I know it’s not the season with the Super Bowl only a few weeks away but this is a question that has been milling around in the depths of my brain bucket for a while now.
Why are dugouts below grade? Wouldn’t it make as much sense (and less expensive to build and maintain) to have the players sitting on a bench like in other sports?
Is there a practical reason for this?
I believe it’s so that you can get the fans closer to the field, but can’t find a good cite.
Sunblocker.
Dugouts gave the players shade and a protection from things being thrown at them. 19th Century baseball crowds were not exactly polite people.
Dugouts gave the players shade and a protection from things being thrown at them. 19th Century baseball crowds were not exactly polite people.
Answers.com on baseball dugouts.
I think DMC is close. My WAG is that the bench is lowered so that a sunshade can be provided for the players without blocking the view of spectators in the first couple of rows in the stands.
I’ve wondered whether being partially in-ground would tend to make them cooler on hot days.
Dugouts can get pretty warm if the sun is shining into them. There’s not a lot of air circulating around them. Now, players can just walk into the clubhouse to cool off or they have fans inside.
But it seems obvious to me that players would want shade. Baseball is played close to every day. And until the 1930s, it was played exclusively during the day. And by men wearing wool or flannel uniforms. It just wasn’t a lot of fun to sit out in the sun for a couple of hours dressed like that.
Well, I couldn’t find a good cite earlier, but this (warning: PDF) seems related (softball, not baseball) and is from a fairly official organization. Check out section 13.4.
From what I can tell in various searches, there is still some debate between protection from the elements, viewer obstruction issues, and protection from errant balls, bats, etc. Who knows, it could be that way because it serves all of those purposes at once. About the only thing causing me to lean towards it being related to spectator views is that the below ground dugouts are primarly found in venues where there are a large numbers of fans, but since I’m assuming there are cost issues involved, I don’t think that’s conclusive.
Whaddya know… you all must be right! It must be that baseball players, being played daily, were maybe more aware of their surroundings than other outdoor sports like football. I’ve sent a note to Unca Cece since if there is a definitive answer, he’ll know it!
I admit to being very, very skeptical of the “player protection” theory, if for no other reason than I’ve never seen any other sport with dugouts.
Unlike football, soccer and other sports, a baseball field’s dimensions are defined by the physical limitation of the playing space; in other words, the playing field ends where the stands begin. The players’ bench pretty much has to be directly in front of the first row, because it can’t be out on the field. Lowering it would be conducive to better spectator views. I’m gonna go with that explanation.
Of course dugouts generally have roofs so as to provide shade, but you don’t need it underground to accomplish that. You DO need it partially underground to create more primo seats.
If you use the Amazon.com search tool for this book by Peter Morris, and search on “dugouts” and read pages 77-78 in particular, you can find reasons for the creation of dugouts. There are citations to various newspapers where the dugouts are described.
Staying out of the sun seems to be the primary reason.
Most sports we watch in North America don’t have small, hard flying objects that can hit players on the bench who aren’t paying attention. Sure, there’s hockey, but hockey isn’t really condusive to dugouts. In basketball and football, getting hit in the head with a ball isn’t a big deal, and when players leave the field of play into the bench area, they’re pretty big and easily noticed.
My vote is for the combo of reasons.
The protection is from the elements and fans throwing things not from foul balls. Those still end up in dugouts.