With all of the hooplah about Hit Tracker Online lately, it has made me revisit some thoughts I have been having for years about FOUL BALL tracking.
As I sit at the 20-40 games per year that I go to, I often times keep rough tallies in my head of where the most foul balls go (by section). In my rough estimation, it seems that sections 6-10 in the Tier Box MVP and sections 7-11 on the other side get the most foul balls, but that is only because I am in the upper deck in section 1 and I can't see the lower decks.
I have ALWAYS wanted to go to EVERY single home game for two straight seasons (a total of 162 games) and tally EACH and every foul ball to see once and for all which section statistically gets the most foul balls. I'm not sure where I would have to sit in order to gather this data, but I am assuming it would have to be somewhere in the bleachers with some binoculars. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure there even is a spot in the stadium that would have a view of every spot where a FOUL ball could be hit. I think two full seasons would be a large enough sample size, but I am not great with math, so I could be totally wrong.
Now, the money question - why the HELL would anyone want this information... Well, we all know that everyone secretly wishes to come home from a baseball game with a souvenir in tow- whether they bring their handy baseball mitt or not. I'm fairly certain that if I could statistically prove what sections in Yankee Stadium have a greater percentage chance of receiving a foul ball, it would help people in making a decision of where to buy tickets. C'mon we have all seen the little kid that is sitting in the upper deck clutching his baseball mitt making his mom and dad stay until the final out of a 13 run blowout just for the chance to get that last foul ball hit into the stands. If there was statistical information (NO GUARANTEES) breaking down which section has the best chance of getting a foul ball with righties on the mound, with lefties on the mound, with a right-hand dominant lineup, with a left-hand dominant lineup, with an offspeed pitcher on the mound, with a flamethrower on the mound it would have SOME value for SOMEONE.
Not sure if I could ever make money off of this idea, as I hardly think that I am the first one to think it up. Most likely the Yankees wouldn't want to get involved because they wouldn't want people to think that if they bought tickets in a certain section they were "guaranteed" to get a souvenir. Who might get involved? Possibly someone like Stubhub.com or another ticket reseller so they could improve the resale value of tickets that might have otherwise been undervalued.
I would love for readers of this blog and the message boards to provide feedback on this idea. Has it been done before? Is it a terrible idea? Would have ABSOLUTELY no value to do this? Would it be possible? Do you think this has some sort of monetary value to someone? Should I have not just posted it on a public blog for everyone to read?
Discuss it here at the NYY Stadium Insider Message Boards
