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Yankee Stadium Is The Place To See Home Runs

In keeping with our tradition of visiting a ballpark on our trips to big cities, we caught a Yankee game at the new Yankee Stadium the other night. As the innings progressed we thought either the Yankees were a powerful hitting team or else the MLB has some more performance enhancement drug testing to do. (The Yanks had four home runs, Tampa Bay had one.)

But we're not the first ones to wonder if there are more home runs than usual (So far there's been 105.) Most people have even speculated that there was a wind tunnel over right field which was causing the balls to fly outta the park (or really, into the stands.) But Accuweather.com has smacked down any talk of a wind tunnel, saying the ball park is actually shorter in some spots.

"The wall structure is slightly different than the old park," AccuWeather said. "The main difference involves curvature. The gentle curve from right field to center field seen in original Yankee Stadium has largely been eliminated at the new stadium. This is due in large part to the presence of a manual scoreboard embedded within the wall. Losing this curvature has resulted in a right field that is shorter by four-to-five feet on average, but up to nine feet in spots.

The Yankees of course insist that the new ball park dimensions are exactly the same as the old. Maybe people just hit better in a new park. Either way, attending a game here should guarantee you some home run action.

Related Stories:
· Yankee Stadium homer surge blamed on dimensions [AP]
· A Tale of Two Stadiums [Jaunted]