Quote:
Originally Posted by joefromchicago
Great work, as always! I would, however, suggest that the sources are probably accurate here. The 60' minimum distance to the backstop wasn't mandated until the 20th century (I don't have my sources in front of me, but I think it was in the early decades of the century). Prior to that, the backstop was often 90' or greater behind home plate. In part, that's because a lot of parks didn't have protective netting in front the stands, so park owners wanted as much distance as practicable between the batter and the fans. Also, in the nineteenth century, many fans were familiar with cricket, where the pitch is in the middle of a large field, and so they were used to seeing the batters from a long distance.
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Thank you!
And, yes--to be clear, I wasn't doubting any of the quoted sources, just describing how this model deviates from them to fit into the street grid I adopted! I also ran across references to CF distances that differed by 100', so I figured changing the backstop by 20' wasn't that big a change by comparison.
