Quote:
Originally posted by Single A Rookie
Remember - not EVERY TEAM illustrates a home field advantage, only those that take advantage of their parks do.
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Have to disagree with you there.
Take a look at the home and away results from 1901-1993 (as I did). It didn't matter if the team was good or awful,
83% of all those teams from 93 full seasons finished with a better home winning record than road winning record. Are you saying 83% of all major league teams from all of those years all managed to build their teams in the way you suggest?
Not only that, but when you start breaking down the home and away records, teams which finished higher in the standings
tended to have less differential between their home and away percentages. Conversely, teams with poorer records overall tended to have a
higher differential between their home and road winning percentages.
If you want to see some of the detailed numbers I have covering the 1901-1960 period, I'll be happy to post 'em.
And what about the NBA, which has the highest home winning percentage of any major sport? The courts are standardized, and yet the results consistently show a huge differential between home and away winning percentages.
There are many factors at work, some of which include what you mentioned, but also includes simple familiarity with the home park (foul territory size, etc.), crowd involvement, getting the last at bat, and the simple wear and tear from being on the road for a length of time somewhat degrading performance.
It is most certainly not all attributable to one factor however,