Ballpark
Polo Grounds V
New York · 1911–1963 · config 1963
Favors hitters
(+0.1 runs for the away team)
Dimensions
LF 279′ · LFA 455′ · LC 455′ · CF 483′ · RC 449′ · RFA 449′ · RF 258′
Walls LF 17′ · CF 8′ · RF 11′
Short porches, cavernous center — the bathtub
Average foul ground
Capacity 56,000
Pull for the porch or die in center.
Overhead diagram
Photograph
About this park
The Polo Grounds were a bathtub — porches you could almost touch down the lines, and a center field that swallowed pride. Pull hitters hunted the short foul-line fences; everyone else watched well-struck balls die in the cavern. It was two parks in one rectangle: feast on the porch or starve in center.
Managers set lineups around that split personality. A gap shot that is a stand-up double elsewhere could be an out at the track here, and a cheap line down the line became a home run without apology. Walking onto that grass meant choosing a theory of the game before the umpires said play.