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Diamond in shapes geometry8/14/2023 We queried UC Santa Cruz physics professor emeritus Zack Schlesinger, and he also maintained it’s a convex kite. Many people might have thought the infield was perfectly symmetrical, and we are here to dispel the myth. San Francisco Giants’ groundskeepers work on the infield at Oracle Park in preparation for the 2023 baseball season on Thursday. They don’t quite line up with the sides of second base.” All this means is that if you connect those two lines, they make an 89-degree angle. “The line from the corner of first on the base line to the far corner of second is 90.5 degrees,” she said, “and the same from the far corner of third base along the baseline to second base. “The lengths from home to first and from home to third are equal, and the lengths from first to second and from third to second are equal.”Īnd if the angles at the three bases aren’t right angles, what are they? Seashore did the math. “You could say it’s a kite since a kite has two pairs of adjacent equal-length sides,” said Seashore, who taught geometry at various Bay Area schools before moving to S.F. We’re talking in the geometric sense, not what your kid flies in the sky. So if a ballfield isn’t a diamond, what is it? We solicited Kim Seashore, San Francisco State associate mathematics professor, to discuss.Īfter some calculation and analysis, she said baseball plays on a convex kite. That would mean the distance between the bases (the two closest points) is much shorter than 90 feet - just 87 feet between home and first and 87 feet, 9 inches between first and second. It’s 90 feet from the back point of the plate to the back of first but 90 feet and 9 inches from the back of first to the back of second. Neither is the case with MLB’s infield configuration, which does not have four equal sides if only because of the positioning of second base, and the angles at home and second aren’t the same. They probably know now.”īy definition, a diamond (or rhombus), in geometric terms, has four equal sides with opposite angles identical. “I know a lot of coaches and players probably never knew it’s not a perfect square. He was a catcher who threw to second his whole life. “The Orioles were in town, and Rick Dempsey, one of their coaches, told me second base doesn’t line up with first base and third base, and I said, ‘It doesn’t have to,’ ” Wood said. Last season, with the 15-inch bases, second base was 7½ inches off line toward center field. Now that the bases are much larger - 18 inches square, up from 15 - this oddity is more pronounced and apparent. The back side of the corner bases intersect at second base through the middle of the bag.
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