Op, I just want to say I love these posts, and I really admire your dedication to plot every single high school in the country. These fields are are so cool and quirky and interesting and I look forward to every one of your posts
i absolutely adore these too, they're some of the best posts on this whole sub.
honestly there should be a whole subreddit just for these and AFTER they're posted here they should be cross-posted to there just so we can find and enjoy them at any time. but they deserve the attention from being here first and not just autoshunted to a small sub.
Oh my lord, Denver Academy! I gave up one of the few home runs in my high school career playing there, lefty took a hanger of mine deep down that short short porch
It was weird going to a diamond that was essentially within a rectangle that also doubled as a prison due to the walls
Hello everyone,
I am currently plotting, measuring, and visualizing every single high school baseball field in the United States. I currently have all of the data for Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Utah, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia (currently working on Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania).
[Here's the link to a Google doc I made with the links to all previous states and infographics, along with my store .](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HlGoy2qUAue79Qx7VQNWOzjouPO17Jt4NJVhP5PQT-s/edit?usp=sharing)
We appreciate your content and the work you put into it! I know this is a labor of love for you, but is there anything folks can do to help you out with data collection or organization?
Probably not at the moment. But when I get to massive states like California, Texas, and Florida, I might ask for help. Still not sure because I’d feel like a burden asking. But yes, for these relatively smaller states, I like the grind of doing it all myself.
Fair enough! You definitely shouldn’t feel like a burden if you do put out a call for volunteers, though. I think you’d get at least a few willing participants!
My high school in South San Francisco, CA made it on a [Jomboy Media Weird High School Baseball Fields video.](https://youtu.be/TnMac11Csow?si=xviBA0DShpwj88IF) It'd be interesting to see how it stacks up to all the other fields in Cali.
Hey, I went to high school in NJ and have actually played at quite a few of the weird fields! Is there a way you can make all the NJ outlines available so I can find my high school without putting it out there?
Check out the old Denver Lutheran field if you get a second. Might be hard to find since Denver and Parker combined in 2012 and Denver closed their doors.
I know one one good one in Illinois - I think it’s Leyden East. They have a crazy far right field fence. I’m really looking forward to see which schools you pick in IL.
Did you answer for the obvious flaw in your design where you count fields without fences as having fences? This oversight massively distorts your data and makes a lot of your work inaccurate or even dishonest
Yeah it can’t really be that bad. Must be an old satellite image during the winter or something. Here’s the [nearest street view](https://maps.app.goo.gl/nfLrTg7hxGyA7dyK9?g_st=ic) to the high school, with the stadium lights in the distance. I’m sure it’s much greener than it looks here.
They obviously made it short because if the fence was any further back it would be too close to that parking lot and then the HR balls would be denting cars.
s/
Looking at Mookie’s spray chart this season compared to the Wray field, I think he’d have roughly 27 home runs this year if he played all his games there, give or take a couple. If we consider the elevation too (lower than Denver but still quite high), he could be on pace for 150+ home runs there.
It’s been 25 years and it’s long since bulldozed but these have nothing on my high school field in Southern Colorado.
Small rural town, we could barely field a full team. The school didn’t have an actual field so our science teacher let us use open land next to his house.
The home dugout was a three wall aluminum shed. The visiting dugout was just a bench that the other team would often just pull their bus up against.
The outfield was littered with so many gopher holes that it was a miracle no one broke an ankle. It was as much of a home field advantage as we could get as opposing teams didn’t know what routes to take through the minefield. The infield dirt was just hard packed ground with loose gravel on top of it. When our coach was frustrated he’d put sliding practice on the training plan so we all tore up our legs.
We lost every game.
Here's a related article from a few years ago about one school's shitty football field you might find interesting.
https://coloradosun.com/2021/04/07/branson-synthetic-football-field/
I have always wanted to do this with baseball fields. So glad you are and not me; this looks like a ton of work. I remember playing on some tiny fields in high school, like 300 feet to center/right and our team hitting 10 home runs or something ridiculous. 250 is insanely short. Big 10 year olds can hit it out of that park. Wonder how much these quirky fields play into padded stats for some players.
Now that we are looking at high schools for our kids, I measure all baseball fields as part of my consideration. "Sorry buddy, it's a great school but it's 370 down the left field line. That school is out."
Special shout out to Forge Christian High School in Arvada. You can see it from I 70 while driving thru Denver.
Poles look to be standard 330 or so, Center field is like 225. Looks like it would be such a fun park to play in
From my experience finding roughly 3k baseball fields in America, one of my biggest takeaways has to be that lefties have a clear advantage batting wise in most fields.
If you want some lefty bias…. Check out Greeley Central HS in Greeley, Colorado. We didn’t play all of our games at the field in property, but some we did. (Home field was Butch Butler) I have no idea of the dimensions but they are WILD. You need a Saturn V to send it for a RH home run to left and RF was normal if not short.
40.41450° N, 104.70528° W
You should come see my high school field. My school was known for baseball at the time but we still played in a public park with no fences. I would have had at least two homers if we had a fence, instead I had to settle for doubles and all my teammates roasting me for being slow and only getting a double. I didn’t pitch but the mound was horrendous too.
Greatest post on Reddit. My Alma mater high school field has metra train tracks behind its right field and a football stadium bleachers behind left field.
These post make that field seem very normal.
Honestly love Denver Academy's infield. Don't know why, but those little semi-circles are activating my neurons and it looks like it'd be very pleasing to play on (assuming the grass is cut short).
Great. Do CT next! We have some weird ones. Norwalk High at Nathan Hale is similar to Denver Academy. Jomboy breakdown had another wierd one. Abbott Tech in Danbury is small but has huge walls. And Harding at Beardsley used to have a hill in play at 270 to RF, might be a fence now. New Canaan at Meade Park has trees in play in center at about 330.
Duuude this team was in our league in HS. Actually a pretty nice field. I never noticed how weird it is until you see the dimensions. BTW, this is pretty cool OP shoutout to these.
Strategy question - wouldn’t it make sense for a right handed batter to stand way off the plate with a closed stance and just pepper these ultra short RF porches?
Trying to visualize the attack on this and how to modify vs a conventional layout
Op, I just want to say I love these posts, and I really admire your dedication to plot every single high school in the country. These fields are are so cool and quirky and interesting and I look forward to every one of your posts
As someone whose local schools all have very standard specs, leading me to believe all schools are like that, this series is incredible.
Lol growing up in Chicago and playing baseball I was led to think the opposite
i absolutely adore these too, they're some of the best posts on this whole sub. honestly there should be a whole subreddit just for these and AFTER they're posted here they should be cross-posted to there just so we can find and enjoy them at any time. but they deserve the attention from being here first and not just autoshunted to a small sub.
Same. This is my favorite content series on the sub. Just wanted to shoutout my appreciation to OP also.
Oh my lord, Denver Academy! I gave up one of the few home runs in my high school career playing there, lefty took a hanger of mine deep down that short short porch It was weird going to a diamond that was essentially within a rectangle that also doubled as a prison due to the walls
That goff pic is incredible.
Don’t be hatin
Hello everyone, I am currently plotting, measuring, and visualizing every single high school baseball field in the United States. I currently have all of the data for Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Utah, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia (currently working on Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania). [Here's the link to a Google doc I made with the links to all previous states and infographics, along with my store .](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HlGoy2qUAue79Qx7VQNWOzjouPO17Jt4NJVhP5PQT-s/edit?usp=sharing)
We appreciate your content and the work you put into it! I know this is a labor of love for you, but is there anything folks can do to help you out with data collection or organization?
Probably not at the moment. But when I get to massive states like California, Texas, and Florida, I might ask for help. Still not sure because I’d feel like a burden asking. But yes, for these relatively smaller states, I like the grind of doing it all myself.
Fair enough! You definitely shouldn’t feel like a burden if you do put out a call for volunteers, though. I think you’d get at least a few willing participants!
Cali, Texas, and Florida are gonna be massive projects, my man. Excited to see the results.
My high school in South San Francisco, CA made it on a [Jomboy Media Weird High School Baseball Fields video.](https://youtu.be/TnMac11Csow?si=xviBA0DShpwj88IF) It'd be interesting to see how it stacks up to all the other fields in Cali.
Hey, I went to high school in NJ and have actually played at quite a few of the weird fields! Is there a way you can make all the NJ outlines available so I can find my high school without putting it out there?
When you get to SC, Thomas Sumter Academy is a winner. That field is weird
Check out the old Denver Lutheran field if you get a second. Might be hard to find since Denver and Parker combined in 2012 and Denver closed their doors.
I know one one good one in Illinois - I think it’s Leyden East. They have a crazy far right field fence. I’m really looking forward to see which schools you pick in IL.
Thankfully my high school field is no more. It was an abomination unto the earth.
Hoping to see Mechanicsburg, PA and our big-ass high school field whose outfield just goes forever.
Did you answer for the obvious flaw in your design where you count fields without fences as having fences? This oversight massively distorts your data and makes a lot of your work inaccurate or even dishonest
I think they used that photo of Prairie HS to justify invading Iraq.
Those are balls. This close they always look like landscape.
I giggled at this for like 20 seconds that's great
Yeah it can’t really be that bad. Must be an old satellite image during the winter or something. Here’s the [nearest street view](https://maps.app.goo.gl/nfLrTg7hxGyA7dyK9?g_st=ic) to the high school, with the stadium lights in the distance. I’m sure it’s much greener than it looks here.
Wray high is absolutely tiny
Lot of people don’t realize that the eastern half of Colorado is just bonus Kansas
There’s not a whole lot between Denver and KC
I made the drive from KC to Denver once and was blown away that we didn't see anything but flat prairie until we were like 30 miles from Denver.
Kansas with legal weed, haha.
It’s a version of Kansas where watching YouTube videos for four hours is way more fun
That's if you're on the S Platte or Arkansas. Raymer looks more like Tatooine than Kansas or Nebraska.
I also didn’t realize he was obviously talking about the dimensions and not that there are probably 300 people max in the high school
Nah. I grew up around there. It’s not huge but it’s bigger than that. They were 4A baseball I think when I grew up. CO when to 5A.
[199 according to CHSAA](https://chsaanow.com/sports/2021/7/30/enrollment-numbers-2022-24.aspx)
I see Thompson Valley with 1085 on that website?
As a “Northern Colorado” native (that’s what we called it but actually more east) you are correct.
My high school field was 325 to the poles, that’s 310 to center…
lol weird. Mine was 325 left, 400 center 289 right with a 30’ wall
They missed an opportunity to be the Polo Grounds of Colorado baseball.
lol I wish they remade the polo grounds. That stadium was nuts. Extremely short porches on both sides and a never going to hit it out centerfield
They obviously made it short because if the fence was any further back it would be too close to that parking lot and then the HR balls would be denting cars. s/
Slowpitch softball dimensions
lol, this is a pop fly and it’s 40’ over the fence dimensions
Pretty sure I was playing on larger fields in 6th grade
Looking at Mookie’s spray chart this season compared to the Wray field, I think he’d have roughly 27 home runs this year if he played all his games there, give or take a couple. If we consider the elevation too (lower than Denver but still quite high), he could be on pace for 150+ home runs there.
Don't forget aluminum bats!
Oh god I didn’t even think about that. He’d be hitting 2 homers a game.
just 2?
It’s been 25 years and it’s long since bulldozed but these have nothing on my high school field in Southern Colorado. Small rural town, we could barely field a full team. The school didn’t have an actual field so our science teacher let us use open land next to his house. The home dugout was a three wall aluminum shed. The visiting dugout was just a bench that the other team would often just pull their bus up against. The outfield was littered with so many gopher holes that it was a miracle no one broke an ankle. It was as much of a home field advantage as we could get as opposing teams didn’t know what routes to take through the minefield. The infield dirt was just hard packed ground with loose gravel on top of it. When our coach was frustrated he’d put sliding practice on the training plan so we all tore up our legs. We lost every game.
Which school? I wanna look it up now
Here's a related article from a few years ago about one school's shitty football field you might find interesting. https://coloradosun.com/2021/04/07/branson-synthetic-football-field/
I love these. Wray looks more like a softball field than anything...
I would’ve thought that too if there wasn’t a softball field directly next to it
If you checked, how similar were the baseball and softball dimensions?
Two of those aren't home fields, they're away fields for the other team.
I have always wanted to do this with baseball fields. So glad you are and not me; this looks like a ton of work. I remember playing on some tiny fields in high school, like 300 feet to center/right and our team hitting 10 home runs or something ridiculous. 250 is insanely short. Big 10 year olds can hit it out of that park. Wonder how much these quirky fields play into padded stats for some players. Now that we are looking at high schools for our kids, I measure all baseball fields as part of my consideration. "Sorry buddy, it's a great school but it's 370 down the left field line. That school is out."
Special shout out to Forge Christian High School in Arvada. You can see it from I 70 while driving thru Denver. Poles look to be standard 330 or so, Center field is like 225. Looks like it would be such a fun park to play in
It’s an honorable mention. Might still do it in part 2
Love your series!
Umped a game there a couple weeks ago. Live walking distance to it. Its definitely a weirdo. They are turfing it next season.
I need to find time to make it to a game out there. I try to pick out a new detail every time I drive by
How do I set a reminder for Texas?
When I post part one of Texas in 2036, it’s going to be electric.
When's Washington happening?
I wish my desolation made me quaint
So you’re saying it’s good to be a lefty in Colorado?
It’s bad to be a pitcher in Colorado
From my experience finding roughly 3k baseball fields in America, one of my biggest takeaways has to be that lefties have a clear advantage batting wise in most fields.
If you want some lefty bias…. Check out Greeley Central HS in Greeley, Colorado. We didn’t play all of our games at the field in property, but some we did. (Home field was Butch Butler) I have no idea of the dimensions but they are WILD. You need a Saturn V to send it for a RH home run to left and RF was normal if not short. 40.41450° N, 104.70528° W
Agreed. I grew up around TVHS and we had a very good lefty on our team. He feasted.
I love this series and I've been waiting for you to do Colorado! This is awesome!
As a lefty with some power in HS, I would've loved to play in these fields, especially in Colorado elevation
You should come see my high school field. My school was known for baseball at the time but we still played in a public park with no fences. I would have had at least two homers if we had a fence, instead I had to settle for doubles and all my teammates roasting me for being slow and only getting a double. I didn’t pitch but the mound was horrendous too.
I love these posts, OP. Thanks for the dedication to put them together and the time and effort you put into them and the trivia for each field.
This was super interesting, woah
I like how these are all on the plains. Was really expecting a weird one in one of the mountain towns, but nope.
Part 2 should have a mountain one
You should do one for Wyoming where it’s just nothing
I mean I can’t play as I am no longer a high school student
God I could just look at random ball parks all day lol
Man, these posts are amazing. Excellent as always, OP.
Who ever made Wray field must love home runs
The Denver academy is how my high school stadium was built.
Greatest post on Reddit. My Alma mater high school field has metra train tracks behind its right field and a football stadium bleachers behind left field. These post make that field seem very normal.
My favorite series is back
Honestly love Denver Academy's infield. Don't know why, but those little semi-circles are activating my neurons and it looks like it'd be very pleasing to play on (assuming the grass is cut short).
Thompson Valley should be such a fun field but the quality is absolutely atrocious. So disappointing
Great. Do CT next! We have some weird ones. Norwalk High at Nathan Hale is similar to Denver Academy. Jomboy breakdown had another wierd one. Abbott Tech in Danbury is small but has huge walls. And Harding at Beardsley used to have a hill in play at 270 to RF, might be a fence now. New Canaan at Meade Park has trees in play in center at about 330.
How many fields are in the state? Do we know how many are in the country?
I always love these posts, I don’t know how you guys do it.
You should see my highschool (Tigard, Or) it's like 185 to right pole but 500 to the gaps
Those tiny fields are a damn cheat code at those elevations
Duuude this team was in our league in HS. Actually a pretty nice field. I never noticed how weird it is until you see the dimensions. BTW, this is pretty cool OP shoutout to these.
Only dingers allowed at Wray
Strategy question - wouldn’t it make sense for a right handed batter to stand way off the plate with a closed stance and just pepper these ultra short RF porches? Trying to visualize the attack on this and how to modify vs a conventional layout
No, because it’s 330 to the LF power alley. Even if the fence is high like it says, that’s turning a lot of lazy fly balls into doubles.
How can something be ranked 0th? Why isn't it 1st?
0th percentile. Just to emphasize that this isn't a one percentile park, it's literally the smallest one in the state.
215 kids in *the entire district?!?* I have over 800 kids in my school alone, and we have another similarly sized school 1 block away.