League FactorsUsing Park Factors© Tangotiger
Bill Felber, in an excellent interview conducted by Steve Lombardi at NetShrine.com, remarked that Sportsman's Park was home for two teams for a period of years. Another reader at BaseballThinkFactory.org also noted that Shibe Park had a similar situation. However, as Bill noted, the park factors for the two St Louis teams were not the same. Since a park factor compares how a team and its opponent perform at home and on the road, we have a unique situation here. The opponent parks for the Cardinals and the Browns are not the same. The park factors are factors relative to other parks in the same league. Bill's discovery is important, as we can compare parks of different leagues, using the one common park (Sportsman's Park) as the baseline. And to add more power to this, Shibe Park was also in the same situation. Here's the relevant data, for 1938-1953 (source of data is from Yahoo eGroup: kjokbaseball)
Simple enough?
Now, look what happens with the Phillies, who are in the NL. They scored and allowed more runs on the road! That's right, 5% more runs were scored on the road than at Shibe Park. What does this mean? It means that there were more hitter's parks in the NL than in the AL. And, by a whopping 8.6% factor.
To add support to the argument, the Browns in the AL and the Cardinals in the NL also played in the same park at the exact same time that the two Philly teams played at Shibe. And what were the results? The Browns scored and allowed 11% more runs at Sportsman's than in other AL parks. The Cardinals only scored and allowed 6% more runs at Sportsman's than in other NL parks. The reason is clear: the other NL parks were easier in which to score runs. The factor based on the St Louis teams is 5.3%.
Why is it also not 8 or 9%? Because all parks affect all hitters and pitchers in different ways. The players on these teams are not necessarily representative of the whole population. I made additional comments on park factors in an article a few years ago.
Are there other teams that shared parks? You betcha. Here's the full chart. Rather clear that we find more hitter's parks in the NL than the AL. Thanks Bill, that was fun.
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First Year | Last Year | Num Of Years | Park | LgID | Team | GP_H | RS_H | RA_H | GP_A | RS_A | RA_A | RS_x | RA_x | R_x | Hitter's Parks in… |
1903 | 1903 | 1 | Columbia Park | AL | Athletics | 67 | 4.82 | 3.55 | 70 | 3.91 | 4.01 | 1.23 | 0.88 | 1.06 | NL |
1903 | 1903 | 1 | Columbia Park | NL | Phillies | 16 | 3.81 | 3.75 | 78 | 4.71 | 5.64 | 0.81 | 0.66 | 0.73 | |
1911 | 1911 | 1 | Hilltop Park | AL | Yankees | 77 | 4.74 | 5.48 | 76 | 4.2 | 3.96 | 1.13 | 1.38 | 1.25 | NL |
1911 | 1911 | 1 | Hilltop Park | NL | Giants | 28 | 5.07 | 3.46 | 79 | 5.05 | 3.48 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
1912 | 1922 | 11 | Polo Grounds | AL | Yankees | 762 | 4.35 | 3.84 | 819 | 4.07 | 4.11 | 1.07 | 0.93 | 1 | NL |
1912 | 1922 | 11 | Polo Grounds | NL | Giants | 834 | 4.36 | 3.46 | 828 | 4.61 | 3.73 | 0.94 | 0.93 | 0.94 | |
1914 | 1915 | 2 | Fenway Park | AL | Red Sox | 155 | 3.84 | 3.01 | 159 | 4.17 | 3.41 | 0.92 | 0.88 | 0.9 | AL |
1914 | 1915 | 2 | Fenway Park | NL | Braves | 80 | 4.08 | 3.41 | 158 | 3.92 | 3.49 | 1.04 | 0.98 | 1.01 | |
1920 | 1953 | 34 | Sportsman's | AL | Browns | 2622 | 4.99 | 5.49 | 2628 | 4.21 | 5.1 | 1.18 | 1.08 | 1.12 | NL |
1920 | 1953 | 34 | Sportsman's | NL | Cardinals | 2619 | 5.12 | 4.25 | 2621 | 4.77 | 4.3 | 1.07 | 0.99 | 1.03 | |
1927 | 1954 | 18 | Shibe Park | AL | Athletics | 1384 | 4.26 | 5.09 | 1398 | 4.1 | 5 | 1.04 | 1.02 | 1.03 | NL |
1927 | 1954 | 18 | Shibe Park | NL | Phillies | 1291 | 3.74 | 4.41 | 1391 | 3.85 | 4.79 | 0.97 | 0.92 | 0.94 | |
1929 | 1932 | 4 | Braves Field | AL | Red Sox | 50 | 3.8 | 5 | 305 | 3.82 | 5.83 | 0.99 | 0.86 | 0.91 | NL |
1929 | 1932 | 4 | Braves Field | NL | Braves | 309 | 3.96 | 4.55 | 310 | 4.22 | 5.29 | 0.94 | 0.86 | 0.9 | |
1962 | 1965 | 4 | Dodger Stadium | AL | Angels | 323 | 3.46 | 3.57 | 324 | 3.92 | 4.11 | 0.88 | 0.87 | 0.88 | NL |
1962 | 1965 | 4 | Dodger Stadium | NL | Dodgers | 326 | 3.78 | 3.11 | 328 | 4.49 | 4.04 | 0.84 | 0.77 | 0.81 | |
1974 | 1975 | 2 | Shea Stadium | AL | Yankees | 159 | 4.06 | 3.64 | 163 | 4.33 | 3.88 | 0.94 | 0.94 | 0.94 | NL |
1974 | 1975 | 2 | Shea Stadium | NL | Mets | 162 | 3.54 | 3.86 | 162 | 3.98 | 3.98 | 0.89 | 0.97 | 0.93 | |