1 00:00:00,429 --> 00:00:05,620 This is The Triangle. It’s 420 feet from home plate—the furthest point on the field—and 2 00:00:05,620 --> 00:00:09,660 its tight corners mean that any well-placed hit will bounce around long enough to secure 3 00:00:09,660 --> 00:00:15,000 a likely triple. It’s the bane of outfielders everywhere, and by everywhere, I mean only… 4 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:20,390 Boston, Massachusetts, because like many horrible things, The Triangle only exists in Boston. 5 00:00:20,390 --> 00:00:25,150 Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox, is the only MLB field shaped like this, and 6 00:00:25,150 --> 00:00:29,810 it’s the only one to feature The Triangle. But it’s not unique in its uniqueness—in 7 00:00:29,810 --> 00:00:35,910 fact, all 30 MLB stadiums across the country are completely different. They have different 8 00:00:35,910 --> 00:00:41,010 sizes, different shapes, and yes, even slightly different rules. But why aren’t there standards 9 00:00:41,010 --> 00:00:45,120 governing the size or shape of a ballpark, and how do they keep the game consistent when 10 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:49,329 the stadiums aren’t? Well, before we get into the very weird ways 11 00:00:49,329 --> 00:00:52,940 that the MLB deals with this problem, it’s worth explaining why this sort of problem 12 00:00:52,940 --> 00:00:57,000 is unique to baseball. Just as an example, let’s talk about the standards that your 13 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,250 average NFL field has to meet before a bunch of very large anthropology majors can concuss 14 00:01:01,250 --> 00:01:07,320 each other on it. As laid out in the NFL Rule Book, every single NFL field is exactly 120 15 00:01:07,320 --> 00:01:12,780 yards long and 53 and ⅓ yards wide, with goal lines established ten yards in from each 16 00:01:12,780 --> 00:01:16,950 end line. Within 72 hours of any game, they measure the firmness of the field, and then 17 00:01:16,950 --> 00:01:21,520 measure the depth of infill—that carcinogenic confetti stuff—in 40 different places to 18 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:25,730 make sure that the ground is perfectly level. The fields are regularly tested for moisture 19 00:01:25,730 --> 00:01:30,000 level, grass coverage, and even the strength of the grass roots to ensure that every NFL 20 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,820 game, with very few exceptions, is played on an essentially physically-identical field. 21 00:01:34,820 --> 00:01:38,460 And similar standards apply to pretty much any professional sport you can think of… 22 00:01:38,460 --> 00:01:42,970 that is, except for baseball. The reasons for this are… complicated, but 23 00:01:42,970 --> 00:01:45,780 that’s why you’ve got YouTubers like me to simplify it just enough that everyone who 24 00:01:45,780 --> 00:01:50,760 actually cares about baseball will absolutely eviscerate me in the comments section. Basically, 25 00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:55,560 baseball is old. It’s the oldest professional sport in the United States, apart from shooting 26 00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:59,659 British people, and as such, it’s carried with it some quirks of the past. When baseball 27 00:01:59,659 --> 00:02:03,760 stadiums were first being built in the late 19th century, Americans hadn’t yet realized 28 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:07,290 that they could all be living in really ugly identical housing developments in the middle 29 00:02:07,290 --> 00:02:11,640 of nowhere, and were being forced to live in tightly-knit walkable cities instead. As 30 00:02:11,640 --> 00:02:15,150 a result, baseball stadiums were being built the only place that they’d be easily accessible: 31 00:02:15,150 --> 00:02:19,890 in city centers, where they could be reached by foot or horse or Flintstones car. The problem 32 00:02:19,890 --> 00:02:23,420 with this, however, was that urban land was limited; these stadiums were being built in 33 00:02:23,420 --> 00:02:27,790 the middle of pre-existing neighborhoods and designed around complicated municipal infrastructure, 34 00:02:27,790 --> 00:02:31,620 so much like an insecure NYU student, these parks had to get really weird to fit in in 35 00:02:31,620 --> 00:02:36,110 the big city; these were later dubbed “jewel box” parks and were known for their unconventional 36 00:02:36,110 --> 00:02:40,140 shapes—two of which are still in use today: the previously-mentioned Fenway Park and Wrigley 37 00:02:40,140 --> 00:02:44,420 Field in Chicago. As suburbs started to develop in the 40s and stadiums could be built in 38 00:02:44,420 --> 00:02:48,680 less-claustrophobic conditions on the outer edges of cities, you started to see large, 39 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:53,620 multi-purpose stadiums like the Oakland Coliseum—these tended to be more symmetrical, but weren’t 40 00:02:53,620 --> 00:02:57,459 optimized for baseball. This meant that they had other sorts of quirks, like huge foul 41 00:02:57,459 --> 00:03:01,879 territories in parts of the stadium that weren’t meant to be used. Then around the 60s and 42 00:03:01,879 --> 00:03:06,430 70s you started to see smaller parks pop up designed specifically for baseball, like Dodger 43 00:03:06,430 --> 00:03:10,430 Stadium, and by the 90s and 2000s, quirky asymmetrical parks like Camden Yards came 44 00:03:10,430 --> 00:03:14,090 back in fashion, because Baltimore had no other way of convincing people that they were 45 00:03:14,090 --> 00:03:18,989 cool again. The point is, baseball stadiums have been around for a long time—much longer 46 00:03:18,989 --> 00:03:23,120 than stadiums for most other sports—so there’s been a lot of architectural inconsistency 47 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:27,290 over a century’s worth of urban development, cultural revolution, and fluctuating interest 48 00:03:27,290 --> 00:03:31,299 in watching men in tight pants run in circles. And while there have been pushes in the past 49 00:03:31,299 --> 00:03:34,760 to standardize, it would mean spending an obscene amount of money to abandon some of 50 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:39,890 the sport’s most iconic and beloved venues, so instead, the MLB opted for the simple solution: 51 00:03:39,890 --> 00:03:43,930 create 30 slightly different versions of baseball that are impossible to memorize but technically 52 00:03:43,930 --> 00:03:48,060 account for every single difference in every single stadium—easy! 53 00:03:48,060 --> 00:03:52,140 These unique variations on the game are called “ground rules,” a stadium-specific rule 54 00:03:52,140 --> 00:03:56,640 set for each different ballpark in the MLB. Now, some of these rules are used to determine 55 00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,730 what exactly is part of the field, and what isn’t—for example, a ball that hits this 56 00:04:00,730 --> 00:04:05,010 camera in Oakland is out of play, but a ball that hits this camera in Baltimore is in play. 57 00:04:05,010 --> 00:04:08,730 But there are also rules that can completely alter the way that the game plays out on a 58 00:04:08,730 --> 00:04:13,370 given field—hitting this ladder at Fenway Park, for example, awards the batter an automatic 59 00:04:13,370 --> 00:04:17,750 double. Same goes if they get the ball stuck in this ivy at Wrigley Field. Hitting the 60 00:04:17,750 --> 00:04:21,570 upper catwalks at Tropicana field means the ball is still in play, but hitting the lower 61 00:04:21,570 --> 00:04:25,730 catwalks is an automatic home run. If you bat a ball into the top part of this wall 62 00:04:25,730 --> 00:04:30,010 at PNC Park and it ricochets over this other wall, that’s a home run. But if your ball 63 00:04:30,010 --> 00:04:33,870 hits the bottom part of the wall and it makes the same bounce, it’s only a double. And 64 00:04:33,870 --> 00:04:37,070 if you knock the ball out of Nationals Park in DC and it careens all the way into the 65 00:04:37,070 --> 00:04:40,400 West Wing of the White House and hits Joe Biden in the head, killing him instantly, 66 00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:44,180 then you technically score a home run but you also probably end up going to prison. 67 00:04:44,180 --> 00:04:47,660 So the next time your friend thinks they know all the rules to baseball, they don’t, and 68 00:04:47,660 --> 00:04:50,820 you should just smugly bring up this video to prove them wrong and ruin your friendship 69 00:04:50,820 --> 00:04:54,870 for no reason. So, I have to do a lot of the research for 70 00:04:54,870 --> 00:04:58,590 these videos while I’m traveling, and especially when you’re dealing with highly-local information 71 00:04:58,590 --> 00:05:03,590 like the stuff in this video, doing that research abroad can be a huge headache. I’ve mentioned 72 00:05:03,590 --> 00:05:08,449 this before, but back in 2018, the EU rolled out a new set of internet regulations to protect 73 00:05:08,449 --> 00:05:12,200 European citizens’ data, but American websites that didn’t want to meet these standards 74 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:16,410 just ended up blocking all of Europe instead, and that would’ve made writing this video 75 00:05:16,410 --> 00:05:21,259 impossible, if we didn’t have NordVPN. With Nord, we were able to change our location 76 00:05:21,259 --> 00:05:25,699 to the US with just a click—it was effortlessly easy, and there would’ve been no other way 77 00:05:25,699 --> 00:05:30,000 for us to access those… kind of sketchy websites. 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And, hey, if it doesn’t work out or you 85 00:05:58,370 --> 00:06:02,230 don’t get enough use out of it, you don’t need to worry—Nord offers a 30-day money 86 00:06:02,230 --> 00:06:06,431 back guarantee. So, click the button on screen or follow the link in the description, and 87 00:06:06,431 --> 00:06:07,730 try out Nord today.