That was the same day as the opening of Detroit's Navin Field, later known as Tiger Stadium, and just five days after the sinking of the Titanic. The 35, seat ballpark was built in the Fenway section of Boston, an area known for its many fens, or marshes. Fire laws in the 's ended that type of overcrowding and the biggest postwar crowd was 36, for a game against the Cleveland Indians in T hey won one of the most memorable game in World Series history, on October 21, , when Carlton Fisk ended Game 6 against the Cincinnati Reds with a 12th-inning home run over the 37 foot tall Green Monster just inside the left field foul pole.
It would have been a dramatic shot in any park, but hitting it over the Green Monster made it that much better. A foot screen caught balls which cleared the wall until the Red Sox built seats atop it in The ladder once used to retrieve balls from the screen still remains.
T he Green Monster features a manually operated scoreboard that displays division standings, the line score for the game and scores from other MLB games.
In Morse code down the side of the scoreboard are the initials of Thomas A. Yawkey and Jean R. Yawkey, who owned the Red Sox from The sign says the Green Monster is feet from home plate. It's It has been green only since Before that, Fenway's left-field wall was covered with advertisements. The original foot wall was made of wood, which burned along with the rest of the park in a January 5, , fire. The second, foot wall was tin over wooden railroad ties. The current hard plastic wall, also 37 feet high, was erected in T he bullpens were moved from fair territory to right field in , which made the right-field fence closer and, consequently, helped Red Sox star Ted Williams hit more home runs.
The Red Sox became the third-to-last major league team to play home night games when lights went up at Fenway on June 13, A message board was installed above the center-field bleachers in , and private suites were added to the roof in A glassed-in seating section called the Club renamed the.
The primary ones are pitch speed and bat speed. But the thin air in Colorado leads to balls being hit further. Swirling winds in Chicago can encourage or suppress home runs depending on the day. And the steady atmosphere of a domed stadium allows the Toronto Blue Jays to tee off at the Rogers Centre. What follows is a list of the nine parks in baseball whose environments encourage home runs based on small dimensions, or relatively small dimensions when other factors are considered.
Certainly not the prettiest ballpark in the major leagues, Tropicana Field is one of the strangest stadiums in professional sports. Already outdated after it was built, the Trop has been widely criticized throughout baseball for its strange features, including its white roof which makes it almost impossible to see popups. The dome also boasts some of the shortest distances down the line in the major leagues; the left field corner sits just feet from home plate, and the right field corner just The wall rounds to around in the power alleys, meaning that only dead-pull hitters gain a power advantage in the Trop.
The building in St. Petersburg may have shown poor results for home run park factor in the past few years, but its fences down the line are surely among the shortest in baseball. With the exception of Pesky Pole in Fenway Park's right field, the Giants' right field foul pole, which overlooks McCovey Cove, sits just feet away from home plate. The short distance is accommodated for by a foot wall. Additionally, the right center field alley stretches to a distance of feet, the furthest in baseball by 31 feet.
Kudos to the Giants for shortening up that wall so that more balls could fly into the water. On paper, Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark appears to be a standard issue cookie cutter park with short dimensions.
For each corner and power alley, the stadium's dimensions fall within the top ten shortest distances in the major leagues. It's surprising then, that the ballpark would have a much higher home run factor for right field than left; though both are way above average. This created the signature feature of Fenway Park that almost everyone who pays any attention to baseball recognizes: the famous "Green Monster.
Another intriguing aspect of this quirky ballpark is the uncertainty over the true left field dimension. Officially it was feet from on, but blueprints and independent estimates suggested feet or less. In the Red Sox changed the distance marker from "" to " In the bullpens were moved from along the foul lines to in front of the right field bleachers, which shortened the distance out there by about 23 feet.
This area of the ballpark was known as "Williamsburg" after the Hall of Fame slugger Ted Williams, who hit home runs in his career, tied with Willie McCovey for 12th place all time. If Williams had not served his country in the armed forces in two wars -- World War II and Korea -- he would almost certainly have hit at least more homers, and possibly more than Babe Ruth's lifetime total of For many years after the light towers were added in , Fenway Park remained virtually unchanged.
In , a new electronic scoreboard was added in the rear corner of the bleachers, and about seats were added to the roof near the right field foul pole. Also, a second mezzanine level was added around the infield. Despite all this charm, for 86 years there was a dark side to Fenway Park, the failure of the Red Sox to win any World Series for over eight decades after the "Curse of the Bambino," as in Babe Ruth.
Red Sox fans have endured some of the highest emotional peaks -- such as Carlton Fisk's game-winning home run over the Green Monster in Game 6 of the World Series -- and some of the bleakest moments of despair -- such as Game 7 of the AL divisional playoffs when the Red Sox frittered away a four run lead against the Yankees. And then after losing the first three games of the ALCS in , the Red Sox overcame their ill-starred legacy and finally achieved triumph against all odds.
They won the AL East by a wide margin in , and sailed through the postseason series, beating the L. Dodgers in the World Series, in yet another triumph.
It's a veritable dynasty. The elongated shape of Fenway Park was well suited for football. After spending just one year in Braves Field, the new Boston Braves football team changed their name to the Redskins a close match to the name of their new hosts! During the s, discussions about replacing Fenway Park got underway. They wanted to build a virtual carbon copy of the original ballpark next door, complete with a new "green monster" in left field, but with a bigger second deck.
The Save Fenway Park citizen movement stoutly resisted the proposal, however. After John Henry bought the Red Sox from the Yawkey family in , it was decided to renovate Fenway Park, which will therefore live on for the foreseeable future.
The renovations began in early by installing a new section of high-priced seats on top of the Green Monster. Since it hangs over the sidewalk supported by steel beams positioned at a 45 degree angle , they had to get a special easement from the City of Boston.
Some purists complained, but it's only three rows deep and really doesn't detract from the classic Fenway setting. In addition, two extra rows of box seats were squeezed in behind the diamond, and a new concession area was added in back of the right field bleachers, where a run-down garage had been previously.
Leftfield is slightly deeper than right but the wall in right is 16 feet high. In its early days, the Wrigley outfield was a janky mess. The former Weeghman Park changed its dimensions frequently as new stands were built until settling on its current layout in But nobody pays attention to the measurements, anyway.
The walls are extra deep there to account for the way the ball carries at altitude, which cuts down on home runs but leads to an insane number of triples. It would be frustrating if MLB had a bunch of parks like Coors, but one is enough to be a refreshing oddity.
Measurements, in feet L-R, dead center in bold : , , , , , Comerica was built to replace the ancient Tiger Stadium —99 and was originally constructed with a turn-of-the-century oddity: a flagpole in play just left of dead-center, just like at the old park.
But the original configuration had a left-center power alley of an absurd feet, so the fences were brought in prior to the season and the flagpole was taken out of play.
As a result, the field is small enough in the corners that guys can hit a decent number of home runs, but deep enough in the middle for talented centerfielders to be able to show off their range. The outfield is not much bigger than Yankee Stadium but Cincinnati has one thing the Bronx does not: an extra high wall in left. The distances down the lines, to the power alleys and to the deepest part of the park are standard. But the little indentation where the leftfield bullpen is and the tall scoreboard in right-center are nice touches.
Pity the righthanded power hitter who has to play in Cleveland. On the whole, Progressive Field slightly favors hitters over pitchers, but the foot wall in leftfield spells doom for many a ball that would be gone in many other stadiums. That foot wall in right is the fifth-tallest in MLB and serves as a great example of how much the aerodynamics of the baseball can impact the sport. Before balls mysteriously began flying farther , lefties had a very hard time lifting homers over that high boundary.
In , no team hit more homers than the Twins. Lefties Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler hit 32 and 36, respectively. Camden Yards was a trailblazer in the movement toward retro-style parks. One of the old-school features is a big out-of-town scoreboard built into the rightfield wall.
It climbs 21 feet into the air, which makes any ball hit over it and toward the warehouses across the street seem that much more impressive.
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