Associated Press has reported that the baseball commissioner’s office is, for the first time, issuing uniform specifications and regulations regarding storage and usage of baseballs.

ESPN’s Associated Press Major League Baseball News Wire reports;

The commissioner’s office is telling teams for the first time that balls must be stored at a uniform temperature after they are delivered from the manufacturer.

“The specifications that Rawlings recommends are a 70 degree temperature and 50 percent humidity,” baseball senior vice president Joe Garagiola Jr. said Friday.

“We have contacted all 30 of the clubs, and they have all
confirmed to us that they will all be storing their baseballs in a temperature-controlled facility. We’re not going to have humidors everyplace, but every place will be temperature controlled, and so I think there will be a very high degree of uniformity.”

The decision was made following debate generated by the Colorado Rockies’ use of a humidor at Coors Field. The ballpark ranked first in the major leagues in scoring in its first eight seasons, starting in 1995, but dropped to second in three of the last four years behind Arlington’s Ameriquest Field (2003), Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park (2005) and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium (2006).

Colorado said in 2002 that it had installed the humidor. The Coors Field scoring average, which peaked at 15.0 runs per game in 1996, dropped to 10.7 last season, the lowest ever, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“I guess you could say this is the first time that we were
pro-active in reaching out to the teams,” Garagiola said. “The vast majority of teams were already doing this. And that ones that weren’t — they weren’t being left out on pallets in the parking lot. Everybody was taking good care of their baseballs.”

In recent years, fluctuations in home runs and scoring have led to greater scrutiny of baseballs. Since 2000, the commissioner’s office has arranged annual tests at UMass-Lowell Baseball Research Center.

Major League Baseball also told teams they may only use balls manufactured in the current year.

“It’s the first year that we’re mandating this,” Garagiola
said. “We just felt it kind of made some logical sense that
everybody start the year using the current year’s baseballs.”

Baseball Blog, The Pastime links to a Denver Post article from last season which indicates;

The humidor’s statistical deflation could soon spur imitation.

Jimmie Lee Solomon, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president of operations, predicted prior to the Rockies’ one-hit shutout Tuesday that other franchises may begin using a climate-controlled chamber.

“I think we will see other teams requesting to use one. I would expect it to happen,” Solomon said from his New York office. “It clearly works. And we think that’s a good thing.”

In an effort to combat the pinball scores at Coors Field, which wrung out pitching staffs and turned the game’s Tom Lampkins into home run demons, the Rockies began storing baseballs in the humidor in 2002.

When previously placed in a closet they would dry out, become harder and fly farther.

Keeping the baseballs at manufacturer’s specs also allows pitchers to get a better grip, enabling them to throw their off-speed pitches more effectively.

“I would think teams with climatic issues would consider it,” Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

The humidor’s impact is staggering. Coors Field is averaging 9.4 runs and 1.78 home runs this season. Compare that to the 13.83 and 3.20 compiled from 1995 to 2001.            

The Pastime finds interesting that;

MLB has now specified that teams must use baseballs manufactured in the current year.

The blogger asks if there was some issue with teams using older balls previously.  

It seems to me that if each club is mandated to begin storing its baseballs in uniformly temperature-controlled facilities in 2007, then it would seem obvious that baseballs manufactured in previous years may or may not have been so stored and so may produce distortions in run production.  Therefore, in order to keep baseballs uniform, it seems a requirement that baseballs used in the current season be baseballs manufactured in the current year.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 9:33 am and is filed under All Time Baseball Highlights, Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, Off-Season Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.