Home field advantage

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

Wait. That's a penalty? what? lmao. That's a new on on me. You should hear Beaver Stadium. It makes even Philly look like pee wee. lol.

Not in college ball, as far as I know. But it has been in the pros for five or six years.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Curtis

Not in college ball, as far as I know. But it has been in the pros for five or six years.

Oh. It figures. I largely stopped watching sports of any kind on TV with any sort of regularity about 5 or 6 years ago too.

[DrArbiter]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

Probably some sort of psychological effect of seemingly negative performance. If a team is able to score four runs in a singe inning, psychologically speaking, it probably doesn't come down as hard as if those four runs were scattered along four different innings. Not only that, with multiple runs in one inning, the losing team gets mad, and/or more determined to allow any more across.

Even if you allow a single run in an inning, it feels like a failure. Do it four time, you have "failed" for close to half the game.

The explanation is even simpler: All of LaRussa's observations confuse correlation with causality.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by DrArbiter

The explanation is even simpler: All of LaRussa's observations confuse correlation with causality.

I wonder if I still have that book lying around somewhere....

His observations don't confuse anything. I think they are merely jsut observations. Though, I haven't read it in probably about two years, and quite frankly, not sure if I still have it or not.

In any case, , just because correlation does not mean causation, does not mean we cannot look for a causation for the correlation. It is a very interesting phenomenon. I wouldn't be surprised there is some sort of underlying reasons behind it, assuming it is a real phenomenon to begin with, and not some figment of LaRussa's imagination.

[DrArbiter]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

I wonder if I still have that book lying around somewhere....

His observations don't confuse anything. I think they are merely jsut observations. Though, I haven't read it in probably about two years, and quite frankly, not sure if I still have it or not.

In any case, , just because correlation does not mean causation, does not mean we cannot look for a causation for the correlation. It is a very interesting phenomenon. I wouldn't be surprised there is some sort of underlying reasons behind it, assuming it is a real phenomenon to begin with, and not some figment of LaRussa's imagination.

No, LaRussa confused correlation with causality.

The "underlying mechanism" is trivial. Baseball teams score runs in bunches, because of the nature of the way a baseball inning works. For instance, look at the data in

Big Bang Theory in Baseball Games

The article is a bit dated, but the key data are inning-by-inning run totals for the 1986 NL, which are still valid.

Teams scored in 26.55% of innings overall. However, given that a team scores at least one run, there is a 43.92% chance it scores at least two. That is, again, runs naturally come in bunches.

Therefore a team that scores one run in each of four innings is more likely to be a strong team than a team that scores four runs in one innings - a basic textbook application of Bayes' Rule.

[Childress]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

But the "HFA" phenomenon is not just restricted to sports only. I have already pointed out that when it comes to education, students generally perform much better on tests in the very classrooms they learn in on a daily basis than anywhere else. Therefore, the best theory is "it has to do with the surroundings."

That's perfectly plausible. Problem is, we don't know HOW plausible it is. So your assertion strikes me as somewhat hubristic. We can quantify the effects of home field advantage in baseball, for example batting averages rise by 10 points or so at home. NFL kickers make more field goals per attempt on the home field, etc, etc. But the causes remain murky.

Same thing in sports. If you play half of your games in the same field in which you practice, it is probably much easier to locate the ball, or to focus on a certain area so you are not as easily distracted.

How does this account for the superior results in test taking you mentioned?

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Childress

That's perfectly plausible. Problem is, we don't know HOW plausible it is. So your assertion strikes me as somewhat hubristic. We can quantify the effects of home field advantage in baseball, for example batting averages rise by 10 points or so at home. NFL kickers make more field goals per attempt on the home field, etc, etc. But the causes remain murky.



How does this account for the superior results in test taking you mentioned?

It's just interesting to note that performance level seems to always increase across the board, regardless of activity when performing in familiar surroundings.

Probably the biggest reason why, as I have stated, is because it is much easier to visualize past events in those exact surroundings. For instance: If a teacher is standing in front of the classroom, teaching about....say....state capitals. The teacher is teaching about state capitals for several weeks. There are a lot of questions, answers, and other extraneous stuff going on that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the lesson itself, but is memorable nonetheless. Such as maybe the type of clothing the teacher is wearing. Someone sneezing. Another person making a smart remark that is humorous.

All those things are imprinted on the student's mind in the form of memories. If when the student is taking a test in the same exact space they were learning the material, it is much easier for them to visualize the moment when they were learning facts. Maybe while looking up at the board, they can actually SEE their teacher standing there pointing at something which was written on the board, and out of the corner of their eye they remember seeing someone with their head down sleeping. If you can internalize and memorize such events, it can lead your mind down the pathway to exactly what the teacher was saying.

Now, how do you equate that to sports? Well, kind of the same way. Most of the very successful top professional athletes imagine themselves catching a ball, hitting a ball, running a route....what have you. They imagine the exact movements they must make in order to execute any given play. They mentally visualize their "plan of attack," so to speak. It is many times easier to visualize yourself in a familiar area, than it is to imagine yourself in a strange area that you either have never been to before, or rarely ever visit.

I mean, try it yourself. While you are laying in bed at night, with your eyes closed, ready to fall asleep, imagine yourself in your childhood bedroom. It should be fairly easy to do. Then imagine the layout of the very room you actually are in. Again, very easy to do. Now, try to visualize yourself at....say....your someone's house whose an acquaintance of yours, but you rarely visit. Try to imagine the layout of the room you stayed in, and where the bathroom and whatnot is located. While you CAN imagine the layout, it just....seems....strange. You have no real connection to that room. You have no real memories of it, other than what it LOOKED like, as opposed to events which may have taken place inside that room. Therefore, you have no real connections to a given problem if you were actually inside of that room while trying to "perform," whatever it may be.

[BleacherBum]

Take a look at the player performance stats. I recall an old thread on this topic, where I looked at some basic home/away splits before inter-league play started.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...tml#post347311

[megamanmatt]

In my opinion, "home field advantage" in the sense that players play better in their own park exists in a very limited degree. I don't think it affects batting or pitching. I honestly don't. However I can see it having a distinct effect on defense.

It has nothing to do with the fans just a better understanding of how the ball moves on the grass and dirt of your own park, or how a ball will ricochet off an outfield wall and where you should position yourself to get it back into the infield fastest. The Twins used to play better in the Dome because they knew how the ball moved on the turf and were better experienced at tracking balls against the ceiling. Just my opinion though.