Digging for Extra Bases
On May 17th, Billy Hamilton lined a Derek Law slider down the line into the right-field corner. You could tell that Hamilton was immediately thinking extra bases as he came out of the box on fire. Kyle Garlick chased the ball deep into the corner. Just after the ball bounded twice off of the side and rear walls, Garlick was there to grab it and make a whirling throw in one motion to the infield. He played it great and managed to get a lot behind the throw just as Hamilton, helmetless, was rounding second base.
The throw found the second baseman, Jorge Polanco, about 10 yards into the outfield grass. His relay was a laser to third, where Josh Donaldson awaited the throw. In what seemed to be perfect timing, Hamilton made a long head-first slide just as the ball was arriving. The ball struck Hamilton in the back and caromed toward the stands.
Hamilton wasn’t satisfied, recovering his feet quickly and sprinting for home. The guy that started the play, Derek Law, was backing up the play and was quick to chase down the ball. Many times, a pitcher looks out of place when trying to throw anything but the 60 feet to home plate. Law made a surprisingly athletic throw, leaning over and side-arming the ball to home from about 100 feet. The throw was a strike to the catcher, Willians Astudillo, and Hamilton, making his second head first slide, was out at the plate.
Hopefully, I did a good job describing the play. If not, please check out the video at MLB.com. The triple is one of the most exciting plays in baseball. In Hamilton’s case, it was almost a Little League Home Run, a feat he was able to accomplish later in the season. It was his second triple of the season.
Hamilton regularly runs 30 feet per second (20 mph). On this triple, he made it from home to third base in just under 11 seconds, for one of the fastest times of the year. How can we see more of these plays?
In the diagram above, there are a few things that might surprise you. The first is that there aren’t actually 90 feet between the bases. From home to first, the 90 feet goes from the tip of home plate to the back corner of first base, which is a 15 inch square. You’ll also see that second base is lined up slightly different in that the line is drawn from the back corner of first base to the center of second base. This makes the distance between the edges of first and second base only 88 feet and 1.5 inches.
If instead, you took second base and moved it to the inside of the square, that would reduce the distance by an additional 7.5 inches. Baseball is a game of inches, and 7.5 inches is a lot. For a player with Billy Hamilton’s 30 ft/sec speed, 7.5 inches is the equivalent of only .02 seconds on a steal, and a little more than double that on a triple. If you’ve watched enough baseball though, you know that is enough to add a lot of extra safe calls over the course of a season.
Let me say that I really don’t like messing with the game that much. For the most part, the dimensions have stood the test of time. However, by making this tiny, hardly-noticeable switch, the number of stolen bases, doubles, triples, and inside-the-park homers will rise. The end result would mean more action on the bases, more scoring, and more speedsters in the game. All of these will add to the engagement and excitement in the game.
