Wow. I have no idea if this is true but it sure is interesting. Alex emailed the Mets Police this morning…
I know the text is hard to read (I had to shrink the photo). The caption is “from home plate to the base of the stadium it looks to be approximately 390 to 400 feet (127 x 3 plus a little error). Therefore it does not appear the bases are in the correct spot since we all know that it was 410 feet from home to the centerfield wall at shea..and the wall (typo) was what looked to be at least 20 feet from the stadium.”
Below is the letter Alex sent the Mets Police. Is he right? Am I being punked? I’m just a dopey blogger, I’m not an engineer nor a mathematician, and Mets Police ain’t 60 Minutes. So with all apologies in advance if this is much ado about nothing…it is still interesting to examine “Are the Shea Stadium Markers Misplaced?”
Looking at pictures of the base markers for shea, I do not think they put the markers in the right spot. I thought something was wrong the first time I looked at this pic from 1010 wins:http://www.1010wins.com/pages/
Now for the comparison. First off, using this next pic from behind home plate, you will see that a straight line extended from home plate thru the mound and second base leads you into the last arch of the Rotunda: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
Now looking at this pic of the markers http://sports.webshots.com/
Next up, actual distance from the stadium.
Using the above aerial photo above, I took the bases as they were laid out in the lot, repeated them (copy and paste) until I reached the stadium. Using the fact that home to second is 127.3 feet and this is repeated a little more than 3 times, it looks like home plate is less about 400 feet from the stadium. Because home to the centerfield wall was 410 feet and a good distance from Citi, we know that home plate is not where it was. I get the fact that this is not completely accurate, but I think it is close.
Granted I have not visited the bases in person and measured the distance, but looking at the pictures, I think they are wrong.
Thanks,
Alex
So – what does everyone think? Alex is crazy? The Mets made an honest mistake? Is it a “who cares anyway?” topic or is another one of those little things they never get right.
www.metspolice.com
@metspolice
Alex is NOT crazy at all. I thought that a) the bases looked too close together, and b), the infield diamond wasn’t positioned correctly. I posted something on May 13 describing where to find this for yourself and similar thoughts that it wasn’t right.
looking harder at those photos, and I’ll want to check my own and post on my blog later about it, I think they either placed the markers in the parking lot such that people don’t park over them, or they rotated Citi Field just a few degrees. the only real comparison is to get a photo taken from the catcher’s box at Shea or try to jump high enough to match the height of Shea’s Mezz or Upper Deck.
Alex here. I think the more convincing argument based on the photos is that they moved the markets a bit to the left. Personally i think a grass square with dirt cutouts would have been cool … you can run the bases on your walk from the car. As far as the distance goes, you just need to pace it off.
I had the same thoughts, and I’m still not sure.
As for the marker placements relative to the arch, here’s how I looked at it:
If you take the Shea picture cited and (literally) draw a straight line from home plate to the fence, it actually lands slightly to the right of the 410 marker. Or, put differently, the 410 marker skews to the left, relative to the plate. That means the picture was taken from slightly to the right of home plate (if you move to your right for a picture, things further away will skew to your left, relative to things closer to you). As a result, everything is slightly off to the left relative to things behind it (and more so as you go further back in the picture). So, home plate should actually line up with a point slightly further over to the right, either within or just to the right of the last arch at Citi.
As for Alex’s rough distance calculation, it’s a good attempt, but very rough and problematic. As you go further back in the picture, things that are actually far apart will, of course, naturally seem closer together. The amount of this effect will vary depending on your distance to the subject, the size of the subject(s), the angle of the picture, etc. So, unfortunately, it’s basically impossible to tell from this picture and this kind of calculation with a method as rough as the one Alex used. You could try to measure how many pixels per feet it is from home to the rubber, and then from the rubber to 2nd, but they’re so small in the picture that it probably won’t work. The same thing is true for comparing parking spot width near the plate to that of spots closer to where the 410 marker would be.
My own method, when these pictures first came out, was to go to Google and look at the satellite image of Shea. I spotted up 2nd and home relative to the now-defunct traffic circle and the road leading to it that comes under the highway, then compared those relations to where the markings are relative to the highway. Based on that rough eyeball job, it seems like they’re close enough to the right spots (in terms of distance to Citi) that you can’t say otherwise based on my method. But, it’s still entirely possible that they’re off by a couple of feet.
PS- This goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:
If the markers actually are in the wrong spots, be it by 2 feet or 20 feet, and no matter in what respect they’re wrong (placement left to right, distance to Citi, whatever), there’s only one thing you can say about it: this could only happen to/with the Mets.
I do not believe that this photo method of measuring is accurate unless due to “perspective”.
Just take a picture of a ruler at an angle (yes the pictured he used here is at an angle), and you will see that the inches closer to the camera are “longer” than the inches furthest from the camera.
He is then in effect repeating the size of the “closer” inches on the rules in his illustration, and using them to simulate measurements at distances that are further away from the lens.
That being said, I am NOT claiming that the bases are in the proper place, just that THIS method cannot be used to make the determination.
The argument is invalid due to the incorrect perspective in that photoshopped pic.
It seems to me that if we as a fan base are going to complain about every single thing the Mets do trades, DL stints, the color of the outfield fence…..sooner or later they will start to do NOTHING, would that be better?
It should be a simple thing to verify there's 90 feet between the bases, no? If that's wrong – and it probably is if Paris Wilpon was involved – then their placement is also probably wrong.
Some of the best end-of-old-Shea and beginning of new-Shea (I still call it Shea) aerial shots were taken by the traffic choppers. Would it kill them to post sometheing better than postage stamp size 450 x 340 pics?
Who cares. At least they're putting the Shea markers. This is just too picky.
I worked for the Mets for 5 years and can tell you that if there is a franchise out there that can mess something so straight forward up, it would be the Mess, I mean, Mets. The only true way to see if the bases are in the wrong spot to to compare google earth pictures one on top of the other…has anyone been able to do that?
Alex here. I have since seen photographic proof that the distances seem to be close enough:
http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?p=1526496 …. on the other hand, i still wonder if they positioned them so they are centered neatly in that lot so they are not covered by cars on game day …
On a related note, check out on the same link above how Atlanta displays Fulton County (AKA the launching pad).