Fenway by night, with Johnny Damon at the plate and runners on the corners. With two outs the Marlin infielders have dropped back from double-play depth to their normal positions.
Photo by Corey Sandler
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y
Many casual fans may not realize how much one ballpark differs from another. And even at one park, conditions can vary greatly from game to game.
Baseball’s official rules lay out only the most general guidelines for the design of a field: The bases have to be 90 feet apart, the pitcher’s rubber 60 feet 6 inches away from home plate, and the foul lines have to radiate out from the plate to first and third bases and beyond to the fences.
The distance from home plate to the nearest fence in fair territory has to be at least 250 feet, although a distance of 320 feet or more along the foul lines and 400 feet or more to center field is “preferable.”
That’s the heart of the description of the ballplayer’s workplace, and within those broad definitions, we end up with places of perfect symmetry like Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City (leftfield line 330 feet from home, left-center 375 feet, center field 400 feet, right-center 375 feet, and right field 330 feet).
And then we have celebrated oddities like Fenway Park in Boston (leftfield line 310 feet from home, left-center 379 feet, center field 420 feet, deep right field 380 feet, and rightfield line 302 feet, plus the 37-foot-high Green Monster in left field, a 17-foot-high wall in center field, a bull pen field 5 feet tall, a fence in short right field as low as 3 feet off the ground, and various ladders, garage doors, jut-outs, and triangles).
Fenway’s leftfield wall changes everything. That’s what makes it different from any other ballpark. There are balls hit off that wall that would be home runs in other parks but end up as singles at Fenway. There are balls that scrape the wall that would be outs at other ballparks.
New York’s Yankee Stadium is also misshapen: 318 feet down the leftfield line, 379 feet to straightaway left field, 408 feet to deep center, 353 feet to straightway right field, and 314 feet down the right-field line. The Yankees are building a new stadium, due to open for the 2009 season, and the layout is supposed to be more or less the same as the original.
And then there are the oddities like Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field. What makes Tropicana Field such a joke are the catwalks that hang from the ceiling; it can become a pinball game when the ball hits one. Most of the catwalks are in fair territory and in play. Other than that it’s a pretty decent domed ballpark; I prefer it to Minnesota’s.
The Metrodome in Minnesota is a strange place. It is tough to see the ball against the white ceiling, and there are speakers and other things hanging down from the roof. Also many of the seats are angled for football. I won’t miss it when it closes; a new Twins ballpark is under construction and due to open for the 2010 season.
Once they’ve figured out the layout of the fences and the stands, ballplayers have to think about the conditions of the field itself. Is it grass or artificial turf? Some infield grasses are thicker than others; some fields play quick, some fields slow.
If there’s a speedy runner at the plate and a slow infield and thick grass, the defense has to play a little shallower. At a park with artificial turf, like Minnesota’s indoor oddity, an outfielder has to be careful not to charge too aggressively on a short fly because if it hits the hard surface, it can easily bounce over his head.
The worst condition for an infielder is a wet infield; he gets no traction in the dirt part of the infield.
Before the game, especially at the start of a series, you may see players checking how the infield is playing. They may have a coach rolling ground balls so they can work on their mechanics and footwork.
Then there are the tricks the grounds crew can play with the baselines to help balls stay fair or roll foul.
“The Green Monster at Fenway changes the complexion of the game more than anything in any other ballpark in baseball.”
JERRY REMY
When I was with the California Angels, one year we had a lot of speed but not a lot of power. And so the grounds crew monkeyed around with the slope of the field. Foul territory near the foul lines tilted in toward the playing field so that it was almost impossible to bunt a ball foul. Bunts would roll outside the foul line and then come back into fair territory.
I have been in other ballparks where the field was tilted the other way; if someone put a roller down the line, it would go foul. You’ll see some ballparks where the infield turf runs right to the foul line. For a bunter that’s great because there’s more thick grass for him to drop a bunt on.
When Jimy Williams ran the Red Sox, he wanted the infield grass high and thick because the team didn’t have a lot of range in the infield.
Teams have always doctored their fields to match their talents. Sometimes you can see it change from day to day. If the home team is starting a sinker-ball pitcher, the dirt in front of the plate may be mud and the next day, if they’ve got a power pitcher going, it is hard as a rock.
When Sparky Anderson was in Detroit, he had a bunch of sinker-ball pitchers on his staff, and they used to throw split-fingered fastballs, which generally result in ground balls. His infield didn’t have a lot of range, so depending on who was pitching, they used to make it like quicksand in front of home plate. It was so frustrating to guys like me who hit ground balls. Even in batting practice, someone would hit a ground ball and pfft it would get stuck there. It wouldn’t even make it through the infield.
And one more thing about the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit: Home plate was turned slightly toward right field. They had a short porch out in right field and a lot of left-handed power hitters throughout the years. That enabled those hitters to get on top of the plate and open up a little bit, which helped them pull the ball.
We went many years without even noticing it. But then somebody mentioned it and we saw the tilt—not enough to see on television or from the stands, but if you looked closely, you could see the difference.
At Angels Stadium, when we had a lot of guys who would steal bases, including me, it seems that our second-base bag was about 6 inches closer to first base than it was supposed to be. You would have had to use a surveyor’s transit to see the difference, but that made a big difference at second base. On a bang-bang play, you’d be safe by 6 inches.
We knew nothing about it at the time. The secret came out later, from a groundskeeper who had apparently done the dirty job.
Wind is lousy to play in. Some of us would rather play in the drizzle than the wind. It’s just brutal for fielders on fly balls and pop-ups. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, it can be lousy for hitters, too. Power hitters obviously pay more attention to wind than other guys. It didn’t matter to me on my bunt which way the wind was blowing.
Before they installed the luxury boxes high above home plate at Fenway Park, there was a jet stream to center field. I remember playing second base on a hot and windy summer day with a southeast wind blowing straight out. You could see the ball go by, pick up speed, and just fly out of there like a space shuttle taking off.
Even today Fenway can play real big or real small. Early in the season, when the east wind is blowing in, it is a big ballpark; someone can crush a ball and it goes nowhere.
Watch the flags around the stadium. For hitters the ideal condition at Fenway is when the wind is blowing straight out. If the wind is blowing straight in from center field, it’s a pitcher’s day.
When the wind comes in, blowing from left to right, that’s good for left-handed hitters; balls are going to carry out to the bull pen. They need all the help they can get because it’s pretty deep out there. You almost never see wind from right to left at Fenway. And there is a swirling wind, which is hard to describe. In some places the wind bounces off certain parts of the ballpark and actually carries the ball better in the direction opposite that of the wind.
“Ninety feet between bases is perhaps as close as man has ever come to perfection.”
PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING BASEBALL COLUMNIST RED SMITH
If you look carefully, you can sometimes see some pretty unusual goings-on in the dugout: from rally caps to a player being tied to a post with trainer’s tape.
Many times silliness is a sign of boredom. In addition to the nine players in the lineup, sitting on the bench are backup players and perhaps some starting pitchers who are not due to be working for another three or four days. As a result there are all kinds of different mind-sets down there. There are guys who are totally into the game because they are playing in it, and there are backup players who are trying to stay involved as much as they can in case they are called on to come in.
And then there are the starting pitchers who know they are not going to be in the game. They are the ones you’ll see carrying on conversations with the fans, fooling around with supplies from the trainer’s kit, and otherwise doing whatever they can get away with. Pedro Martínez, as an example, can’t keep still. He’s the kind of guy who would like to be out there every day. The four days between starts drive him crazy. When we put the cameras on him in the dugout, he always seemed to be doing something.
By the way, when teammates taped Pedro to a post in 1999, that didn’t sit well with the manager at the time, Jimy Williams. But what was he going to do? Cut Pedro and Nomar loose?
Rally caps are something else—it’s just a bunch of guys trying to get involved, hoping to change momentum in the game by flipping their hats inside out or something like that.
The point is that every dugout is different; it depends on the personalities of the players. If you look in dugouts in some places, there’s nobody there. They are up in the clubhouse eating or watching the game on TV. Most managers hate that, and some have rules against it.
If you watch the dugout carefully, you can tell a little bit about the team by the players’ body language. If you saw Pedro getting taped up, there’s a pretty good chance the Red Sox were winning that game. When a team is having a bad day, you will see guys sitting there stunned. And you can sometimes read on their faces which players are having a good day and which are not. If you see a jovial dugout, they are winning because not too many managers are going to put up with happy faces if the team is getting its collective ass kicked.
After they get back to the dugout, some players run into the clubhouse to watch their at bat on videotape. They might be looking at what the pitches were, what the sequence was, or the mechanics of their swing. They also can punch up an at bat from the last time they faced this particular pitcher, a week ago, or a year ago. And players—and coaches—could be studying the pitcher trying to pick something up. Is he tipping off his intention to throw a breaking ball? Is there something he does that lets you know if he’s going to throw to first base instead of home?
Remy Says: Watch This
Playing in the Rain
In rainy conditions the advantage is always to the hitter. Even though you see the batter at the plate with water streaming down from his helmet, if he puts the bat on the ball, anything could happen. The ball skips through the infield quicker. And if a fielder picks up the ball, it’s wet, which makes it difficult to throw with accuracy.
Rem Dawg Remembers
All Eyes on the Field
I remember manager Dick Williams used to walk up and down the Angels dugout during the game, and sometimes he would look at a player on the bench and ask, “How many outs are there?” Or, “What’s the count?” And the player had better know; Williams wanted him involved.
Most designated hitters will go into the clubhouse instead of sitting on the bench through the whole game. They might watch a videotape of their last at bat. They might ride a stationary bike to stay loose. Or they might have someone in the clubhouse throw tape balls so they can swing and stay loose.