Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Is global warming causing more home runs in baseball? - Daily Mail

  • Baseball announcer Tim McCarver bemused viewers with his theory linking baseball and climate change

By Rachel Rickard Straus

PUBLISHED: 11:28 EST, 1 May 2012 | UPDATED: 11:28 EST, 1 May 2012

It has been blamed for extreme weather conditions, destroying habitats and melting polar ice caps, but now global warming has another thing to answer for â€" causing more home runs in baseball.

While commentating at a Major League game on Saturday, baseball announcer Tim McCarver bemused viewers with his rather radical theory linking baseball with climate change.

On air at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the Fox announcer shared his original views. 

Aspiring meteorologist?: Fox Sports announcer Tim McCarver who surprised viewers with his climate change and baseball theory

Aspiring meteorologist?: Fox Sports announcer Tim McCarver who surprised viewers with his climate change and baseball theory

‘It has not been proven, but I think ultimately it will be proven that the air is thinner now, there has been climactic changes over the last 50 years in the world and I think that’s one of the reasons that balls are carrying much better now than I remember,’ he said.

‘You know, the ball that Ramirez hit out and the ball Freese hit out, I didn’t think either one was going to be a home run, yet they made it.’

Fellow broadcaster Joe Buck made light of the surprising theory, retorting, ‘So that’s your inconvenient truth?’, referencing Al Gore’s book about global warming.

Others, however, took the comments more to heart, with experts and amateurs alike taking to blogs and media sites to debate whether there is any truth to McCarver’s statement â€" or whether it was just a lot of hot air.

Lighter air? The Busch Stadium in St Louis, where McCarver was announcing

Lighter air? The Busch Stadium in St Louis, where McCarver was announcing

Former player: Tim McCarver clutches his bat in August 1967

Former player: Tim McCarver clutches his bat in August 1967

DeadSpin said the remark was ‘one of the stupidest things ever spoken on a television broadcast today’ while The American Spectator slated it as an ‘uncharacteristic but really dumb observation’.

However Scientific American was not so quick to dismiss the comments, citing the book The Physics of Baseball by Robert Adair, a retired physics professor from Yale University, to support McCarver’s theory. Professor Adair calculated that a two-degree temperature rise will add one foot to a 400-foot home run ball, increasing home run odds by about 1.75 per cent.

McCarver also gained tentative support from the Washington Post, which stated that ‘data and physics are on the side of McCarver… to an extent.’

However Penn State climatologist Michael Mann told the blog that increasing levels of carbon emissions behind climate change could make the atmosphere heavier, decreasing the number of home runs.

Scientific American and others argued the countless other variables that could affect the number of home runs hit â€" aside from possible changes in air composition.

The changing height of a major league hitter from five feet nine inches to six feet one inch, for example, or changes in playing conditions or diet or equipment.

Where there was some consensus however, was that it is not quite time for the aspiring meteorologist to give up his day job just yet.

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