Everyone likes a homer. Whether you're behind the batting cage, guzzling beer in the bleachers, or making faces on the field screen, any baseball fan knows that when a ball sails over an outfield wall, a little bit of history is made.

Of course, seasoned fans would like to think there's more to the game than one-shot clout, such as skill, strategy, and team chemistry. But strike-scared Major League Baseball officials are familiar with a different kind of factor: profit. And a recent University of Rhode Island study unearthed clues suggesting that capital might just be the real Most Valuable Player in MLB.

The annual average of Major League home runs has been on the increase for some time. Critics speculate that this increase is due to fans' demand for entertainment, combined with MLB' well-known desire for capital gain. An easy solution? Exploit the "long ball" that consistently gets audiences up from their seats, and in line for more tickets.

So when rumors of "juiced-up" baseballs reached a small forensics team at the University of Rhode Island, the group decided to take a swing at the issue. Analyzing a set of donated baseballs from 1963 to 2000, the team of six scientists found that more recent balls from 1995 and 2000 bounced a significant 20 inches higher than the older samples from 1963, 1970, and 1989. This increase in "juice" could be responsible for the outlandish home run stats of recent years.

Rawlings, the official maker of Major League baseballs, denies any change in manufacturing. Scott Seibers, the company's marketing manager for baseballs, assured ABC News in April, "The ball is still made per Major League specifications. They are made the exact same way they always have been and they have the same components."

A different study by Jim Sherwood, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts, concluded that temperature and humidity have significant effects on the "liveliness" of baseballs. Citing these factors, Sherwood declared it impossible to compare balls differing in age by more than a few years. ABC News reported that Sherwood sees the URI study as altogether "incorrect," and he plans to further his theory by studying bats.

Frank Leoni, URI's head baseball coach, views the matter in complex terms. "It's simply a fact that the long ball puts more people in the seats," he says. "Major League Baseball is a business, and any company will do what it deems necessary within the rules to make money -- give the customer what he wants." But he thinks some other factors are pertinent, such as "the watered-down supply of quality pitchers, bigger and better hitters, steroid usage, and overall better hitting instruction with the use of technology advances . . . just to name a few."

Issue Date: August 23 - 29, 2002