Major League baseball fields are surprisingly different. Although the infields are the same, the outfields vary dramatically.
We used Google Maps to trace the shapes and sizes of all uncovered Major League Baseball stadiums. The image to the left is an overlay of all those tracings.
The distances vary from 302 feet (92 meters) to 355 feet (108 meters) along the foul line — that's a difference of over 17%. The distances from home plate to the center field fence vary over 11% from 390 feet (119 meters) to 435 feet (133 meters).
Angel Stadium Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Turner Field Atlanta Braves
Oriole Park at Camden Yards Baltimore Orioles
Fenway Park Boston RedSox
Wrigley Field Chicago Cubs
U. S. Cellular Field Chicago White Sox
Great American Ball Park Cincinnati Reds
Progressive Field Cleveland Indians
Coors Field Colorado Rockies
Comerica Park Detroit Tigers
Dodger Stadium Los Angeles Dodgers
Citi Field New York Mets
Yankee Stadium New York Yankees
Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Oakland Athletics
Citizens Bank Park Philadelphia Phillies
PNC Park Pittsburgh Pirates
Busch Stadium Saint Louis Cardinals
Petco Park San Diego Padres
AT&T Park San Francisco Giants
Safeco Field Seattle Mariners
Rangers Ballpark Texas Rangers
Nationals Park Washington Nationals
The official rules of Major League Baseball stipulate the following about the outfield dimensions: there must be a minimum of 325 feet (99 meters) between the left and right field walls and home plate, and 400 feet (122 meters) between center field and home plate. It is perhaps more telling to note what the rules do not say about the field. For example, specific requirements pertaining to the height of the outfield wall, the width of foul territory, or the actual curve of the outfield wall are all absent from the rulebooks.
Of course, the good news is that this allows each ballpark the opportunity to be unique, adding some complexity for the players. On the other hand, it's not an overstatement to say that these little quirks can have a significant impact on the outcome of single plays, entire games, or even an individual's career.
Some MLB Field Oddities
Fenway Park, home to the Boston RedSox: This ballpark has been "grandfathered in," since it has been in use since 1912 — long before the official 1958 ruling. Notable features include the Green Monster, a 37 foot (11 meters) tall green wall at a distance of 310 feet (94 meters) in left field, and a remarkably asymmetrical 380 foot (116 meters) distance to the right field fence, known as "the belly."
Yankee Stadium, home to the New York Yankees: Completed in 2009, this park took advantage of the quirks of the old Yankee Stadium, duplicating the dimensions of the old park that had been grandfathered in. This includes a right field that is 15 feet (5 meters) shorter than the rules require.
AT&T Park, home to the San Francisco Giants: AT&T Park, built in 1999, was built so close to the San Francisco Bay that the right field is abbreviated — 310 feet (94 meters) to the brick wall. Each season, several home run hits make it over the wall and into McCovey Cove which is usually populated by some boaters hoping to score a ball.
Aside from these notable exceptions, there are many others that don't follow the rules and offer no explanation — such as the Crawford Boxes at Houston's Minute Maid Field — and many that do follow the rules, but somehow still manage to avoid a standard size or shape.
Methodology
To assemble this data, we took screenshots of Google Maps views of each of the stadiums that were not covered at the time that the satellite image was taken. Dolphin Stadium, home of the Florida Marlins, for example, was in its football configuration, so we had to omit it.
Although we set the same zoom level for each screenshot, it turns out that the legends on various Google Maps are not all identical. We presume that the slight differences are caused by the various elevations of the terrain that the satellite is imaging. In other words, high-elevation locations will appears larger (and therefore more zoomed in) than lower-elevation locations.
To accommodate for the varying zoom levels, we normalized all the pictures by stacking them on top of each other and then scaling each image so that all the legends were the same dimensions. The image on the right shows a cropped view of all the legends stacked on top of each other for normalizing.
I think both baseball and golf are "real sports," its just that the players have to adjust to drastically different conditions each time they play. posted by
philosophy (240)
I would argue that the differences in field surface in football (grass vs astroturf) are actually greater for the athletes than the field-size differences in baseball. Indoor/outdoor stadiums also make a really big difference for players. Coping with the variations is part of the sport. posted by
DulceDeLeche (216)
Great job. It would be interesting to figure in the 3D variations - and figure out what it actually takes to hit a ball out of the park. Because all the walls are different heights, distance to that wall is only half of the equation.
As a Houston native, the reason for Minute Maid Park's dimensions are simple: it's built in the middle of Downtown and they weren't willing to knock down any historic buildings to make left field big enough. Thus the high wall to try (unsuccessfully) to balance it out.
In a sport that lives and dies with numbers (which is why the steroids scandal mattered so much) all fields are different making all individual stats worthless. Who cares who has the best stats if the stadiums aren't equal!!
Many of the newer-school stats account for park factors so that all players across all eras can be compared regardless of where they played. As such, it doesn't matter if the stadia are equal. posted by
iamwhaleman (1)
Your point is fully valid if players only play in their own stadium their entire career. Since they all play everywhere, the stats have value even if they could be slightly skewed. posted by Anonymous
Just having a stadium at 5200+ ft. (Colorado Rockies) changed power stats significantly. It's not a fight worth fighting. posted by Anonymous
Home teams should get a sizable advantage since they have so much experience with the intricacies of their field. One would expect that the home-team advantage should be bigger in baseball than in other sports, but I don't think that is true.
I think that is true more for the pitchers than the hitters and fielders... pitchers feel so much more comfortable on a mound they are used to. posted by Anonymous
The "oddities" section is off, too. Right field at Yankee stadium is 318', making it 7' less than standard, not 15'.
And where is the Diamondbacks' stadium? posted by Anonymous
I cannot believe how different they are... I mean we all know that they differ, but the disparities are alarming. I am surprised that the league allows such gross differences.
I suspect that they were forced to allow the differences because the stadiums were already built before it really mattered that much. There is too much inertia (ie season ticket sales etc) to force teams to alter their stadiums. posted by
udaipur (208)
Right now the differences aren't too terrible to how some stadiums used to be. Fenway used to have a literal hill in it, Yankee Stadium had monuments in the outfield, etc. posted by Anonymous
Horrible, considering Target Field was left off. It's been in biz since April - is Google that far behind the times? Or is the author of this post the one who's living in 2009?
the exact dimensions for all mlb ballparks are available at the mlb website (and plenty of other sites), they even include the indoor parks and the newer outdoor parks. i don't see why this this methodology was used.
Why the heck can't you just list the three dimensions (home plate to left, center and right) for ALL MLB parks? So what if this over-simplifies the little quirks and angles of each individual park's outfield walls. I just want to compare the distances!
you would never change something like Wrigley Field... and the same would go for Fenway... they are so original, that it makes the stadium itself a monument posted by Anonymous
Baseball stadiums have some dimensions all the same: distance between bases, from home to the plate, etc. The differences are in the foul territories and the fences in the outfield.
Major League baseball fields are surprisingly different. Although the infields are the same, the outfields vary dramatically.
The official rules of Major League Baseball stipulate the following about the outfield dimensions: there must be a minimum of 325 feet (99 meters) between the left and right field walls and home plate, and 400 feet (122 meters) between center field and home plate. It is perhaps more telling to note what the rules do not say about the field. For example, specific requirements pertaining to the height of the outfield wall, the width of foul territory, or the actual curve of the outfield wall are all absent from the rulebooks.
To assemble this data, we took screenshots of Google Maps views of each of the stadiums that were not covered at the time that the satellite image was taken. Dolphin Stadium, home of the Florida Marlins, for example, was in its football configuration, so we had to omit it.