They were probably clueless about Candlestick Park, too. I’ve been to four Dodger games there: the park deserves all the negative comments it ever had. (See David Feldman’s Imponderables books for an item about lawyer Melvin Belli and his dissatisfaction with Candlestick.)
I have my doubts about that.
From http://www.baseball-statistics.com/Ballparks/SF/
Bolding mine.
Even though that sucker looks hitter friendly I’d say we’re looking at the 21st century version of the Astrodome.
Let me say this first…
Baseball parks are unique compared to the places where other sports are played because the parks are all different whenever it comes to such things as hitting or hitting home runs. You don’t see this in Football, you don’t see a player getting a touchdown that wouldn’t have been a touchdown in another field.
In an unrelated topic… the odds are not good that anybody will ever hit a home run completely out of Kauffman Stadium.
Hitters have many things going against them in this quest
1- the field is pretty low. When you walk into the stadium, you walk downhill to get to your dugout seats. This lowness will hurt hitters chances of hitting home runs out of the stadium.
2- Have you seen how many things would have to be cleared to get one out of the park? Let me start…
you can follow along with this image: http://home.earthlink.net/~losclems/Baseball/KauffmanStadium.html
#1- the video screen in left field
#2- the giant scoreboard
#3- the sheer length out of the stadium (and the angle)
and they’re moving the fences back out in 2004.
as for Fenway… it’s a bit insane, but the grandfather clause keeps it like that and if they ever build a new Fenway, they’ll probably have to move the fences out in left and right
One thing to keep in mind about the goofy dimensions of parks like Fenway, The Polo Grounds, Griffith Stadium and Cleveland’s League Park is that when they were built players didn’t hit a lot of home runs. In the dead ball era, whether your fence was 300’ or 490’ only made a difference to outfielders who had to run down the line drives that got by them. And the height of the outfield fence was pretty much irrelevant.
Here’s an article that disputes the claim that Pac Bell help Barry Bonds.
Link
Bonds had a 420 foot shot to PacBell’s “Death Valley” turn would be game tying 9th inning home run turn into a double earlier this week.
While the article suggests that PacBell was designed to be pitcher friendly, I’d say that’s revisionist history. I remember the lead up to its Opening Day and everyone said that balls would be hitting the water all the time. Heck, they put 3 digits on the “Splash Hit” counter sign. 2.25 years later and the Giants have 25 splash hits… 23 by Bonds alone. The combined visiting team number probably amounts to fewer than 10. Bonds is SF’s franchise player…saying PacBell was built for Kurt Ainsworth and Boof Bonser is just silly. It just turned out not to be as hitter friendly as expected.
Point taken.
It’s just some silly claims are made about stadiums without checking the facts. Like:
Safeco Field alone would prevent Griffey and ARod from passing Aaron.
Willie Stargell would have 600 home runs if he didn’t play in Forbes Field.
BTW, the only reason IMO, the Dodgers were allowed to play in the joke of a Coliseum w/ the fence for the Moon shots & Chinese HR’s, instead of Wrigley field like the Angels did for a year, is a tribute to O’Malley being the true shot caller & not Frick-the Commissioner. Re PacBell- very deep in the alleys, & the short porch in right field is negated by the very high wall.