Holliday knocked his previous long homer of the season, a 475 foot shot at Dodger Stadium, out of the top 5, but with 2 of the 6 longest homers of the year, one of which came on the road, Holliday is establishing himself as one of the premier long-distance hitters in the major leagues!
The visiting broadcasters were rightly impressed with Fielder's homer, but while they can be excused for thinking otherwise, home runs into the upper deck at RFK are not at all uncommon. In fact, in 71 games at RFK so far this season, there have been 21 home runs hit into the upper deck, or one every 3.4 games. There have been a total of 147 homers at RFK, which means that 14% of all homers at RFK reach the upper deck.
Members of the RFK Upper Deck club include:
So, let's give Prince Fielder his due, but not go overboard in how we regard an upper deck homer at RFK. It's just not that unusual...
]]>Pujols' previous longest homer of 2006 was his April 16 blast off Cincinnati's David Weathers at Busch Stadium, which traveled 455 feet (and which is still holding up as the longest in the history of Busch III).
Another well-known Pujols homer, his 9th inning 3-run blast off Houston's Brad Lidge in Game 6 of the 2005 NLCS, also covered 455 feet.
]]>
Top 5 most homers per game, by ballpark:
Bottom 5 least homers per game, by ballpark:
On Sunday, Sept. 3, Colorado's Matt Holliday crushed the longest home run of the season at Dodger Stadium, and the 5th longest overall of 2006, a 475 footer to left field off L.A.'s Elmer Dessens. Holliday's massive blast came off the bat at a robust 116.7 mph, and had a standard distance of 440 feet. The wind, hot temperature and altitude at Chavez Ravine added +19, +13 and +4 feet respectively, turning a solid homer into an eye-popper! What makes it even more impressive, Holliday hit his 475 foot homer off a breaking ball that was traveling about 75 mph! It probably helped that Holliday got to hit a dry, non-humidor'ed baseball...
]]>The interesting thing is, these two homers were also the two hardest hit of the day, at 116.7 and 117.7 mph, respectively. Each was a screaming line drive into the right field bullpen, with the first getting a bit more air than the second (21.4 degrees elevation to 18.8 degrees).
Here are the flight paths of each homer, with the 3rd inning one first. Note how far apart the time markers are; these are the red circles, which show the ball location at 1 second intervals. This is what a line drive looks like, whereas a high fly ball would have the circles closely spaced, especially at the end of the path where the ball is steeply descending. The blue circles shows the landing point of the balls.
Travis Hafner, Aug. 30, 2006 3rd inning
Travis Hafner, Aug. 30, 2006 8th inning
1. Atmopsheric conditions. To figure out how far a home run travels and how hard it was hit, it is very important to know the atmospherics at the time of the hit: temperature, wind direction and wind speed. Currently these things are recorded in the box score, but only at the beginning of the game (actually, some time before the first pitch, judging by when that info appears in MLB Gameday. It would be very helpful if this data could be captured every inning, or even every half inning. No need to put that all in the main box score, just capture it and put it somewhere I can read it.
Failing that, I would settle for more flags in the parks; some are great in this respect (Wrigley with the scoreboard flags, Yankee Stadium's flags on the stadium rim and in left field), others are fair (Fenway and Jacobs Field in center field), others I still don't know where the flag is (Great American Ball Park). This could also be a great marketing opportunity: MLB could sell a flag that flew over a major league game, just like they sell flags that flew over the White House...
2. Visual backgrounds. Some parks are just difficult to pick the ball up in: Shea Stadium in right field, the flag court in right field at Camden Yards, and my personal nemesis, the left field wall in Minute Maid Park. I think this one is probably unrealistic, but it would be great if those teams could make the background contrast a bit more with the white baseball. The first-base camera at Minute Maid helps, but that angle isn't always available. It justs hurts to have to leave a home run un-analyzed...
3. Foul poles. In most cases it's easy to figure out how far above field level the ball impacts, but when it hits the pole, it can be tricky. This request is easy: paint some tick marks on the poles, every 10 feet above field level, so I can tell how far up the ball hits...
4. Camera work. Here I have to ask the media for the assistance. Nothing frustrates me more than watching a zoomed-in image of the center fielder run back on a ball and then pull up short of the wall, while the ball (off camera) disappears somewhere far above. Usually I get lucky and there is another angle on the video (Soriano's May 9 homer at Great American Ball Park is an example), but I'm nervous: the Adam Dunn homer from Aug. 10, 2004 (also at GABP) that reportedly went 535 feet is completely out of the frame on the video, meaning there's no way to verify it, and there never will be. So, my request is, have a camera mounted high on the stadium and keep it wide for the entire play (but following the ball). Think of it as a blimp shot, only not so high...
So there are a few requests, some reasonable, some not, that would make the task of accurately estimating home run distances a lot easier. Now, if my MLB All Access account could get me not only every game, but every camera feed, that might take care of a few of these issues... something to think about.
]]>
Obviously the first kind of home run that makes the highlight reel are the ones that go really far. Here I'm going to call out Ryan Howard's April 23 homer at Citizens Bank Park. Going deep is great, and going really deep is really great, but when you hit a ball 491 feet and clear the batter's eye to dead center, you've got a great visual. Not to mention the fact that the opposing center fielder, Reggie Abercrombie, over whose head this magnificent homer soared, was the guy who to that point in the season owned the longest home run, a massive 481 foot upper deck shot at Great American Ball Park just four days earlier on April 19.
The next kind of homer is one that doesn't necessarily go as far, but which gets there really, really fast. Here I've got a couple, coincidentally both from Fenway Park within a four day span around the trading deadline.
First, Wily Mo Pena's 404 foot rocket to left field at Fenway on August 2: Pena's homer left the bat at 115.8 mph, and slammed into the back of the front row of the Monster seats an amazing 2.81 seconds later. This is the shortest time of flight of any home run this season. What made this homer look even better was the way it richocheted off the seats and rebounded a good portion of the way back to the infield, and the way the fans near the impact point scattered: rather than trying to grab a souvenir, these folks were scrambling to get out of the way and live another day. Beautiful!
The other rapid departure I want to share was Vladimir Guerrero's 476 foot bomb at Fenway Park on July 30. Curt Schilling threw Vlad a splitter on the inner half of the plate and down, and Vlad wound up and hammered it. The ball screamed high over the Monster seats, and passed through the left hand bank of lights above the wall after a brief but exhilirating 2.96 second flight; 2 or 3 seconds later the ball presumably did come down somewhere beyond the wall (the analysis for this one was run to the point where it passed through the lights.) You have to watch this one to appreciate it - if it doesn't get you out of your seat then your couch cushions are too soft...
Finally, I want to talk about the true majesty of the cheap shot. These are the homers that come off the bat with an understated, lower-case "crack" (or maybe even more of a "splat"), and float their way to a resting spot a foot or two above an all-too-near outfield fence, to the delight of the hitter's team and the disgust of the pitcher, who just surrendered a four-bagger on a ball he himself would have been ashamed of in BP... A good example of this is John Buck's 334 foot opposite field homer at Minute Maid Park on June 18 (suprisingly not a Crawford Box job). 95 mph off the bat, opposite field, lands on top of the wall... Andy Pettitte was not pleased...
Your inputs on the "best" homers of 2006 are welcomed...
]]>Top 5 Homers by True Distance for Aug. 26,
2006: (complete list here)
Notable Homers:
Top 5 Homers by True Distance for Aug. 24, 2006: (complete list here)
Notable Homers:
Top 5 Homers by True Distance for Aug. 23, 2006: (complete list here)
Notable Homers:
