(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

Whether you play or only watch baseball, most people probably believe they know exactly where second base is located. The truth is, most of the people I ask cannot place second base correctly.

What?

“Are you kidding?” you ask.

No, as a registered baseball umpire in both the United States and Canada, over the years I’ve asked players, coaches, rabid baseball fans - even fellow umpires, and while most might know their butts from first base, they still can’t place second base where it belongs.

Official baseball rules have dictated the layout of bases…and it hasn’t changed much…for 136 years. Should be easy, right? Well, look at the four baseball diamond layouts on this page and choose the one that is correct…A, B, C or D. There’s no trick here.

Only one of these layouts accurately reflects official baseball rules governing placement of bases on baseball fields. Which one: A, B, C or D?

Image Credit: SUBMITTED

You’re probably thinking, “Oh, crap,” he’s not only messing with my concept of what a baseball field looks like…he’s gonna starting talking math.”

Yeah, I’m doing both. A couple years ago, Major League Baseball decided it should spice up things…make the games go faster to keep fans interested. A 20-second clock between pitches is an example. MLB decided, too, that if they moved second base…closer to both first base and third base…players might be encouraged to steal more…and that would liven things up. So, in the last half of the 2022 season in Minor League Baseball’s AAA West Division (what once was the Pacific Coast League), the baseball powers that be…moved second base.

They also made first, second and third bases 18-inch squares rather than the traditional 15-inch squares…a trial change that made it into Major League Baseball last year.

I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you the proper baseball field diagram - for the past 136 years and at least for now - is B. Yeah, I know. “How can that be?” you ask. Oh, it can be…take my word, sworn on an Official Baseball Rules book.

So, once MLB adopts the re-location of second base as it did in Minor League Baseball, it will be exactly 87 feet between bases…13.5-inches closer. Do base runners gain much advantage? The catcher’s throw is 13.5-inches shorter on a steal of second. Hmmm…way too much math and physics, too, in this story so far.

If you’re asking - and I know you might be - how did second base get it’s own position that didn’t line up perfectly with first and third bases? Again, we have to go back 136 years when baseball decided that first and third bases - splitting the foul line with half of those bases in fair and foul territory.

The powers that be decided if they moved the bases entirely in fair territory umpires could more easily call fair and foul balls…hit the base, it’s fair…miss it, foul. The problem…no one said, “Hey, let’s move second base to line up with first and third at the same meeting. Really, that’s what happened.

Why don’t fans notice the not-perfectly-square layout of bases? First, there are no lines between first and second and second and third that might give you a way to gauge its un-square nature. Secondly, most fields…even in the best high schools…aren’t laid out according to the official rules anyway.

Meanwhile, as an umpire, I do have some fun with coaches and players. Even former MLB players who now coach high school in Florida are shocked when I explain the placement of second base. While I like to think they respect my knowledge and experience as an umpire, they cast a slightly wary eye…though I’ve noticed few ever argue any of my calls.

Since I’m dealing with math a little here, I might as well point out that ONLY baseball is played on a field that is different…not only in every MLB park…but in every ball field in America, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Dominican Republic and every other nation that plays the sport.

The Boston Red Sox play on a field where left field wall is just 310 feet from home plate…but the wall is 37-feet tall. Left field in Kansas City is 330 feet…Toronto is 328 feet…Chicago’s Wrigley Field is 355 feet. Some walls are 6 feet tall …some 10 feet…some 12 feet.

How is it that an infield can be so precise…home plate to pitcher’s plate…exactly 60-feet, six-inches; home plate…exactly 17-inches wide…and outfield…whatever you guys want…whenever the sod runs out?

I’ll be engaging coaches and players and fellow umpires in February when high school baseball starts in Florida…there will be head scratching disbelief…and some laughs. Of course, the proper location of second base is usually less of an issue than the foul lines beyond first and third bases…that often look like your uncle Ed chalked the lines after six stiff rye whisky drinks.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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