Add a new level of excitement to baseball by taking the lack of outfield standardization into the infield. Revealed herein: THE ULTIMATE SPECTATOR SPORT.

Background:

Baseball is one of the few [1] sports where the playing field is not standardized:

The outfield can vary substantially in size and shape from ballpark to ballpark.
The presence / absence of fences can change the possibility of an out-of-the-park home run.

This adds up to the strange situation where a home run in one stadium might have been an easy out in another.

[1] Cricket fields also vary in size and shape. And in golf, the non-standard courses are a crucial feature, not a problem.

Proposal:

Although the outfield can vary substantially, the infield does not exhibit the same level of variation.

But it certainly could!

Figures 1 through 5 (below) show several possible ways of reconfiguring the standard baseball diamond.

baseball-options-0-rearranged — ***Fig. 1:*** Left: a traditional baseball diamond. Bases are numbered 1–3, with home plate marked with an “H.” The pitcher’s mound is in orange. Right: in this custom base configuration, the distance between bases 1–3 is dramatically reduced, but the trek from 3rd to home plate is extremely far. This would have significant scoring implications.

baseball-options-pentagon — ***Fig. 2:*** *It would also be possible for certain ballparks to add more bases; perhaps a fourth base, as shown in this pentagonal arrangement.*

baseball-options-2-circle — ***Fig. 3:*** *There’s really no reason why the number of bases couldn’t increase to an extreme degree, as shown in this circular setup.*

baseball-options-two-way — ***Fig. 4:*** Some fields could allow runners to chart their own course through a complex network of bases. There’s no reason why the course between all bases must **necessarily** be a one-way path through all bases; perhaps there would be strategic reasons for a runner to skip bases entirely, or to escape backwards to an earlier base.

baseball-options-3 — ***Fig. 5:*** **Left:** some fields could be deliberately annoying, perhaps to entertain an especially cruel and capricious audience. **Right:** taking an inspiration from golf, this field has water hazards (as well as multiple routes to the bases). Note the non-centered pitcher’s mounds, which may make the left/right-handedness distinction even more crucial.

PROS: Bizarre stadium arrangements could entertain the fans and increase the chance that an “out of date” stadium would be torn down (and a new one constructed), thus increasing the amount of money that can be siphoned away from taxpayers in the city funding the stadium.

CONS: The extreme variation in fields would make it even more difficult to compare player statistics across ballparks. A player who only plays on the “has exactly one base” field (Figure 5, left side) will probably have an extremely disappointing number of total home runs.