
A-Rod's 600th HR Landing Spot Projection at Tropicana Field - chadburgess
http://seatgeek.com/blog/sports/baseball-sports/next-stop-tampa-bay-a-rods-600th-hr-prediction-for-tropicana-field
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minouye
Fantastic analysis. I think there will be more grown men with gloves at
tonights game than the kids. Normally I feel foolish packing one along, but if
I had tickets, I'd definitely bring it.

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chadburgess
Thanks. Yes, with 100k basically flying through the air, I could see it
getting a little rowdy.

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photon_off
Very interesting article, except for the ticket price graph, whose lower limit
is $40. Why show a bar graph that doesn't start at 0? It eliminates the
purpose of bar graphs - to visually compare the magnitude of values.

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chadburgess
Fair point, not sure that in this case it eliminates the ability to compare
because the actually raw $ numbers aren't that important, it is more about the
% changes.

With that said, when not starting from 0 a "squiggly" line should be used to
make note.

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robryan
A somewhat related question, how come in baseball they are so happy to give
away any ball that even goes remotely near the crowd? Wouldn't each ball be
worth enough that they would want to cut down on the amount needed per game?

Here in Australia on cricket ball condition effects the game so you'd
defiantly not want fans taking the ball and in AFL they don't want people
taking the balls although they do switch balls around often during a match. I
guess that would be virtually 0 chance that the player could get the 600th run
ball back for himself?

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jasonkester
The average lifespan of a baseball is something like 1.7 pitches. They bring
hundreds of them to a game.

Pitchers go out of their way to mangle the balls in specific ways before they
throw them, so even the ones that last a few tosses are in rough shape. You'll
often see a pitcher simply throw a ball back to the catcher to have it
replaced.

The math, by the way, is something like 10k fans @ $50/seat vs. 120 baseballs
@ $0.75 wholesale. If there's any chance whatsoever that giving one to a kid
in the stands will make him happy enough to come back for another game at any
point in his life, it's well worth it.

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robryan
Ah that's what I was wondering, how cheap a baseball they use at that level
goes for. Had a feeling that it must not have been much.

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jasonkester
Actually, I'm probably wrong above in saying that they cost the ballpark
anything at all. I suspect the manufacturer pays Major League Baseball a lot
of money every year for the privilege of supplying those balls.

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duck
Baseball may be slower than anything in the world to watch, but this one of
the things that always brings me back to the game - stats.

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MrRage
Slower than golf?

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TGJ
A good sports channel will jump around the course enough to make it seem
faster than baseball. Plus golf courses are better to look at especially in
the women's tournaments.

