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View Full Version : The Solution: Move the Fences Back.



Spurminator
12-03-2004, 02:20 PM
We may never find an adequate way to prevent steroids from being used in MLB. With all of the new advances in steroid science, they will always be one step ahead of whatever testing can be done. Thus, I propose a new means of attacking steroid use in pro Baseball.

Move the fences back. WAY back.

I'm talking 475 feet to center field and 375 feet on the baselines. Somewhere in the late 90s, baseball players, owners and fans got gargantuan hard-ons for homeruns, and it showed in the way new ballparks were built. I think this attitude towards the longball contributed to the apparent rise in steroid use.

So we move the fences back, and we dare these needle popping, cream rubbing pricks to try and hit 50 homeruns a year.

With greater outfield space, it is now more difficult to defend the line drive. This will benefit pure hitters like Ichiro, while many of the "bombs" by hitters like Giambi will simply be caught near the warning track. Now there is not as much benefit to juicing up your muscles to hit the long ball, because you're better off having speed to leg out a triple on a line drive to the gap.

It's true that this will change the game... and maybe baseball will lose some of its fans as a result. But I'd rather see Ichiro hit .450 as a result of a shift in MLB park philosophy than see every hitter in the next 10 years who hits 50 homeruns doubted because of the faults of others.

King
12-03-2004, 02:52 PM
I'd like to see them moved back from a 308 down the left field line at Minute Maid, or the 310 down right at NYY, but 375/475 is overkill. Maybe 325/410.

Spurminator
12-03-2004, 02:57 PM
Problem is, today's sluggers can hit it out all of our ballparks with consistency. A few feet on the most infamous hitters' parks isn't going to persuade change. I'm talking about an overhaul of the way the game is played. If you make homeruns a rarity, teams will lean more towards pure hitting.

My dimensions were a guess, but baseball records homerun distances.... So they can shift the fences back based on how far "X" percent of the homeruns travelled.

whottt
12-03-2004, 03:07 PM
Spurm, I am all for that kinda...as long as Fenway and Yankee stadium are the first two to do so...it's funny that "hitters parks" weren't a problem until other teams besides the Yanks and Sox started to build them. But there have alwas kind of been hitters parks depending on the type of hitter... the really old parks had some even stranger dimenssions...like 275 ft corner fence with 470 CF...a pull hitter would still excell in those parks...and a true master of the bat would be able to hit for incredible power as well as incredibly high average...

But I've always had a problems with people railing against hitters parks...Most of the triple crowns, 400 seasons, 60 home runs seasons, 500 hr club...have mostly been by left handed batters in Fenway or Yankee staduim....the two stadiums with the shortest RF in in the AL and MLB for much of the past 80 years...so if we are going to do this those guys need to be #1 and #2....

And #3 needs to be PacBell...the so called "pitchers park" that just happens to have the shortest RF in all of MLB(just ahead of the Yanks and Sox)..and where Barry Bonds just happend to start hitting new career plateaus in HR and OBP, every year since his first year in that park(at the age of 35).


There could be a negative side effect of this though...if you make it harder to hit HR it could make players even more determined to use roids...it could put even more pressure on clean players to use them...

I think the best solution is an automatic life time ban for using them and an expulsion of their hitting stats from recorded MLB history...and it needs to begin in the minors...Lifetime ban with no second chance...

ducks
12-03-2004, 03:13 PM
leave the fences alone

movign them back will make players want to do drugs

give the small guy a chance to hit one out

test for drugs every 2 months

Spurminator
12-03-2004, 03:19 PM
No amount of drugs would make a hitter strong enough to hit 50 home runs in big enough ball park. They can try all they want to juice up, but after they've hit .200 with 25 home runs for a few seasons, they'll either be in the minors or they'll try a new approach.

whottt
12-03-2004, 03:23 PM
No amount of drugs would make a hitter strong enough to hit 50 home runs in big enough ball park. They can try all they want to juice up, but after they've hit .200 with 25 home runs for a few seasons, they'll either be in the minors or they'll try a new approach.

That's a good point...but if you do that you destroy the HR....the thing that pretty much put MLB on the world map and one of the more exciting aspects of the game...it might be a case of cutting off your nose despite your face there...

The Sosa and McGwire HR chase of 98 saved MLB from a slow death from fall out over the 94 strike...You can't kill the HR...we can't go back to the deadball era...it'd be like trying to go back to radio as the dominant form of mass media...

Spurminator
12-03-2004, 03:28 PM
I think after the initial shock of seeing the league leader hitting 30 homeruns, baseball's fans will come back. I don't think it's popularity would be any more threatened than it is right now in the wake of tarnished records and awards.

Fans need to be reawakened to the excitement of a triple anyway. Moving the fences back would increase extra base hits, bases loaded situations, and strategy. As cool as a homerun is for 5 seconds, I think rallies sustain the excitement much more.

whottt
12-03-2004, 03:31 PM
I think after the initial shock of seeing the league leader hitting 30 homeruns, baseball's fans will come back. I don't think it's popularity would be any more threatened than it is right now in the wake of tarnished records and awards.

Fans need to be reawakened to the excitement of a triple anyway. Moving the fences back would increase extra base hits, bases loaded situations, and strategy. As cool as a homerun is for 5 seconds, I think rallies sustain the excitement much more.

I personally wouldn't mind it...and I think most purists would be excited over it...but it's going to register a big fat zero on the richter scale of the casual fan IMO...You are real baseball fan so you see the benefits of it...but the casual fan just wants to see a lot of home runs...they have no appetite for a pitchers duel...and the decline of MLB in popularity to the NFL and even the NBA from the 60's through the late 80's backs this up...the only thing that has even come close to stemming the tide has been the offensive explosion and the big HR duels.

I mean there's a reason everyone knows Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds while most have forgotten Tris Speaker and Honus Wagner...

Spurminator
12-03-2004, 03:40 PM
To be honest? Fine by me.

I've never been one to care about the success of the League over the Game.

Preferential Superstar treatment is good for the NBA, but I'd get rid of it if I could and fuck the consequences to the League. Same with MLB and homeruns.

As long as it doesn't kill the league, which I doubt it would, I'm okay with changes that cause the ADD-riddled, Homer-crazy "casual fan" to quit watching. Fuck 'em.

I really don't think they make up a high percentage of the fan base, though. If the only thing about baseball that excites someone is the home run, they probably don't watch much baseball anyway.