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Huskee11

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Didnt Ruth play at the Polo Grounds and it was like 460 in center field?

Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. The House that Ruth built. Ruth played 3 seasons at the Polo Grounds, and hit 54 and 59 homers there in two of the years.

Almost impossible to hit one out of the Polo Grounds to center field. Most baseball fans have seen replays of Willie Mays catch of a Vic Wertz drive to center in the 1954 World Series, one of the greatest catches ever. That was at the Polo Grounds.

But, the dimensions down the lines were very short. 257 feet to right, maybe 275 to left. Bobby Thomsen`s "shot heard round the world" at the Polo Grounds in 1951 probably didn`t travel much more than 300 - 320 feet. Also, there was an overhang for the second deck so a fly ball didn`t even have to travel that far. Saw the Mets play there a couple of times against my favorite team, the Braves, and my favorite player, Hank Aaron.

Both Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds were very deep in center. For home runs, both stadiums favored dead pull hitters. Yankee Stadium was a better hitters` ballpark for lefties like Ruth, Gehrig and Maris. Not sure it did DiMaggio any favors.

Interesting how the old ballparks in the heart of the city were configured. They worked with the space they had.
 

JordyG

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Yes. Ruth played at the Polo grounds while Yankee stadium was being built. The centerfield fence was 455 at the Polo Grounds, but even further at the original Yankee Stadium at 490.
Yeah, and in the Polo Grounds about 280 at the left field pole and 260 the right. Yankee stadium may have been 490 in center at the time (with the monuments on the field!), but left center was 500! No wonder at one time the Yankee's were looking to trade Joe D. for Ted. Long fly balls for Joe went to die for him out there. Joe's HR totals were deflated because of it.

Hard to remember now that baseball was once the king sport in this country.
 

MilfordHusky

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Actually, the original Yankee Stadium was 281' to Left and 295' to Right. But left-center cut out sharply, while right-center was a relatively shorter distance. Dead center was 490'.
The Yankee Stadium dimensions of the late 1950s to early 1970s or so:

Left field line: 302 (with a low wall)

Left field bullpen: 402

Left center: 457

Dead center: 461 (with a very high wall)

Right field bullpen 344

Right field line 296 (with a low wall)
 
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For those Red Sox fans that insist the Red Sox are as good or better than the Yankees remember if the Sox win the next 18 World Series in a row they can only TIE the Yankees at 27!
The Yankees have been in the post season 51 times! 20 more than next best!
 
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Almost impossible to hit one out of the Polo Grounds to center field. Most baseball fans have seen replays of Willie Mays catch of a Vic Wertz drive to center in the 1954 World Series, one of the greatest catches ever. That was at the Polo Grounds.
.

Ironically catching the ball over your shoulder while running at full speed isn't that difficult. WR in football do it all the time. What made that catch great was that Willy had to judge the balls trajectory right after it was hit because didn't have the option of tuning around to track it as he was running . Of course you have to add the speed Mays had that allowed him to cover that much ground. The catch itself wasn't that hard. It was getting to the right spot in time to make the catch that was.
 
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Just as the right field bullpens were installed in Fenway for ted Williams.


Today's yankee stadium is a bandbox and stadiums like it are in large part responsible for the explosion of home runs in baseball. But I take exception to those who, since I was 10, loved to point out the short right field corner in the original Yankee Stadium as some sort of evidence that it was a home run park. Actually the right field foul pole was 296 feet (302 at Fenway) from home and in straight away right field it was 367 (380 in Fenway). Right center was 407 (380 in Fenway).

As for the rest, there was no left center field in Fenway and almost anyone could play left field at Fenway because they could stand 30 feet behind the shortstop and if a ball went over their head they could just turn around and get the carom off the wall. :p

The figures I always wanted to see but which for some reason were never available were the square footage of fair territory in each of the stadiums.

The original Yankee Stadium, and it's 1970's renovated version, were both pitcher's ballparks (As per Baseball-Reference.com when compared to outcomes in other ballparks in their day).
The new Yankee Stadium is ranked as the 6th most offensive advantageous ballpark to play in this year. Fenway is 7th. Neither comes close to Colorado nor Arizona.
Surprisingly, the Houston ballpark gives the pitcher the greatest advantage (and by a wide margin).
 

pinotbear

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For those Red Sox fans that insist the Red Sox are as good or better than the Yankees remember if the Sox win the next 18 World Series in a row they can only TIE the Yankees at 27!
The Yankees have been in the post season 51 times! 20 more than next best!

Ya keep consoling y'self with all that ancient history, yer gonna start sounding like a Tennessee fan!:p
 

oldude

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One of my fondest memories at the old Yankee Stadium happened in the late sixties. My family and I were sitting in the left field bleachers. By the late sixties the Yankees were a shell of their former greatness, and that was truer of no one more than Mickey Mantle who I idolized growing up.

The Mick would hobble up to home plate on two bum knees like a 90 year old man. But he still swung the bat as hard as anyone in Baseball.

On this particular day he hit a line drive over the shortstop's head for what looked like a single from where I sat. One of the really cool things about sitting in the bleachers is that you see the ball come off the bat before you hear the sound of the bat hitting the ball. A split second after I saw the ball headed over the shortstop, I heard the loudest crack of the bat on a ball I had ever heard.

The ball just kept going in the air towards the gap in left center. It finally hit the ground several feet short of the 463 mark and with a giant bounce, hopped over the high wall into the stands.

I immediately looked back to the base path and there was Mantle, on two bum knees, rounding 2nd base and heading for third where the umpire stopped him and sent him back to 2nd base with a ground rule double. Bad legs and all, Mantle was running as hard as his battered old body would allow, trying for an inside-the-park HR.

A lot of fans, myself included, have always wondered just how good Mantle would have been had he not suffered several devastating knee injuries during his career.
 

Dillon77

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One of my fondest memories at the old Yankee Stadium happened in the late sixties. My family and I were sitting in the left field bleachers. By the late sixties the Yankees were a shell of their former greatness, and that was truer of no one more than Mickey Mantle who I idolized growing up.

The Mick would hobble up to home plate on two bum knees like a 90 year old man. But he still swung the bat as hard as anyone in Baseball.

On this particular day he hit a line drive over the shortstop's head for what looked like a single from where I sat. One of the really cool things about sitting in the bleachers is that you see the ball come off the bat before you hear the sound of the bat hitting the ball. A split second after I saw the ball headed over the shortstop, I heard the loudest crack of the bat on a ball I had ever heard.

The ball just kept going in the air towards the gap in left center. It finally hit the ground several feet short of the 463 mark and with a giant bounce, hopped over the high wall into the stands.

I immediately looked back to the base path and there was Mantle, on two bum knees, rounding 2nd base and heading for third where the umpire stopped him and sent him back to 2nd base with a ground rule double. Bad legs and all, Mantle was running as hard as his battered old body would allow, trying for an inside-the-park HR.

A lot of fans, myself included, have always wondered just how good Mantle would have been had he not suffered several devastating knee injuries during his career.

My dad, who lived on the Grand Concourse for awhile when he was growing up, brought me to the Stadium from our Long Island home in the early 60s and I picked up a bobble-head doll. I went home and promptly painted "7" on the back. I still have it. I can roll off the names and numbers of each Yankee starter from back then, but no on compared to the Mick.

Interestingly, my other favorite athlete was Bill Bradley (I wore #42 -- which he wore at Princeton -- as often as I could.) Maybe I was drawn to the fact that while a good athlete, he was not as naturally gifted as many and worked tirelessly to get to his level. Also, the whole scholar-athlete thing.

Mick, of course, was no saint and that probably also led to a shortened career. But they did have one thing in common...they loved the sports they played and competed with blinders when they were in their games.
 

Waquoit

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That was quite a celebration the Yankees had for coming in second the other day.
 

Dillon77

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And I read somewhere else that Judge and the Babe were the two to accomplish it when they were 25 or younger.
(Babe hit 54 homers in 1920.)

One other interesting fact about the "one and only" Babe Ruth. He was.
As of 2013 when this article was published, according to Sports Illustrated
"His real name was George Herman Ruth, as was his father’s. He is the only player with that last name in major league history."

Here's the entire article.
99 Cool Facts About Babe Ruth

Thought both Red Sox and Yankee fans would enjoy reading about the player who primarily spent his career with these two teams.
 
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Ya keep consoling y'self with all that ancient history, yer gonna start sounding like a Tennessee fan!:p

Pinotbear---it always amazes me when Sox fans yell The Yankees Suck! If that's true the fans want the Sox to suck as much as the Yankees do! The Yankees are so far ahead of the Sox in WS titles, LCS titles, and Division titles the Sox can never catch up!
Another reason the Yankees are the best franchise is they are the only one that still has Old Timers Day to honor their past! No other team has that!
 

huskeynut

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As a kid, my father took me to several games at the House That Ruth Built. The two vivid memories I have are of Jimmy Piersal going behind the monuments in center field during a game. He was with Cleveland then.

The other was Mantle hitting a ball off the top of the stadium in right field. We were sitting down in the right field corner by the foul pole.
 

Waquoit

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Pinotbear---it always amazes me when Sox fans yell The Yankees Suck! If that's true the fans want the Sox to suck as much as the Yankees do! The Yankees are so far ahead of the Sox in WS titles, LCS titles, and Division titles the Sox can never catch up!

That's so Yankee fan. Answering an accusation of living in the past by doubling down on the past.
 

pinotbear

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Pinotbear---it always amazes me when Sox fans yell The Yankees Suck! If that's true the fans want the Sox to suck as much as the Yankees do! The Yankees are so far ahead of the Sox in WS titles, LCS titles, and Division titles the Sox can never catch up!
Another reason the Yankees are the best franchise is they are the only one that still has Old Timers Day to honor their past! No other team has that!

Speaking of Old Timers, the only Yankees who remember winning a Series are old timers. Wasn't the last title in 2000?:rolleyes:
 

oldude

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That was quite a celebration the Yankees had for coming in second the other day.
So remind me, who was it that won the season series this year between the Red Sox (the best team that money can buy) and the young Bronx Bombers?
 

oldude

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Speaking of Old Timers, the only Yankees who remember winning a Series are old timers. Wasn't the last title in 2000?:rolleyes:
Just for the purposes of clarification the answer is 2009. By the way, it's too bad that the Red Sox can't afford to play in a major league ballpark. ;)
 
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Speaking of Old Timers, the only Yankees who remember winning a Series are old timers. Wasn't the last title in 2000?:rolleyes:


pinotbear- - - At least Yankee fans HAVE a past to look back on! The Sox NOT SO MUCH!
The Sox should drop to their collective knees and thank the Yankees for giving them the 2004 LCS! In those last 4 games the Yankees had an obscene # of runners in scoring position that one hit could have ended the series! And either team that won the American League LCS was going to sweep the NL and win the WS! The REAL WS was the Red Sox vs the Yankees!
By the way, how did the Sox NOT win the WS several times with the best team in Baseball from 1967 to 1980?
Jim Lonborg, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Dewey Evans, Carl Yastremski, Rico Petrocelli, George Scott, Reggie Smith, Tony Conigliaro (before the beaning), Dennis Eckersley, Bill Lee, Luis Tiant, Mike Torrez, Rick Burleson, Butch Hopson, Jerry Remy, Bernie Carbo, Sparky Lyle, Cecil Cooper, Roger Moret, Orlando Cepeda, Tommy Harper, John Tudor, Bob Ojeda, Tony Perez, and many others!
 

meyers7

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Junior circuit fans.

thats-cute-meme.png
 

JRRRJ

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Just as the right field bullpens were installed in Fenway for ted Williams.

Today's yankee stadium is a bandbox and stadiums like it are in large part responsible for the explosion of home runs in baseball. But I take exception to those who, since I was 10, loved to point out the short right field corner in the original Yankee Stadium as some sort of evidence that it was a home run park. Actually the right field foul pole was 296 feet (302 at Fenway) from home and in straight away right field it was 367 (380 in Fenway). Right center was 407 (380 in Fenway).

As for the rest, there was no left center field in Fenway and almost anyone could play left field at Fenway because they could stand 30 feet behind the shortstop and if a ball went over their head they could just turn around and get the carom off the wall. :p

The figures I always wanted to see but which for some reason were never available were the square footage of fair territory in each of the stadiums.

Then this is your site: Clem's Baseball ~ Fenway Park

Use the breadcrumb menu at the upper left to get to the list of all stadia.

You can even see the changes in each stadium over time.

BTW, the shape of the Polo Grounds field was wierd after 1923! Playing the OF there was a real task!
 
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JordyG

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Love Judge. Love some players. To hell with the Yankees.

However, because of that don't think I'm some wayward, misplaced BSox fan. For me it's to hell with the Yankees just after the BSox.
 

JordyG

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The Yankee Stadium dimensions of the late 1950s to early 1970s or so:

Left field line: 302 (with a low wall)

Left field bullpen: 402

Left center: 457

Dead center: 461 (with a very high wall)

Right field bullpen 344

Right field line 296 (with a low wall)
Of course you're correct.
 

eebmg

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Love Judge. Love some players. To hell with the Yankees.

However, because of that don't think I'm some wayward, misplaced BSox fan. For me it's to hell with the Yankees just after the BSox.


It was easy to hate the old Yankees where they tried (and often succeeded) in buying championships but this young team built primarily through the farm system (more top prospects coming) is really a treat to watch imho.
 

JordyG

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It was easy to hate the old Yankees where they tried (and often succeeded) in buying championships but this young team built primarily through the farm system (more top prospects coming) is really a treat to watch imho.
Let's go Mets!
 

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