Baseball is a sport rooted in rules and regulations. Everything in the game is standardized, planned, and coordinated, based on a guideline or precedent. Everything, that is, but the park itself: outfield sizes and wall heights vary across the entire league. There are 30 MLB stadiums. No two of them are alike.
The inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies of pro baseball fields have fascinated me for years. In this piece, the first in a series on the irregular outfields of baseball and my first original for the DataFace, I look at the seven different types of MLB parks, what makes them distinct, and where the varying sizes in their outfields come from.
