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4th

(341 posts)
Fri Jul 25, 2025, 09:14 AM Friday

Extreme heat can pose a danger to baseball players and fans. It's also changing the physics of the game.

Extreme heat can pose a danger to baseball players and fans. It’s also changing the physics of the game.
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/extreme-heat-pose-danger-baseball-100000875.html
(Chicago Tribune via Yahoo)

The Kansas City Royals were hot Wednesday at Wrigley Field, scoring an 8-4 road win.

So were the Cubs. And the umpires. And the fans. Everyone felt the heat in Wrigleyville.

Fans swarmed to the Addison Red Line station after the game, waiting as the humid 90-degree heat beat down on them. Riders in their sweat-stained Pete Crow-Armstrong jerseys squeezed onto the train, turning each car into a sauna room.

“If you wear a fur coat, you’ll die,” said Cubs fan Lee Kesselman, 73, while waiting in front of Gate 1.

Extreme summer heat during baseball season is not only making games uncomfortably hot and sweaty for fans in the stands — it’s also posing a danger to the health of players and changing the physics of the sport.

Since 1970, human-made climate change has driven up average summer temperatures in Chicago by 2 degrees, according to the climate science nonprofit Climate Central. That lines up with an average increase of 2.8 degrees across 26 Major League Baseball home cities in the United States — except Los Angeles. The home of the Angels and Dodgers has had no measurable change in baseball season temperatures since 1970.

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Extreme heat can pose a danger to baseball players and fans. It's also changing the physics of the game. (Original Post) 4th Friday OP
This miserable climate warming affects so many aspects of human life Diamond_Dog Friday #1
The Central US is vulnerable to lethal wet bulb temperatures. markodochartaigh Friday #2
Changing the physics of the game?? WestMichRad Friday #3
Global warming means more home runs? 4th Friday #4

Diamond_Dog

(37,797 posts)
1. This miserable climate warming affects so many aspects of human life
Fri Jul 25, 2025, 09:48 AM
Friday

I don’t know how anyone with more than two brain cells can believe that it is a hoax.

WestMichRad

(2,431 posts)
3. Changing the physics of the game??
Fri Jul 25, 2025, 10:56 AM
Friday

Baloney! Clickbait title.

It’s long been known that batted baseballs can fly further in warmer air, because it is less dense. What is different is that the frequency of games played in very hot conditions is increasing, hence the observable overall increase in the number of home runs.
The physics is the same as it always has been.

The negative effects of the heat on players, umpires and fans is very real and must be managed carefully.

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