Ranking every baseball stadium outfield by how hard it is to play

Measuring which nation has the most baseball fans

It's known as America's pastime, but just how devoted are Americans to baseball? FiveThirtyEight outlines several metrics indicating Puerto Rico may have the most devoted fanbase. See how they used an adjusted metric to rank the world's biggest...

Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium in use

The legendary park was built in 1912 and is considered hallowed ground for baseball fans, along with iconic venues like Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

How to identify baseball pitches

You might be familiar with terms like "fastball," "curve ball," and "change up," but identifying the specific elements of each pitch type—not to mention what constitutes the more specific types like "splitter" and "cutter"—can leave even passionate fans stumped. This helpful guide to the most used pitches in the big leagues allows you to become a pro in just a few minutes.

In 2023, MLB changed its rules to speed up the game

The league made its most dramatic rules changes in decades by banning the shift, enforcing a pitch clock, limiting pickoff plays, using bigger bases, and adding a baserunner in extra innings. The changes worked, generating renewed interest in the sport.

A guide to sabermetrics, the empirical analysis of baseball statistics

The science of baseball overturned a century of assumptions about which metrics matter most. The approach originated key categories like WAR (wins above replacement, which tries to summarize a player's total contribution by estimating how many more wins this player generated compared to a replacement-level player) and wOBA (or weight on-base average, which measures not only hits but also walks and their outcomes in the score).

How Shohei Ohtani made baseball fun again

To rise to the level of Major League Baseball in recent decades, a player needs to become a specialist in at least one of the sport's many skills: hitting, pitching, throwing, running, fielding. For decades, this specialization has made a so-called...

NFL stadiums are designed to maximize profit, not number of seats

Most stadiums are actually getting smaller as the cost of land rises. Owners have sought to increase returns by designing prestige suits and clubs (rather than just more general admission) and laying out the stadium to maximize customer purchases.

The rising cost of taking a family to the ballgame

While inflation affects the price of all goods and services across an economy, some hit harder for consumers than others. Taking data from the average cost of tickets all the way down to the number of hot dogs a family would buy, the average pricetag for a family of four to attend a baseball game is now just over $200–making America’s pastime cost-prohibitive for many families.

The top 100 players in baseball history

More than 20,000 players have played in Major League Baseball since the 1870s, many passing in and out of the memory of even die-hard fans. While necessarily subjective, these rankings based on votes from baseball writers ranks those whose greatness left a lasting impression. From Barry Larkin (No. 100) to Babe Ruth (No. 1), explore the top 100 baseball players over more than a century.

How is the climate like baseball?

A two-minute video taking a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system.

Every baseball used by the MLB lasts about seven pitches

Handmade in Costa Rica, the balls meet strict MLB specs: cork or rubber cores, wool yarn, Tennessee cowhide, and 108 stitches. Before play, they’re coated in Lena Blackburne mud from a secret New Jersey spot, ensuring grip and consistency for the big game.

Inside MLB's robo-umping experiment

Human umpires call roughly 94% of pitches right overall, but performance reduces on borderline pitches in high-leverage moments, the calls that shape game outcomes most. A professor and historian analyze early experiments with the full "robot ump" system that helped shape MLB's decision to implement a compromise "challenge" system.

MLB teams can travel with roughly 12,000 pounds of gear and luggage

Each of the league's 30 teams has travel directors facilitating intricate logistics to move players and luggage to the next city, often after a game and the night before another game day. This video breaks down the wild planning required.

Where you fall on the sports misery index

Only one team can win it all each season, which means the majority of fans are disappointed. This bot mines the data on how your teams have performed in recent years and measures your misery index (the higher, the more miserable).

Tennis can be played on clay, grass, hard court, or carpet

Tennis started on grass surfaces in England, but as the sport has grown, so have the surfaces used to play the game. This article details how each surface affects ball speed, bounce height, and player movement, and highlights which Major championship uses which surface.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

An in-depth analysis of Augusta National, the home of the Masters

This in-depth analysis of Augusta National Golf Club, the famed site of the annual Masters Tournament, breaks down the course's complex greens and tricky layout. Golf Digest editor Luke Kerr-Dineen walks viewers through the course's green book, demonstrating just how difficult Augusta is compared to other courses. More than anything, it gives you some context to better understand why your favorite golfers might struggle with the course's punishing slopes.

Pickleballs' loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels

That's about the same level as a hammer striking a nail. Luckily, it's not quite as loud for a player on the receiving side of the net, at about 80 decibels, though that's still quite loud—it's equivalent to heavy traffic.

The world’s most beautiful cinemas

Oakland, Madrid, and Mexico City are home to some of the most beautiful movie theaters in the world according to this extensive list. This resource compiles photos and interesting tidbits from 50 stunning cinemas, located in historic buildings and glistening modern structures.

'Stadium Events' is one of the rarest Nintendo games

The game, in which players compete in Olympic-style events, is notoriously boring, but it's also incredibly rare, thanks to a branding change after the cartridge's initial run. That's made it one of the most sought-after video games, with buyers paying over $35K for it.

Ranking the best of Napa's wine

Want to see how different Napa vintages stack up against one another? This Wine Spectator chart covers every Napa vintage since 1991. It gives each year an overall score, has notes about the conditions that affected the harvest and production, and gives suggestions for some of their top-scoring bottles. If you’re interested in building a long-term wine collection, it also notes which vintages might be best to age.

Selection of wind farm sites considers wildlife impacts and wind resource potential

Environmental impact studies, wind energy maps, anemometer data, and local, state, and federal regulations factor into wind farm projects, including offshore farms. Wind projects on public lands require additional permitting.

F1 driving requires intense strategy, endurance, and strength

Formula 1 cars are the peak of human engineering, and the humans driving them must have exceptional skills to master their cars. This Wired video talks to former performance coach Clayton Green to uncover what makes Formula 1 drivers such unique athletes. Learn why drivers focus on neck strength to combat extreme g-forces, and what those forces do to a driver's body over a race.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not ranked based on measured wind speed

Technological limitations prevent direct measurements of wind speeds where tornadoes make contact with the ground. Instead, the Enhanced Fujita scale assigns a rating with a range of speeds based on how much damage a tornado caused to various types of structures. These types are more extensive than the original Fujita scale.

The Dow’s price-weighted formula makes stock price matter more than size

Unlike most indices, which weigh companies by market value, the DJIA is price-weighted—meaning higher-priced stocks have more influence on its movements. As a result, a company’s share price matters more than its overall size.

Why Japan builds airports on water

Some of Japan's roughly 100 airports are built on water—that is, engineers have created new land in bodies of water specifically to construct airports. This six-minute video explains why the country is doing so despite the higher cost of such airports.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Animal phobias are likely the most common type of phobias, followed by an extreme fear of heights.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes