Study: Clouds help hitters, blue sky for pitchers
NewsCentral Staff
Story Created:
May 4, 2011 at 5:07 PM EDT
Story Updated:
May 4, 2011 at 5:07 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) - A sunny, summer day is great for baseball, if you're a pitcher. For hitters, a little cloud cover helps.
It turns out that batting averages go up when the sun ducks behind a cloud, according to a new study that looked at thousands of major league baseball games played between 1987 and 2002.
The analysis by Wes P. Kent and Scott C. Sheridan was published by the American Meteorological Society for the current issue of the journal Weather, Climate and Society.
They found the presence or absence of clouds affects baseball in all sorts of ways, from strikeouts to errors to which team wins. Essentially, cloudy days favor fielders and hitters while pitchers benefit from the glare created by sunshine.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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