Baseball on the brain

In addition to reading his Newsweek column about my friend Dan's baseball and science book, this afternoon I read George Will's baseball column from yesterday's Houston Chronicle. Will says "Today, baseball arrives in the nick of time to serve an urgent national need. It gives Americans something to think about other than superdelegates."

Agreed. And it's only fair that the blog focus on the topic at hand.

So, today, while simultaneously working and paying attention to the Nationals' win against the Phillies, I stumbled across this interesting article about the dimensions of the new ballpark and exactly which hitters it might benefit. I am struck by a couple of things: First, that the dimensions of the new ballpark really aren't all that much smaller than RFK (Left field at RFK 335 ft vs. 336 ft at Nats Park; Left-center 380 vs 377; Center field 410 vs 403; Right-center 380 vs 370; Right field 335 vs 335); and second, the frequency with which well-hit fly balls at RFK fell in for hits (100 of 187, or 55.2%). The park just seemed a lot worse than it was, I guess -- and perception became reality.

Oh, and everyone should buy Dan's book.