Area of a Baseball Field
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| Bibliographic Entry | Result (w/surrounding text) |
Standardized Result |
|---|---|---|
| Formosa, Dan, and Paul Hamburger. Baseball field guide: an in-depth illustrated guide to the complete rules of baseball illustrated. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006. Print. | "Fields built after 1958 must have a minimum distance of 325 feet from home plate to the outfield wall along the left and right foul lines..." | 9,812 m2 |
| Miller, Grady L. Baseball Field Layout and Construction. University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. | [See Table 1 below.] | 3,010 m2 (Little League) 5,806 m2 (Pony League) 8,361 m2 (Babe Ruth League) |
| Puhalla, Jim, Jeff Krans, and Mike Goatley. Baseball and softball fields: design, construction, renovation, and maintenance. illustrated. John Wiley and Sons, 2003. Print. | [See Table 2 below.] | 18,116 m2 (90 foot bases) 11,427 m2 (80 foot bases) 8,361 m2 (70 foot bases) 5,945 m2 (60 foot bases) |
| American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, Richard B Flynn, Athletic Institute. Planning facilities for athletics, physical education and recreation. Athletic Institute, 1985. | "The area required for a baseball field should be 400 feet by 400 feet, an area of approximately three acres." | 14,864 m2 |
| Rineman, Jon. Official Baseball Field Dimensions. Life 123. 3 June 2009. | "According to the official MLB rule book requires the distance be 250 feet or more from home base to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on fair territory." | 5,806 m2 |
The pitcher throws the ball, the ball is hit, he runs, first base, second, third, home run! The bat and ball game that stirs the many crowds at the stadium, baseball, was in history from as early as the 18th century, before the Civil War even started. As a matter of fact, baseball became so popular in the United States, it has become known as the "National Pastime." The objective of this pastime is to score more home runs than the opponent.
The most common fact people know about baseball is that it has a field consisting of four bases forming a diamond, but not many knows the area of a field or even want to know It is simply vague to talk about the area of a baseball field, because there are different areas for different leagues. All infields of a Baseball field must be identical, which means from base to base, it's 90ft apart. The outfield, however does not have set values.This is why no two baseball fields have exactly the same dimensions. The area of a baseball field can also vary with difference in base lengths. For example a field with bases with less distance apart would have a smaller area.
There are four leagues that include Baseball, Little league, Pony League (Protect Our Nation's Youth), and Babe Ruth League. For Little, Babe Ruth and Pony League, there is a required area (as shown in chart 1 and the results above). From these measurements, most can probably notice that the area of the field of the Babe Ruth league and Baseball are much greater than that of the Pony League and Little League. The four leagues are organizations set up for the youth. The difference between the Pony League and the Little League is that the players of the Little League start pitching at seven or eight, while players start to pitch at nine in the Pony League.
Since baseball fields in general are in the shape of one fourth of a circle, we can divide the area of a full circle by four. Therefore, if we know the radius from the home to the outfield wall, we can plug the radius into the formula…
A = ½πr²
and get the area of a baseball field.
So, next time you go to a baseball game, bring your "peanut butter and crackerjacks" and be sure to check the field out.
| Field Use | Base to Base | Pitching Rubber to Home Plate |
First to Third or Home to Second |
Home to Outfield Wall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseball | 90' | 60' 6" | 127' 3⅜" | Varies |
| Little League | 60' | 46' | 84' 10¼" | 180' radius |
| Pony League | 75' | 54' | 106' ¾" | 250' radius |
| Babe Ruth League | 90' | 60' 6" | 127' 3⅜" | 300' radius |
Table 2
Xuewen Liang -- 2009