I know about Coors Field and the fact that it is a hitter's park, but why is it? Is it do to do with the air there or the actual field itself? Because it doesn't seem much shorter than most of the others.
Two reasons. One is the thin mountain air. The ball really does fly there. The lowered wind resistance and low humidity means the ball goes a lot farther, and there are more homeruns.
The second reason is that the park is huge. In order to try and combat the thin air, the fences were pushed out about 10 feet further than most MLB parks. Straight-away center-field is 415 feet, while the deepest point is 424 feet. Normally, this would make it a pitcher's ballpark, but this difference isn't enough to keep the ball from flying out. The difference *is* enough for many would-be fly-outs to drop for hits in the cavernous outfield.
This is why playing at Coors field is called "baseball on the moon."
I once saw a simulation that showed that a ball hit 400 feet at seas level will go a whopping 480 feet at Coors. Wow. That's under highly idealized conditions, though.
In reality, the effect will be to add around 7% to the distance a ball is hit. Not too bad, either. And curveballs will have about 25% less movement.
Last edited by Arlo on Fri Apr 26, 2002 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I heard on ESPN that Coors Field is keeping all game baseballs in a humidor before the game to keep balls from drying out and shrinking. And the process is sanctioned by MLB.
Interesting story - thanks for the heads-up! I can't imagine this having much effect compared with the thin air, though.
By the way, one further effect that wasn't mentioned yet: hit balls travel faster, knocking several feet off outfielders' range, thereby resulting in quite a few more hits.
So what does everyone think of the humidor idea? Does it make sense, or should baseball be played without any artificial modifications?
i read that humidifier thing too. here's what i saw at RotoWorld:
There were just 9.8 runs scored per game in Coors Field during April. That's down from 15.1 runs per game over the previous seven years. This trend will probably continue, but it should not be expected that run scoring will stay this low all season. Deadened balls will hurt home-run totals, but they won't change the fact that it's very difficult to throw breaking pitches in Colorado. Run scoring should remain higher in Coors than in other fields, just not to the extreme level of the past. There is also the chance that the Rockies will stop using the humidor should attendence decline.
So it looks like the humidifier effect is for real, too bad for rockies hitters, it obviously hurts the Coors lightweights Uribe, Ortiz, etc. as well as the big guns, but I wonder if this add any real value to Hampton, Thomson (who's hot recently), and Neagle?
I just heard about that humidor effect today, and also heard a possible concern... injuries to ?pitchers.
Most people have heard of slight variations in a pitcher's delivery ending up in grievous injury. Dizzy Dean tried to pitch with a broken toe and ended up destroying his arm and ending his career. So what effect would a heavier ball have on a pitcher, especially a high-velocity fireballer? This seems legitimate to me, since a denser ball would necessarily be heavier, and I know how easy it is to wrench your arm out of joint if you throw a ball after it's been sitting outside in the rain all night. What do you think, and do you think Coors officials thought about this
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by Bender » Fri Apr 26, 2002 9:35 am 
