Monday, April 27, 2009
Ballparks graph
Posted by Dave StudemanHere's a fantastic visual display of ballparks by Jeremy Greenhouse. Jeremy has plotted the dimensions of all major league ballparks onto a standard ballpark diagram, and added "box-whisker" graphs at each dimension to show how much ballparks vary at different parts of the stadium.
You can see how ballparks are narrower in straightaway center, vary more in the alleys, then come closer down the lines. Plus, note the differences in the "boxes" (the "inner" quartiles) and the wider "whiskers" (the outer quartiles) in key dimensions. For instance, it looks like just-left-of-center is fairly standard at about 395 feet, but a few ballparks go way beyond to 430 feet.
Well, just look at it and you'll see what I mean. Excellent graphic.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.