedo-Phillies? Really?

Damn. That's harsh.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I have no love for the Phillies, Yankees, Red Sox, or pretty much any east coast team, but there are no words to describe the level of disdain I had for the Atlanta Braves back in the 90's. The fact that they were on National TV every night (at a time when that was actually rare), and the whole "America's Team" thing was being jammed down my throat. Also, it didn't help that all of their games (and only their games) were broadcast on the Armed Forces Network when I was overseas.

I completely stopped watching/following baseball during this time period because of it...

And on the "America's Team" theme, and team hatred, the Cowboys from about that same time were just about as bad for almost all of the same reasons. The Redskins and Broncos are also way up high on my list with the other teams mentioned here... mainly because I lived in those towns during a time when there teams were having some success, and their fans were absolutely obnoxious. I remember going into Colorado Springs JC Penneys and going up the escalator to the second floor (mens department), and the ENTIRE FSCKING FLOOR was orange and blue. There was literally nothing to be found that wasn't orange and blue. I got right back on the down elevators and started trying to think of a plan to get my hands a flame thrower (fortunately, I never found one :p )...

The "America's Team" thing for the Cowboys and Braves goes back to the late 70s and their massive broadcast contracts with Turner Broadcasting.

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