Why Every Baseball Stadium Has Different Rules
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- čas přidán 28. 02. 2023
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It should also be noted that when MLB tried to standardize fields awhile back, everybody hated it and found the game more boring to watch
@Tech Priestess Micaela yea, just gotta put 2 nets on the field and a black and white inflatable ball.
@@divine._lion I dunno, a sport combining the rules of soccer and baseball sounds pretty dope
@@divine._lion baseball is in the same league as golf. It’s old and boring.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter kickball
@@anonymousanonymous4690 soccers more boring than both
The White House is actually in foul territorry for Nationals Park so unless the ball crosses the outfield wall then curves towards the White House (unlikely) it would be a foul not a home run. The US Capitol on the otherhand.
There would have to be some absolutely stank spin on that ball for it to be a home run.
I instantly had to go to google maps and make sure that everything I thought I knew about DC geography still made sense
Ah, you beat me to it!
If I'm correct about the rules of baseball (and I very well might not be) a ball that ricochets off a surface in "home run territory" and then bounces back into foul territory, is still considered a home run - just like a ball that bounces in the field and then goes into foul territory is still a live ball. So with a perfectly angled shot you absolutely CAN kill the president while technically scoring a home run. ;P
If this isn't in the next HAI corrections video, we riot.
Minor correction regarding the ladder at Fenway.
It is only a double if the ball hits the ladder and then lands out of play. If the ball hits the ladder, but remains in play, then the ball is still live.
Where could it even land that would be out of play?
@Kuk XIV if it hit the top rung it could potentially go over the wall, and if it hit the left side it could potentially go over the much lower wall in foul territory (though the latter example would be a ground-rule double anyway even without a special rule for the ladder).
I don't know of any example of either actually happening, so either it happened long ago and that's why the rule exists, or they just want to be covered if it does.
If it hits perfectly on the top of the top most rung it could bounce up and over the green giant.
@@xiii-Dex > they just want to be covered if it does.
Missed the perfect opportunity to say "they just want to cover their bases"
Fun fact the Kingdome speakers were in play for a long time until they changed the rule for all indoor stadiums, that speakers or trusses were out of play and the ball dreamed dead.
"All 30 MLB stadiums across the country" Did HAI forget that Toronto isn't in the US?
Can’t wait for the end of year fuck up video
Yes.
He knows something we don't.
This is the first time I've seen everyone use a period at the end of a sentence.
@@Samuel-7418 It's amazing, isn't it?
Specifically for baseball, I think it's cool to have slightly different fields cause it's a game much more about predicting where the ball will go than getting around your opponent like in soccer, hockey, or Football. So it's less giving an unfair advantage to one side or the other, and more just having to play around it differently. Like in fighting games where they have multiple stages that have advantages or disadvantages based on your playstyle, it's just another cool thing people have to adapt to imo.
Yeah baseball and cricket are pretty similar in that remark though I would say cricket goes even further with the differences between fields
@@hydromic2518 a six in ahmedabad is out in the mcg and i love it
I'm surprised Golf isn't mentioned...
@@TheChrisSimpson golf is a sport thats meant to have different dynamics wherever u go
I would think it would provide a small advantage for whoever the home team is, as they'd be more used to playing around whatever the minor differences are.
Cricket also doesn't have standard field sizes but also as you bounce the ball into the ground to bowl it different grounds, especially in different countries, have very different reactions so player stats can vary largely by the country that they are playing in as well as the ground. Probably the most famous cricket ground, Lords, isn't even flat there is a 2 meter height difference from one side to the other
yep, Lords and the Oval are remarkably different despite both being London grounds.
Adelaide Oval is like that. The entire field of convex to aid with the drainage system, as a result the field is also not entirely flat.
The St Lawrence ground in Canterbury, Kent used to have a tree within the boundary. If you hit the tree you scored 4 runs and a batsman could not be caught out with a catch that had rebounded off the tree.
Also outfields speeds also vary depending on where you are in the world and there is also an altitude effect at some grounds like the Wanderers in Johannesburg.
There's actually a lot of Cricket in Houston Tx because of the large South Asian and Caribbean populations. Went to a cricket match once with a Jamaican coworker. Began to understand things for a while, but since group I was with was all Jamaican, they eventually started speaking patois to each other and that's when I got lost. There's actually the largest cricket complex in North America in nearby Prairie View. Some rich guy from Pakistan built it.
I am not surprised Cricket has a lot of quirks. I think both cricket and baseball are descended from sports that predate the arrival of Indo-Europeans into Europe. That would make Jai Alai a distant cousin bat sports. Of course Jai Alai is played only in the Basque country of Spain, parts of southern France, Cuba, and Florida.
Also for people who aren’t familiar with baseball, the Houston Astros used to have a giant hill in center field with a flag pole on it that players would sometimes have to run up to make a play. There’s also a minor league stadium and some college fields with hills on them. So if having a 3-40 foot high fence or a fence that can vary between 300-450 feet wasn’t enough, there are many more quirks to be had
Tiger Stadium in Detroit until it closed in 1999 had a flag pole in the field of play. They moved what I believe is the exact same flagpole to Comerica Park, and it's in basically the exact same place. But it's juuuuust on the other side of the fence now, out of play. Because the distance from home to the farthest point of center field at Tiger Stadium was approximately 5 miles.
I’d seen something like this in American cartoons a few times, often wondered why other baseball fields didn’t have them. Thanks!
omg look up "beltrans tals hill catch" it was so awesome but when i saw it i was like 11 and i said to my dad "why is there a freaking hill in center field" and he was like "not sure" lol
I wonder what Houston replaced that hill with?! Hopefully something just as fun that added to the experience of baseball.
@@sunny1992s unfortunately they just removed it entirely and made the ground flat. However, in left field the fence is 315 feet away and 21 feet high, and then it immediately goes to 362 feet away and 25 feet high. So I guess that’s another weird quark of the stadium
Auto racing is probably the ultimate example of "every field is different."
depends of the kind of auto racing..some might lack some kind of turns..
@@satakrionkryptomortis Even drag racing can vary a lot due to inclines, altitude, climate, and construction. In a sport of seconds the details can make a real difference.
@@satakrionkryptomortis Assuming you're talking about ovals, even those have massive differences between themselves. They can range from Talladega, a 2.66 mile superspeedway with 33 degree banking in the corners, to Martinsville, a 0.5 mile short track with only 11 degrees of banking, and everything in between. Just because they have the same general shape doesn't mean they race the same at all.
Golf too.
And chess is the ultimate example of "every field is the same"... guess different sports are different :D
My elementary school had a pretty infamous "hump" in right field, just a few yards past the middle between first and second base, so it was oddly the favorite place for us to aim when batting as the away teams would trip over it constantly, netting us a usual double or triple for a seemingly easy catch for the rightfielder. we, however, had to constantly practice a position we called "short hump" between the second baseman and rightfielder
That's hilarious, and these kinds of things should always be part of MLB, because they're part of the practical reality of local baseball games... whether you go to the neighborhood park with your buddies, or play on an elementary team, or little league. It's just part of the game and it works really well, like golf courses all being different (it would suck if all golf courses were the same).
Lmaoo those other teams probably hated your field for that. I can imagine the dads on the other team losing their minds when the ball takes a weird bounce and you get an easy double because right field had no idea how to outplay it.
One of the specialized rules is the retractable roof rules. I know t-mobile park in Seattle, it can only be retracted between innings and once you close or open it during game play, you can't revert it. So if you open it midgame, which they never do, and rain suddenly rolled in, you could get a rain out in a stadium that technically has a roof
Same with Skydo...er, I mean Rogers Centre here in Toronto. Except there the decision has to be made before the game, and it is made by league HQ. This is why there was such a cry during the one game of the ALDS played here the other year. The ruling was that even though it was a nice warm night, the roof had to remain closed. This robbed MLB of a *BEAUTIFUL* aerial shot from the opening ceremonies of the GIANT Canadian flag in the outfield during O Canada.
@Dave Greenlaw one of the nice parts about Tmobile is that the roof keeps the rain out but the sides are open so you can still see the sunset over the Sound and the city skyline. Also wind still exists
I guarantee whoever came up with that rule was a government employee at one time -- how else could you explain such stupidity?
mean, the entire ADDED EXPENSE of a retractable roof just got NUKED by some idiot that insists you can't actually use it if starts to rain while you're playing. WTF!?! Who gives a shit if they have to wait for the roof to close, so they can resume play? You think it's better to cancel the game, and send 50,000 people home with their day ruined? And yes, a government employee could come up with some stupid reason why that's the best option.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 The real funny thing about it all is that on the opening night ceremonies for the stadium, it was pouring rain here in Toronto, yet they *still* opened the roof - they had to, didn't want the skydivers pancaking onto the closed roof. I actually bought a ticket to the event, so I was standing there at my seat as it happened, saying "Bring it on! We're Canadians, we can take this!"
@hxhdfj ifzir st c apparently the overall rule would be the rules comitee, which is owners and presidents and usually an old time player. The Mariners specific ground rules is by their head groundskeeper.
I remember the first time I explained to my husband that a ball stuck in the Ivy is a ground rule double. He was confused as it was spring and the ivy wasn’t obvious yet. Later in the season, the ivy was a lot more grown and the reason for the rule became obvious. Fun fact, a player has to signal to the umpire that the ball is stuck in the ivy. Every year you have a few in-field triples or home runs because a player made the error of trying to dig a ball out of the ivy instead of signaling to the umpire.
And every year you will see someone think they are in Wrigley and signal when a ball is just in play. I love that people get it wrong both ways.
That last part is a great rule! The opposing team gets to decide if it's worth their time to dig it out, or if they'd rather just give the batting team the double!
I can see how locals of any stadium could really enjoy seeing visiting teams get confused andiss opportunities because of ground rules they're unfamiliar with.
That last part is funny, that’s great. Opens up the opportunity for the player to hope they can get it out and throw it back before a double would be scored. But as you say clearly it’s for the best to just accept it and move on!
The putting your hands up to signal the ball is stuck applies to every ballpark. If the walls are padded and the ball wedges into the spaces between pads the same rule applies. Some of the parks I played at in high school had similar rules, usually because there was a gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground. We were always coached to not try to get the ball unstuck and just raise our hands for a ground rule double.
3:01 Dodger Stadium opened in 1961 and predates all of the "multi-purpose" stadiums. It's in fact the 3rd-oldest MLB park still in use.
3:35 Likewise, the "Yankee Stadium" you show is the _new_ Yankee Stadium. The historic Yankee Stadium was indeed abandoned and demolished in 2009.
the point he's making about not wanting to change the iconic shape of the stadium is relevant regardless, because the dimensions of the 2009 park were designed to be near-identical to the old one.
I was hoping I wasn’t the only one that noticed the subtle shade thrown Yankee Stadium’s way..
@@toadeightyfive And ever since Camden Yards became a thing, basically every stadium has been designed with a number of these types of quirks. Some more obvious than others.
Requiring every stadium to adopt a standard set of dimensions would result in at least 29 out of 30 stadiums having to be torn down and rebuilt, or expensively reconfigured.
I will say that there are some rules that do have an effect on the dimensions of the ballpark. For example, a ball that passes over the outfield wall in flight (in fair territory) is a home run unless the wall it passes over is less than 250 feet from home plate, in which case it's a double. No MLB ballpark these days has an outfield wall that close to home plate.
It's true that Dodger Stadium is currently the third oldest but multipurpose stadiums that aren't used anymore like Memorial in Baltimore and Candlestick do predate Dodger Stadium
Wow what a nerd. Also love your videos
On the rare occasions they play outside MLB stadiums, ground rules are established there as well. For example, for the UK games at London Stadium, "As the roof overhangs the home plate area, there is a ground rule that balls hitting the roof are considered dead."
Civic Stadium in Portland, Oregon, (home of minor league baseball) used to have a complex set of ground rules for what happened if a baseball ricocheted off or became stuck in the Jantzen Lady, a fiberglass figure of a diving woman who was part of a swimwear advert on the outfield wall.
Well? What were the rules?
@@alexandergilles8583 She was part of the stadium and therefore considered to be in the field. If hit and...
- bounce to the inside, it was a live ball
- bounce beyond the walls, it was a ground rule double
- ball stays on her back or gets lodged between her and the wall, it was up to the umpires discretion how many bases the batter could advance (as far as I could find out, they usually ruled it a home run)
Legends say that there was a cash prize by the swimwear company for any batter who archieved the latter, but I'm not sure if that is actually true. It is kinda plausible as it incentiveses the batters to aim for a good TV shot of the Jantzen lady :)
Hockey has different rink sizes for North America and other regions (although some rinks in other regions use the NA dimensions and there are some international standard rinks at non-NHL facilities in NA. The NHL used to have different dimensions for different teams but slowly standardized and then the NHL put a rule in place that all new rinks needed to be the standard size. Some teams playing on the last few smaller rinks would play a tougher more physical style because the small rink made it more advantageous. I think the last few older smaller rinks were replaced with standard NHL rinks in the 90's and 00's.
I came here to mention that the original Boston Garden had a smaller rink size than regulation. The Bruins took advantage of that.
Hockey outside the NHL still has some non-standard rink sizes. In my part of Canada I have rinks that vary from 175*70ft to 200*100 with many different sizes in-between
Boston was the last smaller rink, and that got replaced in the 1990s I think, but I don't know which other teams used to have different sized rinks.
the ice itself can also vary wildly from location to location, even in playoffs games theres always at least 1 rink that has visibly shitty ice. i live somewhere that never snows, and when i started skating it was surprising how different the soft figure skating ice was compared to the harder hockey surface
I remember Gretzky talking about the bench being offsides in certain barns
I was today years old when I learned that "ground rule double" refers to rules for the specific ground, rather than a general rule for when the ball hits the *ground* and then goes out for a *double*
That's because an out of play ball (what you just described) isn't always a double. The rule is that if the ball goes out of bounds, every runner gets the base they were approaching, plus one extra base (unless the runner was approaching home). So if you passed first and were approaching 2nd and the ball went out of play, it would be a triple. However, if the batted ball goes out of play (wasnt touched by a fielder) then it's always a double, since it would be the base you were approaching when you hit the ball.
It doesn't help that announcers got into the habit of describing those plays as "ground rule doubles" even though they technically are not. Any ball in any stadium that lands in fair territory and then bounces into the seats without being contacted by a player is automatically two bases for every runner and the batter. Ground rules actually only cover features unique to the stadium, such as balls getting stuck in the ivy at Wrigley, hitting the catwalks at the Trop, going through the roof of the Metrodome and the like.
Soccar Football doesn't actually have standardised pitch sizes either, there a range they have to fall in but there is a notable variance between them
Like NYCFC, who have a smalelr field since they play in a baseball stadium!
The best comparison is cricket. Places like Eden Park in Auckland get used for domestic and international cricket, despite being rectangle because it's designed for rugby. So the boundary at Eden Park is typically not oval but a rectangle diamond shape because the pitch is put in on a diagonal. Which makes the boundary backward of square one of, if not thee shortest in the world.
Such as when Stoke City famously shrunk their field and hired a javelin thrower to do all their throw-ins directly into the goal area
@@nicholastodd7040 Goal area, maybe. You can't score directly from a throw-in though. Not that this is particularly realistic to do anyway, the ball wouldn't be travelling fast enough to evade a goalkeeper unless he/she was doing something dumb.
How much does it affect the game play tho?...
The same goes for motorracing. Especially Formula 1. Every circuit has their own way of defining what is 'on' the track and what is 'off' the track. It might seem simple but can get quite weird. On some circuits the white line is part of the track, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes racecontrol uses a automated system in certain corners to check if a driver left the track, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they change the rules as the drivers are already practicing on the friday before the race.
Even ignoring the track limits thing, every circuit drives very differently (hence why, for example, Sergio Perez is very good at rear-limited tracks)
i loved the “forced to live in walkable cities” part, my mother actually thinks like that and thinks living in the middle of nowhere and needing a car to get anywhere is the best way to live
It's definitely better than living in some HOA subdivision hellscape that has the worst of the city and rural areas. I quite like not hearing traffic (trains/busses/pedestrians included) and being able to see the stars (the galactic arm not just some pinpricks of light), but miss block parties and being able to go to events without worrying about parking.
In other words, your mother has more life experience than you. Duh.
When you didn't have cars - that was how cities developed.
The throwaway line was humorous, of course, but "forced" isn't a joke, it's quite literally true. As soon as the car became available people started using it to live where they wanted to rather than where you think they should want to.
@@brianleeray1 people have been living where city planners wanted them to since forever (see suburbs), and the reason people started leaving cities wasn't because they felt too cramped up or whatever it's because of policy decisions like redlining or a refusal to build more affordable housing. I'm in Aus and a lot of the time people were forced out of the city because rent and housing prices were so extreme or because the government forced people to live rurally.
0:39 Ladies and gentlemen, we found him. The man himself, Mr. Baseball.
Bob Uecker
I cried during the moment Mr. Baseball said "its ballin time" and baseballed all over the unregular field
While there are numerous advantages to standardization in many situations, I like inconsistencies from time-to-time. It adds variety, for one thing, and it also just feels a little bit more human 😊
That's weird considering that the less standard all the other variables are the less the human element matters. Sport is about skill and strategy vs skill and strategy. The more that other factors can change the outcome of a given situation the less the skill and strategy matter. The human element should be the actual humans involved not the shape of a given field. Just so we are clear fields are in fact not human and things being different is not a human trait its just nature. There is nothing human about randomness or inconsistency. The thing that makes us so different from other animals is the fact that we change the world around us to survive instead of evolving ourselves to survive in the world. Baseball is just boring because any given moment of action lasts all of a few seconds before your back to waiting who knows how long before something else interesting happens. The exciting part of any given sport is scoring. The moment before scoring is the peak moment of anticipation for both sides. I baseball the closest moment is likely 2 strikes 2 outs bases loaded. There is nothing exciting about normal average baseball. When people do try to bring excitement into the sport others threaten their lives by throwing 90 mph fastballs at them. Being a low to no contact sport baseball is just the pitcher and catcher playing catch and rarely sometimes a stick gets in the way and they scramble to get the ball. A pitch clock will not fix baseball. The only reason it still exists is nostalgia and sunk cost fallacy.
@@WillisPtheone Wow...I'm sorry you spent so much time writing something so inane...
I agree. It feels more natural. Some of my favorite baseball features across all parks (college, minors, and majors) are railroad tracks near the stadium (like Olsen Field in College Station), massive walls on one sided with scoreboards built in (like DBAP an Fenway), and brick style warehouse looking buildings that jut up against the stadium (again like DBAP and Petco Park).
@@howardbaxter2514 Yeah! I think that can also help make a stadium feel like it's an integrated part of its city, rather than this thing that's just been plopped in.
@@WillisPtheone I politely disagree
As an F1 fan, this feels pretty normal! At least a few years ago, most tracks would have slightly different rules for track limits and such. Even disregarding that, every track is different and unique and, just like in baseball, that makes things fun and interesting at each location instead of boring and standardized
Proving my friends wrong and ruining my friendships forever for no reason is my favorite pasttime!
Fun Fact: Football fields and goals also do not have precisely fixed sizes
(And with football I mean "Soccer")
The size of the goals is mandatory 2,44m x 7,32m. They have the same size everywhere.
But your are right that the size of the field can change.
Between 120 and 90 meter long, and between 90 and 45 meter wide.
So technicly u could have nearly a square as a field (its not allowed to be a square though).
For the big tournaments/leagues there are more rules in play though, to guarantee certain standards.
football PITCHES don't have a standardized size but every goal is the same size
Fun fact: you're wrong.
watch as the overconfident americans rush to correct your statement that doesn't need correcting
True, but also not true. Both FIFA and UEFA major tournaments stadiums have a standard field size of 105x68m (UEFA 3rd and 4th stadium cat. & all FIFA certified stadiums).
It's worth pointing out that technically automatic doubles (referenced with respect to Fenway Park and Wrigley Field) are the hits that bounce in play before going over the wall in all parks (what is commonly called a ground rule double). Ground rule [double/triple/etc] are the variations mentioned in the vide (i.e. the ladder on Fenway Park, the ivy in Wrigley Field, though they occur in all parks in differing ways).
"I have to do a lot of research for these videos while I'm travelling"
*new season of jet lag vibes intensify*
I love the casual mentioning of urban planning and walkable cities that you occasionally bring up. Have you ever thought about making some videos that pertain to suburbs, stroads, walkability or public transit, etc?
Wait, so it's Not Just Bikes?
Not Just Interesting? Half As Bikes?
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter "Half as bikes" sounds like a great name for a channel about unicycles!
Well, that's true in American sports. Cricket for example, has huge variation in ground sizes. The only restrictions in cricket field are within the 30 yard inner circle, beyond which stadium can be made as large or as small as needed. (Tho, the rule book is a lot simpler) I am not a golfer, but I suspect Golf Courses too vary a lot, and lack standard rules.
Yeah there are very few rules to the actual layout of a golf course. If you build it too weird to tho, the odds of the PGA tour coming there are lower
But there are usually four par-3's and four par-5's (the rest being par-4). The par for each hole is determined mostly by distance, so most courses are going to have comparable distances. Shorter courses than a par-72 are not selected for any tour or championship events that I know of.
Baseball is weird, because explaining why it's boring gets really interesting.
Baseball and soccer are two sports boring to watch if you've never truly played.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson I used to play a ton of soccer, and I get what you mean for sure. Fwiw I'm a hockey fanatic but cannot ice skate lol
@@superking208 Yeah, hockey is weird for me. Never played it -- can't skate. I think it's boring on tv. But it's one of the most exciting games in person. You can really see the speed and whole game whereas on TV, you can't appreciate the speed and passes nor can you can see more than the little area they show you on tv. Football (american) is a bit the opposite. It's probably the most exciting for TV because you are zoomed in on the action while in person, you are so far from the game unless you're down near the 50 yr line and close. It's still fun in person but I think there are better sports in person and it's the only one I think actually jumps up in quality on tv.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson See, I know for sure that TV is better for football because it even happens AT THE GAME: the Cowboys' AT&T Stadium contains the biggest jumbotron in the world, and it's almost impossible to keep looking at the real game with so much more detail hanging overhead.
@@superking208 Yeah, football in person seems to far from the action. I've only been to about 4 football games (3 college 1 nfl) and I've been to maybe 5 hockey games (2 nhl, 2 college, one minor league) and hockey is more fun in person than football.
My favorite is probably the Polo Grounds. Shallow at roughly 260-270 feet on the lines, to 500 feet at center.
You see for our old British games we supply some guidelines on what the playing area is... Whether that is a pitch for kicking a ball around, a pitch for kicking a ball around and physically tackling people or places to fight wars (which is defined as "not England, preferably in France and/or Belgium")
Both Football and Rugby pitches differ in size across the country.
@@apjapki yep, the guidelines basically just state minimum and maximum sizes (and that opposites must match length wise)
Baseball fields are also much bigger than football fields, which probably exasperates the need to conform to the space available.
Also if you dig deep enough, other sports too have some wiggle room in their boundaries.
A huge part of baseball is how the ball is hit and how it bounces. JUST LIKE GOLF. Should every golf course be exactly the same? Only an idiot would say yes.
And if you hit a ball with a bat the size of a large tree and it flies out of the stadium and Bugs Bunny goes all the way to the top of the Empire State Building and catches it by throwing his glove into the air you're out!
So the short answer is the stadiums were built before any standards existed and it was too expensive to fix it
That's what he says but the suggestion that they would standardize things if it weren't for cost is bogus. Every new stadium is built with unique features that help create certain types of gameplay. The short porch in NY, the huge field in Denver to try and compensate for the thin air, pitcher focused PNC in Pittsburgh. All recent stadiums with unique features designed deliberately to impact the game.
They did try to standardize it a long time ago, but people didn’t like that. Honestly, don’t blame them as I wouldn’t like it either. It is part of the charm of the sport. No two games can ever be the same and neither should the parks.
If you wanted to be more specific, when a ball hits the ladder in Fenway Park, it's a ground rule double. It's a ground rule double because it's the specific ground rules at Fenway that make it a double.
isn't it also unique to baseball that the specific shape of the body of grass that the players can physically run around matters at all? Since with like football or soccer or tennis or even basketball, when the ball crosses a line, it's out and play stops, while for baseball, anywhere that the players can physically reach is still in play and the batting team usually wants most to move the ball outside of the area of play.
So with a football field you can still do things like put a track round the field for using the stadium for other stuff without changing the format of play much
In baseball, there’s what are called foul lines, which are essentially out of play. If a ball lands outside of those lines, the play is called dead and another pitch is thrown. The only exception is if a defender catches the ball before it hits the ground, the batter is out.
Australian Football League has grounds that are all different sizes due to the fact that they use stadiums that have been around for decades (Sydney Cricket Ground) and some that have just been built (Perth Stadium).
When the Twins played in the Humphrey Metrodome, outfielders would regularly lose the ball, which is white in the MLB, and thus had a low contrast against the air-supported roof, which was also white. The ground rule for that problem was "Tough Luck, Pal" but hitting the speakers attached to the room was covered by a ground rule. I don't remember what it was, though.
(Association) Football also has variations between stadiums, with the pitch size having to fall within a range, not all being the same size.
these rule variations feel like video game cheat codes i actually love this
surely the fact that baseball fields are "open-ended" is a contributing factor, too? Like in football I don't expect the spaces between the field boundaries and spectating areas to be identical across all stadiums, but in baseball there's a 90° arc where there is no field boundary before the seats
Many parks place the bullpens in between the home run wall and the fans, and those that don’t almost always have walls that are too high for the fielders to be able to reach over. Also, every park is required to have a “batter’s eye” in center field, or an area where no fans are allowed to sit, because any white in the batter’s line of sight can hinder their ability to see the ball as it’s being pitched
Baseball fields can get absolutely bonkers outside of the MLB simply due to space and cost concerns. It isn't unusual to see college and high school fields, for example, have incredibly strange outfield shapes and marked fences that denote what happens when a ball hits them at certain elevations. And another fun fact about Fenway Park: that huge left field wall can cause issues when a ball curves rightward, which can end up hitting the wall in play only to then fall behind a different wall and land out of play. The ground rule for this is that this is a home run- so it is actually possible in baseball to hit a home run that bounces backwards off of an in-play surface!
I used to believe all baseball fields were exact quarter-circles, all with the same measures.
But apparently if you score an homerun in one stadium you don't in another stadium despite the two pitches and two battings being identical.
Because, you know, it's nice to have standards that allow you to compare events happening in different places but adopting the same standards.
There is math for this, in which the stadium a batter plays at, the league in which he plays in and a number of other variables that seem impossible to quantify are somehow calculated in order to compare that player to others.
These calculations are also made retroactively, so you can compare a 1st baseman from 70 years ago to a catcher still playing today.
Oh, and this is also calculated by a number of different organisations who disagree on the formula and give different results.
WAR (wins above replacement) is wild.
Wait until you realize that the cardinal direction the stadiums face aren't the same and even in the same stadium its unique wind patterns change with time of day/season
@@knutschack8625 Yeah of course there's math, but it shouldn't even be needed ahah
It's also fun to point out that trees, light poles, bullpens, hills, etc could also be put in fair territory in baseball.
What about a pool?
@@dax0050 ofc, just not in fair territory.
I've been reminded of my concept idea of a "glass box bullpen." It's put in the commercial hallways area, where the fans are, and the floor of the bullpen can rise and lower to place and remove the pitcher, catcher, and coach, with a hole in the back that the catcher can push baseballs through, but with a device that stops fans from pushing things the other way into the hole. Basically putting the warming up pitcher "on display".
It's kind of inspired by the bullpen at T Mobile Park in Seattle, which has aal standing bar along the side, pointing into an area full of bars and food stands. You can sit there, sip on alcohol, and watch the pitchers warm up. And the catcher can toss you baseballs.
The rule is that, if the ball goes into the bullpen, it's out of play, and possibly a home run.
@@TheUrbanGaze That sounds cool, but i feel like it would ultimately be too gimmicky.
@@ImAFanboy Yeah I agree. It would probably cause controversy from how much the lift would cost to operate and maintain.
In the past, clubs even tweaked the field to try and suit star players better. The bullpens in Fenway Park are where they are so that Ted Williams would be more likely to hit home runs.
The bullpens in Fenway Park were built long before Ted Williams was playing baseball.
@@adamcoe Ted Williams joined the Red Sox in 1939 and the bullpens were moved to right field in 1940. This brought the fence in by 20 feet.
Proper football (called soccer in some countries) also features only roughly standardized fields, even in the world cup
Football (soccer) and cricket, the two most popular sports worldwide, both are played on various field/pitch sizes even at the highest levels. As are all forms of auto racing, many horse sports, most snow sports, etc.
Hockey used to be like that, too, and sort of still is. The standard size of the rink was 200 feet by 85 feet, because those were the approximate dimensions of the Victoria Rink in Montreal in the 1870s where the first indoor game with written rules was played. But once the game got professionalized but long before team owners were rich enough to build their own arenas, the teams fit the rink in whatever arena was available in the city. So, Boston Gardens had the smallest rink in the NHL for decades, was 191' x 83'. Whether it was due to having less space or it was simply psychological, the smaller rinks seemed to have more hitting and rougher play. (All the small rinks in the NHL are gone now as the teams either own the arena or are important enough tenants for the owner to adjust to their specifications).
By contrast, the standard rink size in Europe is 60 metres by 30 metres (197' x 98.5') . Again, whether it has actually to do with the extra space or psychology, the games definitely seem to have more "wide open" play with more passing and less hitting.
One of my favorite things about baseball is that not every park is the same
There's something similar with cricket where there's no standard to the dimensions of the field. Except in cricket the rules are the same no matter what stadium it's played at
That's not quite true. For instance, when Big Bash cricket is played at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, which has a roof, there's a specific rule that if the batter hits the ball high enough that it hits the roof, it's an automatic six (the maximum score off one delivery) regardless of whether the ball actually would have gone over the boundary or not (which is the usual method of scoring a six). I realise this is being super pedantic though, and in general your original statement is true 😉
I think janky outfield walls actually bring a lot of life to the sport! Due to space considerations (and the love of the home run) outfield walls can't extend much farther than 400 feet out at their deepest, but arm strength and strategy has improved to the point where getting a triple even on a ball that stops at the base of the wall is rare. Having the ball karom around could force outfielders to be more cautious in fielding hard-hit balls and would create some meaningful differentiation between a well-placed hit that takes a soft bounce off the wall versus a well-placed hit that smashes into it.
Because of this, I propose that the walls of MLB parks rapidly zig-zag in and out to sharply deflect balls hit off of them, so fielders can't charge down a ball in the hopes it stops quickly or else risk overrunning and giving up a triple
I think each stadium being different makes the game a lot more interesting and it means that you’ll need a different strategy depending on which one you’re playing in. You’ll get a completely different experience watching a game at Fenway than you would at Yankee Stadium.
Finally, the HAI baseball video
In football (both soccer & irish geilic football) there is no standard pitch size and width only max and min standards, a lot of big clubs will redraw the lines based off what sort of team their playing against. Say the away club has excellent wingers, so the home team will make the pitch narrower giving them less room to manoeuvre and other tactics like that.
also part of the charm of baseball is the stadiums in which they play. Fenway and Wrigley are iconic ball parks because well, it's fenway and it's wrigley. How many other sports venues have this sense of history and identity? The non-standard stadium makes every venue special and unique to their fans.
That’s the thing. Baseball is the one major American sport where people actively seek out attending all 30 ballparks just to experience all their uniqueness.
I love the style of your videos. Your creative and hilarious interjections make me laugh out loud every time. 🤣 Please never stop. Ever...
You're right about over simplifying and making baseball fans mad, but I'm not going to say anything about any errors I noticed because you got the point across.
How to make a kill the president joke so perfect
The rink pictured for the NHL is actually a WHL rink, the Portland winter hawks
It doesn't change the rules as much as in baseball, but rugby stadiums aren't all equally long : 1) the the field of play is "not longer than 100m and not wider than 70m" and the in goals are "not more than 22m long" but can sometimes be only 10m long which changes how you play
The champ of weird field layout is the Polo Grounds, used by the New York Giants from 1890 to 1957 - a tiny 258 feet to right field, but a whopping 483 feet to dead centre. (For reference, modern fields are usually about 300 and 400, respectively.)
1:55 😂😂😂😂
When I was in high school, after school we used to play tennis ball/baseball after school at the local elementary school. There was a really weird space that included a hill, a high short wall in center, and weird, deep right and left (with right being on the hill). If you looked at it it didn't look like a field, but we regularly got normal scoring 3 on 3 games, and it had some great drama moments. I stood at home plate once, staring at a ball I crushed that looked like it was going to be an easy home run over the center field wall, but a crosswind got it and took it to left. I started running. It hit off the top of the wall in left (technically it hit the trim, which in most parks would be a home run) and I was still standing at home admiring it. I ran, but got thrown out at second (I still think I was safe, but if I'd just run hard from the start the play would have at least been at third.)
Sadly, they built an addition coming off of the center field wall and the makeshift field doesn't exist anymore. I sometimes jokingly daydream about winning the lottery and going to the school with some surveyors (paying the school to let me do it) and work out the old dimensions to build a replica. I loved that park.
We played next to it once, on another patch, and while we lost, I got the only hit of the game for my team, breaking up the no hitter and shut out with one swing, fairly late in the game. I ran that one out, but didn't have to.
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Polo Grounds each had remarkably atrocious (aka remarkably comical) dimensions.
At Memorial, feft field was located 250 feet from home plate, while in other stadiums it was 300 feet or more. The first base foul territory was really small, but the third base foul territory was absolutely ginormous.
At the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan, the distances to the fields from home were 279 feet (LF), 256 feet (RF), and 483!!! feet (CF).
Still, there have been whackier stadium rules.
The minor league Ponce de Leon stadium had an actual magnolia tree in center field. If the ball was caught in the tree branches, it would remain in play.
Then in the movie "Brewster's Millions" with Richard Pryor and John Candy as minor leaguers, there is a fictional field with a freight train running in the outfield.
I still wish the Polo Grounds were still in use. I wanna see today's insane defensive outfielders police that large of an outfield. The closest we got today to that is Coors or Kauffman.
Also, Minute Maid Park where the Astros play used to have a random hill with a pole in deep center for no reason at all other than the owner wanted it. They added it by choice.
@@diney7085 Not sure what year they got rid of the hill. I think about only 3-5 years ago.
@@diney7085 Tal's Hill was reported as being a tribute to the terrace at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.
In high school one field where we played had a power line that went through part of right field. Ground rule said a ball hit on the fly that struck the power line was a home run.
Soccer fields can have slight variations, I think they need to be between 100-130 yards long and 50-80 yards wide or something like that. I'm not sure about those numbers but I know it's something like that.
Every Australian Rules Football ground is different.
(Different length, different width, different angle on the "corners" of the oval playing service etc.)
Adelaide has a lot of "ovals" with straight/parallel sides, rather than bulging ones, as the were built after construction of a grid-based road system... thus, rather than being a true oval... because they could extend the width of the field.
Well Cricket also does not have standardised fields, the distance to the edge (boundary) can be different from field to field. Some larger fields like the MCG in Melbourne have 80m+ boundaries, while other fields like some of the ones in New Zealand are actually rectangular and do a fairly silly job of trying to fit a cricket field onto them with 45m boundaries. They have also played cricket on baseball fields which creates some weird shaped fields. Ideally it would be the same distance from the batter to the field all the way around, but there are some where it's 80m one way and 50m another.
Additionally, AFL is a football like game that is played on cricket fields, and is probably the only "football" like sport that does not have a standard field size.
From memory, rugby union fields can be between 96 and 100m and have in goal areas of between 8 and 20m, which can make a large difference in try scoring tactics
And there can also be variation within cricket grounds since the pitch used in a game isn't always the same.
'Iconic and beloved venues' -- shows clip of the new Yankee Stadium
Incidentally, while people have already mentioned that soccer (assoc. football) fields aren't entirely the same size, they've missed the fun fact that pitches used for non-international matches have a fairly wide range of acceptable dimensions, and the widest width allowed is the same as the shortest length (both 90m) which technically allows for rather odd square pitches. As far as I'm aware, none such exist, but it's still an interesting feature.
(Pitches used for international matches are more tightly constrained and would be, at best, a 3x4 rectangle)
AFL fields are a little bit like this because they're usually built on a modified cricket ground. From Wikipedia:
"Australian rules football grounds, even at the highest level of the game, have no fixed dimensions. For senior football, the playing field is an oval, typically between 135-185 metres (148-202 yd) long goal-to-goal and 110-155 metres (120-170 yd) wide wing-to-wing. Grounds can vary from long and narrow to almost circular, and are not necessarily symmetrical, depending upon how and where the field was constructed. At least 5 metres (5.5 yd) of space between the boundary line and any fence is required for safety."
Lots of sports fanatics on her arguing about which sport is more entertaining.
Listen, it's not about the sport, it's about who you're watching it with
I hate hockey. But a few years back, me and my co-workers went to watch a Canucks game in box seats at Rogers arena in Vancouver. Free food, free beer, and yes, lots of cheering.
I hate hockey. But that was one of the best nights of my life.
I hated baseball until I worked a job where I got free tickets to the Astros. The company and the crowd won me over.
4:44 had me laughing quite a bit
AFL (Australian Rules Football) also has huge variation in the size of grounds
“Because like many horrible things, the triangle only exists in Boston” ouch.
Golf is the extreme of this. The Rule book for officials is over 500 pages and accounts for literally any possibility and any configuration of the course.
No, he forgot about the 29 stadiums that aren't in Canada
As a true baseball fan out to eviscerate HAI, there are no official rules in the MLB nor in the Washington Nationals's ground rules about Joe Biden getting plunked with a baseball. I would presume, though, that if Joe Biden is up to bat and gets hit by a pitch without interference or swinging, he does advance to first base.
“Like many horrible things, the triangle only exists in Boston.” 😂😂😂😂😂😂
As an addendum to this the two sports that are almost as old as baseball professionally and older or as old creation wise, Cricket and Association Football also do not have standard fields. Association Football rules mandate every field be a rectangle and be between minimum and maximum lengths and widths, but you may build any rectangle you want within those bounds. For example, Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires play on FIFA minimum length and width while their rivals River Plate play in the national stadium of Argentina which is FIFA maximum. Then there's cricket which is just as open on field outer dimensions as baseball.
I played rugby and as an American, it blew my mind that all the fields we played on were different sizes. While they were mostly all the same length, some were way wider and the leagues really don't have any rules saying it has to be a certain width. The men's stadium we played at the main field was at least 10 meters wider than the practice fields. This is just shocking because yeah every football field is exactly the same.
It's like racing, every track is unique and has its own charm that makes it Interesting and fun to watch
More sports have nonstandard venues than standardized: golf, aquatic sports (windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, etc.), most forms of bicycle racing, most skiing and snowboarding, all forms of motorsports.
I think it would be cool if football stadiums were nonstandard. It would make it interesting for players that are team loyalists, or long time division rivals
3:10 Why did you have to do my city like that 😂
I think it's worth noting that Baseball has the opportunity to take place outside of the field with homeruns rather than strictly inside the field. So creating fields that have a unique identity is a lot harder to standardize than if everything stayed within the field of play. And Baseball would lose a lot of it's identity if their fields lost their uniqueness.
Houston has a cameras hidden in the outfield aimed at home plate and a mysterious banging noise appears only when visiting teams are pitching.
"Why this sort of problem is unique to baseball" (while cricket sits shaking its fist angrily in the corner)
Cricket fields vary wildly as well. From size and shape and pitch nothing is standard and players have to understand what conditions they'll be playing on. Even individual fields can change game by game because of how the groudstaff manage the pitch.
Try comparing a dust bowl in Pune India to a green top in York UK to a bouncing monstrosity in Brisbane Aus - it's wild
Jet Lag premiere AND an HAI video about baseball? Today is my lucky day.
baltimore being irrelevant is the weirdest insult considering how many low blows there are, but it’s somehow more hurtful than any other insult 😭 love from bmore
The Marlins old home (Now called Hard Rock Stadium) had “The Bermuda Triangle” and “The Big Teal Monster”
Huh. Is that where the phrase 'Let's establish some ground rules' (and variations) comes from?
Always assumed ground rules meant basic non-violable rules, like ground=fundamental. Guess I was wrong all these years.
You wouldn't go to prison. You're not guilty of a crime if a freak accident happens that was completely random or unavoidable. Anyone who stands close enough to a baseball field to get hit by home runs does so at their own risk.
Nor have any home runs been hit with criminal intent.
@@Bacopa68 yet
I am now imaging a cartoon villian who sets it up so that this happens.
Not fully true. Football field (I mean not the US football) can be within 10 meters wider/longer. So there can be more (or less) space in there as well which affects the game a bit (and a shape too, as it can be shorter and wider, so allow less space behind and more chances to widen the plays).
If all ballparks had the same dimensions, we might see a team score 40 runs in Denver someday. I'd say it was certain to happen if the humidor stopped working.
I know what you’re talking ab
Check out some more traditional cricket grounds in England. Where I played home games if you fielded on the boundry someone at thw other end of the field could only see your head it was so down hill
They are called home rules, since each stadium has its own designs and quirks. Kinkdome speakers that overhung were in play for a long time until they were forced to change the rule.
2:08. People used to also be required to wear hats when outdoors. Men had to wear suits as well.
Interesting
@@jonahplayscello You didn't know about the McCoy Act of 1909?
czcams.com/video/Quj7zlGtAWQ/video.htmlsi=LU3Sg3rS2sgHu37-
Ok?
"much like an insecure nyu student, these parks had to get really weird to fit in in the big city" 💀💀💀how do u know me ben