One thing I never understood about baseball: why aren't all the fields the same dimensions?

[BLAZO da GAWD]

I don't watch this wack ass sport but I've always wondered why one park has a 30 ft wall, while another parks homerun field in 10 yards deeper than another, etc. There are significant differences in each park that gives teams advantages. Why does the MLB do this?

With the emphasis on "level playing field" these days, how does different size and shaped fields enforce this mantra?

 

[boskey]

"because if all the fields were the same size that would make the game boring"- baseball fans
""- everybody else

 

[nomoreneveragain]

Both Teams play in the same park & Home Field Advantage still matters.

 

[BLAZO da GAWD]

Both Teams play in the same park & Home Field Advantage still matters.

Understandable but some parks favor left handed hitters, etc. Why wouldn't all fields be symmetrical and the home run wall be the same height across the board?

 

[HookersandIceCream]

Because when baseball started there were no fences. Teams built their stadiums wherever it was convenient. Fences were added later and not all stadiums fences were the exact distance. Some stadiums were really old and when the fence were built they had to accommodate location. So basically dis-proportional dimensions became the standard because there were no fences back in the day. And it was to complicated to change the dimensions of the actual stadium.

 

[ScoopNScore]

That's always been a weird one, but the main thing is the local geography (other stores and stuff near the stadium will be interfered with by home runs) and of course the logic that if they can't build across, they build upwards, so they say that each park has equivalent dimensions. Case in point, the Green Monster in Fenway

Or more simply, it's one of baseball's hundreds of unwritten rules

 

[Walt]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2...-league-baseball-fields-not-standard-in-size/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675798

 

[3rdLetter]

Mostly for historical reasons but I know now you can't just build some next shyt. It's gotta be approved by the commish I think.
Old Polo Grounds was the most ridiculous shyt I ever heard of. 250 something feet down the lines and damn near 500 ft to dead center