Thursday, September 12, 2013

Traditionalists: should non-uniform playing areas be mandatory?

Why leave it to chance?  During the hated era of dual purpose football/baseball stadiums many parks were at least symmetrical.  A uniform playing area includes the home run distance and wall height being the same in all directions in all parks.

Mike Schmidt played all his regular season games, home and road, in symmetrical parks.  Phillies fans must have been so bored watching him.  Meanwhile Jim Rice was playing his home games in Fenway Park in Boston and some road games in Yankee Stadium in New York.  Red Sox fans must have been much more satisfied.  Right?  Although, wouldn't Red Sox fans get bored seeing the same playing area game after game?  Shouldn't that vary too?  Give the home fans some variety, right?

The pejorative traditionalist description of choice is "cookie-cutter".  The extent of the intellectual argument defending non-uniform playing areas always descends to "cookie-cutter".

So, what if multiple teams decide to have playing areas which are identical?  Should the Major Baseball League allow that?  How about if those playing areas are grossly misshaped?  Would that make them acceptable?

Suppose that in a desperate attempt to appeal to local fans the Tampa team built a new park that looked just like Fenway Park?  Would that be OK?  If not why not?

If not because it would be copying another teams's design, then the answer appears to be that non-uniform playing areas should be mandatory, right?

But how non-uniform?  If there is virtue in a lack of conformity and increased randomness, would greater differences be even better?  Shouldn't there be defined minimum differences?  Otherwise even non-uniform playing areas might appear, well, uniform.  Think how yucky that would be, traditionalists.

3 comments:

Cliff Blau said...

No, they've never been mandatory before; I don't see any reaason to change that.

jimbobjoeblow said...

Who is this jackass?


Kenneth Matinale said...

Are you suggesting that I am a jackass or the person who wrote this comment:

"No, they've never been mandatory before; I don't see any reason to change that."?

He's actually a very good baseball researcher and a friend.