Homers in the New Yankee Stadium

Much has been made of the rate of homers that are flying out of the new Yankee Stadium. By the way, as an aside, how long do we have to call it "new" Yankee Stadium? It's not like New Coke. The old one isn't coming back. Anyway, there has been a homer hit in every game played at the new ball park. Scientists have weighed in on the issue. There have been 3.59 homers hit per game since the season began, more than any other park. Nearly every telecast has featured at least one version of, "The balls are flying out of here."

To be sure, there must be something to the speculation as even the National Weather Service has featured the reason why balls fly so far out to right field. But wait just a second. The Fan has watched nearly 75% of the games played at the Stadium. The only cheap homer the Fan has seen was Johnny Damon's in Monday night's game. The Fan can testify that most of those homers have been bombs; true and outright bombs. There has been nothing cheap about Teixeira's homers, nor Damon's, nor Swisher's, nor Posada's. They have been bombs that would have been out anywhere.

Early in the year, the Yankee pitchers were struggling and they were giving up as many homers as the Yankee opponents. But again, they were bombs. People will point to Teixeira's broken bat homer and say, "See!?" But that was to left field. The wind tunnel is supposed to be to right.

Can the Fan suggest that at least a part of the equation has been lousy pitching--early in the year by the Yankees and lately by their visitors? The numbers do support a wind tunnel theory if you see that the Yankee pitchers have given up 48 homers in 28 games at home compared to 29 homers in 28 games on the road. But they have only given up six in their last six home games.

But then again, the Yankees have hit 35 homers on the road and 57 at home, so there you go. The Fan has witnessed a lot of them though, and it just doesn't seem like a lot of them were cheap pop ups that turned into homers.