Up Against the Wall

BY MARK A. LARSON
Editor & Publisher

With the crack of the bat the announcer’s voice rises, exclaiming “It’s a long fly ball … back … back … back … this one could be out of here.”

Often one of the most exciting plays of a ballgame is when the score is close in the late innings and the batter cranks one deep to the far reaches of the outfield.

The crowd holds their collective breath as the outfielder chases the ball and leaps into the air near the wall — or fence — in an attempt to turn a home run or extra base hit into a long out.

This thrilling type of play has been happening since at least the late the 1800s. Around that time, outfield walls and fences began to become more common as part of new ballpark construction (or were added to existing fields where outfield barriers did not exist).

Yet, there can be a more negative side to this long ball excitement: An outfielder crashing into the wall. By the 1940s, enough players had been seriously injured by their aggressive play – most notably Brooklyn Dodgers’ All-Star Pete Reiser – that in 1949 the Major Leagues mandated teams to create warning tracks.

The back of Bowman’s 1948 Pete Reiser card mentions
his frequent face-to-face encounters with the wall.

At the time, the requirement was a 10-foot wide strip of dirt extending from the outfield wall toward home plate. In this small way, outfielders would have some notice of the hard obstacle ahead of them. Nowadays, warning tracks are usually a little bigger at about 15 feet in width. In addition to warning tracks, teams eventually began to add padding to outfield walls as well.

Not all injuries involving outfield barriers have been eliminated, but the warning tracks and padding have certainly helped.

Here’s a look at recent Topps cards that depict the action involved with outfielders trying to prevent long balls from becoming doubles, triples and home runs: