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Ballpark figures With new parks, one size doesn't fit all
Posted: Thursday April 27, 2000 04:11 AM
The people who designed the new parks around the majors know how to create a beautiful environment, but it's obvious they never played major league baseball. These stadiums are causing problems for the teams that call them home. In fact, the three teams with new stadiums won just five of their first 22 home games. In the 14 full seasons Willie Mays played in San Francisco, he never hit three home runs in one home game. Yet, Kevin Elster, a guy who wasn't even in baseball last year, hit three for the Dodgers in the very first game at Pacific Bell Park. Barry Bonds has already taken advantage of the 307-foot right field line to help the Giants out homer the opposition 9-7 at home. But Dusty Baker's team was winless over an opening five-game homestand. That hadn't happened in franchise history. There were more home runs hit in the first five games at Houston's Enron field than in the first five games at any park in baseball history. Balls are flying out at more than twice the rate they did in the Astrodome. That's because it's a Jeff Bagwell-friendly 315 feet down the left field line. Inexperienced pitchers have no shot at Enron because there's no room for error.
These parks are like the wild, wild west and the Astros and Giants have been on the short end of the shootouts. I think playing in these parks will hurt both teams in the long run because they have to concentrate so much on offense. It's been a completely different game at Comerica Park where the Tigers have been shut out more times than they've hit home runs. Even though the bigger dimensions won't make slugger Juan Gonzalez happy, they will help the Tigers work on their defense because long fly balls can become triples when it's 420 feet to center field. The Cardinal teams I played on didn't worry about park dimensions because we always thought we could play better defense than our opponents. It may be hard for these teams to concentrate on that, but if they can, they may start winning at home.
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