Aug 04 2014 08:41 AM
One of the things Shea had right and Yankee Stadium had wrong that we caved on with Citi Field, is building those outfield walls in foul territory right right up to the foul/fair lines. Keith pointed out a problem with them this weekend, that outfielders, unable to judge what's fair, what's foul, and what's foul and out of play, are forced to run full bear at the walls chasing down flares off the end of the bat putting them in jeopardy over a low-stakes nothing hit. On top of that are:
2) Low drives down the line ricocheting of the façade and back in front of the outfielder for a single, taking away the extra-base hit that any and everybody should enjoy the likelihood of when he drives a low liner inside the bag.
3) The ball that skips out of play after two hops, leading to a ground rule double and taking the joy of seeing a play develop away from the crowd. (Automatic anything means less baseball.) Also lost here is the possibility of scoring from first on a double down the line. These automatic doubles also occur when the fans in the part of the stands that begin sloping toward the too-close outfield wall reach down and interfere. Boo!
4) Taking away the outfield foul fly in general. It gives the corner outfielders less ground to cover and demands less of him. It also takes away those rare-but-dramatic moments when an outfielder has to judge whether or not to catch a foul fly or let it drop to prevent a tagging runner from scoring.
5) The decreasing space in the back of the infield, as the stands slope toward the outfield takes away the space in which a shorstop or secondbaseman pursue a foul pop behind third/first. And as they're looking over their shoulders, they often have a lot of trouble picking up on where the stands are.