How to build an MLB Stadium

[pcgd]

How much did Houston bribe baseball to get their joke of a park allowed?

What's the joke?

Insane Short porch.

Pointless Hill in Center

Insane distance to center

Flag Poll in Play

Train

Buzzing Bees.

Keeping dome closed as much as possible.

I the astros and all, but the Ballpark is a bit gimicky.

[HurricaneDavid]

Insane Short porch.

Pointless Hill in Center

Insane distance to center

Flag Poll in Play

Train

Buzzing Bees.

Keeping dome closed as much as possible.

I the astros and all, but the Ballpark is a bit gimicky.

I'm SO sick of hearing about the "short porch in left." The media referenced this "short porch" about a billion times during the playoffs. When have you EVER heard anyone say anything about Oriole Park at Camden Yards having a short porch in RF? The RF foul pole (not "poll", this thread wasn't started by Gallup) at OPCY is 318' from home. The LF foul pole at MMP is 315. RF at Fenway is 302, RF at Yankee is 314, and LF at Yankee is 318. None of those 3 have a 20 foot high wall, either, nor a dome to restrict the flight of the ball.

Train? What newer stadium DOESN'T have a gimmick like that? Warehouse? Pool? Liberty bell? Giant Coke bottle? Giant GLOVE?

Buzzing bees? That has a lot to do building a stadium.

Keeping the dome closed? Nah, 100 degrees and humid with it open makes a lot more sense.

[The_Admiral]

blah blah blah blah yee haw I loooove my Astros

Come on. You gotta admit it's a silly design for a park.

[yh]

Would the MLB even allow this? I thought that all new parks built had to be within a certain set of dimensions set by the MLB offices.

Id much rather see a park like this

LL - 100

LF - 130

LC - 170

CF - 200

RC - 170

RF - 130

RL - 100

75 foot high walls

You know, this brings a great idea to my mind; the Arena Baseball League

Ummmmmm, you've got me thinking now. There just might be something there.

[pcgd]

Insane Short porch.

Pointless Hill in Center

Insane distance to center

Flag Poll in Play

Train

Buzzing Bees.

Keeping dome closed as much as possible.

I the astros and all, but the Ballpark is a bit gimicky.

I'm SO sick of hearing about the "short porch in left." The media referenced this "short porch" about a billion times during the playoffs. When have you EVER heard anyone say anything about Oriole Park at Camden Yards having a short porch in RF? The RF foul pole (not "poll", this thread wasn't started by Gallup) at OPCY is 318' from home. The LF foul pole at MMP is 315. RF at Fenway is 302, RF at Yankee is 314, and LF at Yankee is 318. None of those 3 have a 20 foot high wall, either, nor a dome to restrict the flight of the ball.

Train? What newer stadium DOESN'T have a gimmick like that? Warehouse? Pool? Liberty bell? Giant Coke bottle? Giant GLOVE?

Buzzing bees? That has a lot to do building a stadium.

Keeping the dome closed? Nah, 100 degrees and humid with it open makes a lot more sense.

Wow. Sorry I misspelled Pole. I'll run spell check this time.

Those all have short porches. Yankee Stadium favors left handed bats. Pac Bell favors left handed bats, namely Barry Bonds. Fenway favors the righties a bit. And your right field measurement shoots out immediately to a normal distance. They talk about all three all the time. You just notice the talk about Houston's cause its your team. THe announcers are right, that wall doesn't move in only for the astros. The hill doesn't disappear when the stros are in the field. But to me they are unnecessary elements. If they tried to put that kind of stuff in New Busch I wouldn't be happy about it at all.

The Bees are annoying. I guess that's the point, but its a gimmick.

And they closed it when it was perfectly normal outside. Baseball should be played outdoors. Regardless of how loud your fans get. Personal feelings.

My team's ballpark was a giant donut. Birds fly back and forth after home runs. There is big mac land. They give every other home run a curtain call. Its lame. Oh well. Screw what everyone else thinks.

I never said that other parks weren't gimmicky. Just that Minute Maid is one of the most.

[Camden Crazy]

LOL at HurricaneDavid saying OPACY's B&O Warehouse is a gimmick.

[BBTV]

Well, the Phillies are doing something about their short porch in left.

When planning the design for the park, they conducted wind studies to figure out how balls would carry. However, all of those studies were conducted with the Vet still standing next to the site of the new park! When they tore down the Vet, the wind situation was different, and combined with the already small dimensions, turned the place into a joke of a park. (Not only were the dimensions short, but they mis-labeled the distances on the walls just to make it look legit.)

The idiot Phillie management didn't account for the fact that any adjustments would ever need to be made (I know, the Phillies without a Plan B? Impossible) so now they will have to literally demolish 20 feet worth of left field seats (and destroy the wall, flower bed and all) to move the fence back. Because of the slope of the seats, moving the fences back will also have to increase the height of the wall significantly, so the park will look very different next season. This project will cost millions.

To make matters worse, construction was slated to begin shortly, however the team never filed for the appropriate permits, so it is temporarily on hold. They even messed that up. F the Phillies.

[Pat]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality. I want different parks for each stadium. I love the ivy of Wrigley, the Green Monster of Fenway, and Hill in Houston, the Ocean in San Fran.

I think outfields should have obstacles. Hills, ditches, sanddunes, hell maybe even a stream. That'd spice it up.

[BBTV]

LOL at HurricaneDavid saying OPACY's B&O Warehouse is a gimmick.

Yeah. And the hundered year old Western Supply building in S.D. is just a gimmick too.

Minute Maid Park is a perfect example of what happens when you have no real traditions or history, and just try way to hard to be unique. To the outsider just tuning into a game, the park comes off like a joke, what with the hill, flag pole, trains, etc. Tis a shame too, because I do like the Astros, but that park sucks.

[Moser316]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality. I want different parks for each stadium. I love the ivy of Wrigley, the Green Monster of Fenway, and Hill in Houston, the Ocean in San Fran.

I think outfields should have obstacles. Hills, ditches, sanddunes, hell maybe even a stream. That'd spice it up.

Obstacles? Hardly. Wake me up when the outfields have land mines and bear traps

[BBTV]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality.

The problem is that you can't manufacture personality.

[The_Admiral]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality. I want different parks for each stadium. I love the ivy of Wrigley, the Green Monster of Fenway, and Hill in Houston, the Ocean in San Fran.

I think outfields should have obstacles. Hills, ditches, sanddunes, hell maybe even a stream. That'd spice it up.

"What if the warning track was a warning moat?"

"HE IS GOING BACK, BACK, BACK, and OH, into the moat!"

"Oop, 'gator got him!"

[Redlands, CA]

everyone doesn't like the newbie. ironchefshark has problems with several people i've noticed.

with the fences that long, wouldn't it open the game up for singles and doubles?

[Camden Crazy]

Going back to someone saying OPACY is a gimmick:

The warehouse IS Camden Yards. Look at the place without it:

Plain, nothing special. Also as said above, the history factor which can't be created is also there.

[VitaminD]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality.

The problem is that you can't manufacture personality.

You sure as hell can try.

To quote Hurricane David:

What newer stadium DOESN'T have a gimmick like that? Warehouse? Pool? Liberty bell? Giant Coke bottle? Giant GLOVE?

The pool, bell, bottle and glove don't come into play. Not one bit. However, the arbitrary yellow line in left-center at Minute Maid does, as do the hill, the cheap seats in left field and the funky angles of the outfield wall. It's one thing to have a manual scoreboard and an odd, irregular wall like in Fenway, which was built before superhighways, modern mass transit or modern engineering. It is an entirely different matter when you put up a stadium amidst an ocean of asphalt as they have done in Arlington and Philadelphia and Houston. There is no reason for these quirks other than to give a contrived sense of irregularity.

Back to the original concept of the outfield as big as a national park: plan on having MLB allow for a 4th outfielder to room this massive pasture? With dimensions this big, you'll have far more offense... just not as many homers. Fences that far from home means considerably more outfield to cover, more gaps for extra bases. It's the other half of the Coors Field problem; with thin air, they wanted deep fences. Deep fences led to huge outfield and more room for balls to drop in for hits and line drives to find gaps.

[HurricaneDavid]

Plain, nothing special. Also as said above, the history factor which can't be created is also there.

"History factor?" The warehouse was a half step above being condemed, and nothing but an eyesore in Baltimore until they decided to build a stadium next to it. Pretty similar to the "history factor" of Union Station in Houston.

[rockchalk]

I love the hill, and I love minute maid. I want parks with personality.

The problem is that you can't manufacture personality.

You sure as hell can try.

To quote Hurricane David:

What newer stadium DOESN'T have a gimmick like that? Warehouse? Pool? Liberty bell? Giant Coke bottle? Giant GLOVE?

The pool, bell, bottle and glove don't come into play. Not one bit. However, the arbitrary yellow line in left-center at Minute Maid does, as do the hill, the cheap seats in left field and the funky angles of the outfield wall. It's one thing to have a manual scoreboard and an odd, irregular wall like in Fenway, which was built before superhighways, modern mass transit or modern engineering. It is an entirely different matter when you put up a stadium amidst an ocean of asphalt as they have done in Arlington and Philadelphia and Houston. There is no reason for these quirks other than to give a contrived sense of irregularity.

Exactly. The Royals didn't have a history when they opened their stadium in 1973. They still wanted a gimmick to draw people and let them know where the game was if they saw it on TV. Fountains did the trick, and it's almost impossible to picture the team (however bad it may be) without the water show. Same thing with the Rockies. Coors has a humongous field, but it's basically pretty standard layout wise. They put an enormous scoreboard up and added the Rockpile. Classy (well, not the scoreboard) and still easily identifiable. Honestly, it wouldn't be so bad in Houston if they had the hill with the flagpole, OR the "Crawford Boxes" OR the train, OR a number of other things, but the fact they have them all is just cheesy.

As for dimensions, give me a park designed like old Yankee Stadium anyday...

RF Corner-296

RF-344

RCF-407

CF-461

LCF (Death Valley)-457

LF-402

LF Corner-301

[Cyclopsis Joe]

Well, the problem with Houston is, they have such a weird layout for where it's a Homerun and where it isn't, it messes up the game.

Every where else, you hit it over the wall. (except Boston, of course).

But at Houston, you only have to get it in that little sweet zone they have.

[Jigga]

It has come to my attention that perhaps the game could use some more exciting play.  This is why if I were managing a ballclub, the dimensions would look like this.

LL - 400

LF - 430

LC - 470

CF - 500

RC - 470

RF - 430

RL - 400

25 foot walls, 15 foot plexiglas over 10 foot padded.  Build the team around pitching, speed, and defense, and you might have a winner.  Couldn't you see the crowds coming out to see a nice 1-0 game?  Besides, the triple is the most exciting play in baseball.

I really hope you're being sarcastic. There is no way in hell I would come to the ballpark for 1-0 games built around pitching, defense, and speed. That's one of the main reasons I didn't go see the Nationals play. No offense, no home runs, no Greg...

I think the most exciting play in baseball is the play at the plate, but give me one home run over 5 triples, sorry.

[ProvidenceRI]

I like the hill in Houston, and the left field porch.

But, the flagpole in the middle of the hill is silly. Dangerous and silly... straight out of MTV Rock n Jock softball.

I do like the CITGO sign in left field, though. Nice brading work by the CITGO marketing dept. there.