Abstract

How Baseball Stadium Design Influences Player Performance

Baseball stadiums on all levels have unique designs and dimensions. The MLB had 45,000+ seats to watch professionals battle it out. College baseball ranges from a field with a couple hundred seats to massive stadiums with almost 20,000. This paper is going to investigate how these dimensions and number of seats can affect player performance. Certain professional stadiums have interesting quirks to their field that provide advantages and disadvantages depending on how it is looked at. For example, Fenway Park, home of the Boston Redsox, has a huge left field wall called “The Green Monster”. The wall is triple the size of the rest of the outfield walls at the stadium, but it is also a shorter distance from the plate. Right-handed hitters find it much more difficult to hit pull side homeruns because of how tall the wall is. Many of the batted balls hit off the wall and defenders have learned how to play the ball off the wall very well. This is just one of many interesting designs in the game of baseball. Another design that provides interesting advantages/disadvantages is the elevation of Coors Field which is home to the Colorado Rockies. It is a very hitter friendly park because of how the elevation allows the ball to fly further. This is a nightmare for pitchers because everything that looks like a routine flyball always has a chance of leaving the park. Fanbases and interactions of the fans is a huge part of the performance of athletes on all levels. With a steady and loud fanbase, it can provide a huge advantage to a home team. Some teams have very loyal fanbases that also travel to away games. A great example of this is the University of Arkansas. Whether they are playing at Baum Walker Stadium in Fayetteville Arkansas or playing a weekend series at UCLA, their fans are always in the stands with red shirts on and calling the hogs. Obviously, this is not the only example of this but it is very evident every time Arkansas is playing on TV.

Year Manuscript Completed

Spring 2026

Senior Project Advisor

George Barton

Degree Awarded

Bachelor of Integrated Studies Degree

Field of Study

Agricultural Studies

Document Type

Thesis

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