The Air Up There

By BOB NIGHTENGALE

Sept. 16, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DENVER —

Dodger pitcher Ismael Valdes casually glanced at the Dodger Stadium scoreboard last week, read the out-of-town scores, and his eyes bugged out.

“Hey, who pitched for the Braves today?” Valdes breathlessly asked a reporter.

“John Smoltz.”

“Oh no, no, no, no,” Valdes said, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t believe it. That place got him too. Oh, man.”

It was bad enough for Valdes to see that the Colorado Rockies romped past the Braves at Coors Field, but even worse that Smoltz--a Cy Young Award contender--gave up 12 hits and nine runs in six innings.

Tonight is Valdes’ turn on the mound in baseball’s Bermuda Triangle as the Dodgers open a critical three-game series against the Rockies at Coors Field.

“It’s a scary place,” Valdes said. “I don’t like it. Nobody likes it. It’s the worst place in baseball.”

Not everyone agrees with Valdes. Opinions vary drastically depending upon perspective. Coors Field can bring Cy Young winners to tears and make superstars out of average hitters. It can resurrect or end careers.

And no matter what the Dodgers’ feelings, they have no choice but to adapt this week if they want to be playing in October.

“‘You hate to even think what could happen,” said Dave Wallace, Dodger pitching coach, “but we all know from past experience this place can be a nightmare. These games are so important, and it drives you nuts knowing they’re being played in Denver.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great city. The fans are great. It’s exciting. It’s just not baseball. Certainly, it’s not baseball like it’s meant to be played.”

It is a brand of baseball that leaves fans exhilarated, players exhausted, managers frustrated and pitchers psychotic.

“I pitched there my second start of the year,” said Jim Bullinger of the Cubs, “and for five starts after that I was brain-damaged.

The Dodger pitching staff still is trying to recover from a June series here. The Dodgers batted .338 with 33 runs, 53 hits and 13 homers, and lost three of four games. Their pitching staff suffered the worst battering in Los Angeles franchise history, yielding a .416 batting average, 52 runs, 69 hits and 12 home runs. The two teams combined for 122 hits, 85 runs, 25 homers and a .378 average.

“I’ve never, ever, been involved in a series like that,” Dodger closer Todd Worrell said. “In that ballpark, anything can happen. Guys get beaten down mentally and psyche themselves out. It’s hardly enjoyable.”

Said Dodger first baseman Eric Karros: “Before that series, I always thought it would be nice to play 81 games a year there. You know, just to see what kind of stats you could put up. But after seeing that, I know I couldn’t take it. I’d die of stress.

“The ballpark is a joke.

“Mentally, it is an absolute nightmare.”

The Rockies may be in only their fourth year of existence, but they play like the ’27 Yankees at home. They went 44-28 at Coors Field a year ago, and are a league-best 53-22 there this season. They have won six consecutive games during their home stand.

Unfortunately for the Rockies, they resemble the ’62 Mets on the road. They have a 26-49 road record this season, 7-21 against the five worst teams in the league--San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Florida and Pittsburgh.

The Rockies entered the weekend with a .349 batting average at home, scoring 604 runs with 137 homers, a .415 on-base percentage and .588 slugging percentage. On the road, they are batting .226 with 282 runs, 68 homers a .295 on-base percentage and .349 slugging percentage.

This season, the Rockies have had 54 innings this season in which they’ve scored four or more runs--45 of them at home. The Rockies have batted around 30 times in an inning--24 at home. The Rockies have had 46 comeback victories--35 at home. The Rockies have scored 10 or more runs 28 times--27 times at home.

“It starts to play mind games with the pitchers,” said Atlanta Brave pitching coach Leo Mazzone, whose staff yielded 66 runs, 73 hits, 15 doubles and nine homers in six games this season at Coors. “And you start playing prevent defense.

“And you know what happens when you play prevent defense in football? You give up points. And in baseball, you give up runs.”

These bloated offensive statistics were predicted two years ago by Tom Stephen, a physicist at the University of Denver. Considering that Denver’s 5,280-foot high altitude is 4,200 feet higher than Atlanta--the next-highest city with a baseball team--his report concluded that a baseball hit in Denver would travel an average of 9% further at Coors Field than in stadiums at sea level. This means a 370-foot drive in Dodger Stadium would travel 403.3 feet in Denver.

“What’s happening is no surprise,” Stephen said. “Basically, it’s what I predicted.”

The trouble is that neither Stephen nor anyone else has any explanation for the Rockies’ vast discrepancies at home and on the road. Folks know about the altitude. They know all about the jet stream to right-center field. They even know about the great power-hitting lineup.

Yet, because some of the Rockies hit like Babe Ruth at home and Buddy Biancalana on the road, there’s growing suspicion that something funny is going on. Two National League coaches, one National League manager, and a handful of scouts said the Rockies are cheating.

They don’t know how the Rockies are doing it, and no one can prove it, but they said there is more to the home-field advantage than altitude.

“I know they’re cheating,” one National League hitting coach said. “Come on, it’s impossible to be that good of a hitter at home, and that bad on the road. It’s like they always know what pitch is coming.

“I mean, they’re swings aren’t even the same.”

Said Colorado General Manager Bob Gebhard: “If something is going on, I sure don’t know about it.”

The whispers are similar to those heard about the Kingdome in Seattle and the Metrodome in Minnesota. Teams are starting to believe the Rockies are stealing signs from the opposing catcher, perhaps by hiding a camera in center field.

“Maybe their technology is better than the rest of us,” said Hal McRae, Cincinnati hitting coach. “They are two different teams, home and road. It doesn’t make sense. No sense at all unless something is up.”

Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa, sensing something amiss, said he changed signs every two or three pitches during his team’s last series at Coors. The Rockies didn’t light up the scoreboard, but they still won.

“It’s not easy to understand,” La Russa said, “because they have good players. You would think they could still hit on the road. I really don’t know what it is.

“I’m not saying [cheating] is not possible, but we kept changing our signs, and that didn’t work either.”

The most puzzling aspect, scouts said, is that the Rockies appear to have no difficulty handling curveballs and sliders at home. Yet on the road they are clueless.

It could be that the Rockies are exclusively a fastball-hitting team, and since the altitude diminishes the effectiveness of breaking pitches at Coors Field, they are lost on the road. It could be that they are too aggressive on the road, too anxious to prove people wrong. It could be the adrenaline rush of playing before 48,000 night after night--the Rockies have had 126 consecutive sellouts. It could be the great hitters’ background.

“The background is so dark,” Mazzone said, “that baby comes up there and looks like a big white softball. That makes them confident at the plate. Very confident.

“Sometimes, it can lead to paranoia.”

Which leads to speculation about hidden cameras.

“You hear talk among scouts,” said Jeff Gardner, the San Diego Padres’ advance scout, “but I don’t think anyone has figured out anything. The one thing I cannot explain is not that they don’t score as many runs on the road, but they don’t even have the same swing. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence.”

Even if everything is perfectly legit, this bloated statistical advantage at Coors ruined Dante Bichette’s shot at the Most Valuable Player award last season, and now it is doing the same to Ellis Burks.

Burks is batting .345 with 31 homers and 123 runs batted in. Yet, he’s considered a longshot for the award because of where he plays.

“The MVP should be Ellis Burks, no question,” Rocky first baseman Andres Galarraga said. “But no matter what we do, it seems like we can’t win the MVP. It’s not fair. I’d like to believe you can win the MVP here.”

Said Bichette: “We aren’t going to win any Cy Young Awards in Coors Field. Shouldn’t we be eligible to win something?”

Burks cannot control where he plays. He’s even having an admirable season on the road, batting .292 with 16 homers and 46 RBIs. But he too will be penalized for his home-field advantage.

“It’s just pure jealousy to me,” Cincinnati outfielder Eric Davis said. “Some guys’ [earned-run averages] are lower at home than on the road. Does that mean they shouldn’t get the Cy Young Award? No one says anything about [Ryne] Sandberg and [Andre] Dawson? Nobody said anything when Sandberg hit 40 at Wrigley? You got balls jumping out in Baltimore and Detroit too.”

Said McRae: “I think it’s unfair to hold it against Burks or any other player with the Rockies. A player has no control where he plays.

“Besides, didn’t Ernie Banks win the MVP at Wrigley? Didn’t Roy Campanella win it at Ebbetts Field? Didn’t Roger Maris win it at Yankee Stadium? Didn’t Fred Lynn win it at Fenway? You can’t punish the player.”

Besides, the Rockies argue, what about stadiums that favor pitchers, say Dodger Stadium? This is a place where 14% fewer runs are scored and 18% fewer homers are hit.

Certainly, no one held it against Hideo Nomo during the rookie-of-the-year balloting for being 8-2 with a 1.73 ERA in 14 games at Dodger Stadium compared to 5-4 with a 3.41 ERA in 14 road games.

“It’s a great place to play, and I think everybody would like to see what kind of numbers you could put up there,” Karros said. “I’d love to see what [Mark] McGwire, [Mike] Piazza, [Barry] Bonds or a [Fred] McGriff could put up there. People talk about Wrigley, and what it’s like when the wind blows out, but there’s no comparison. I mean, it’s the same every night at Coors.”

“But why would anyone want to put up with all of the grief with everyone questioning your ability.”

Said Bichette: “I would rather take the chance of not being considered a great hitter than never play here. I can take the criticism because playing here, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

Philadelphia Phillie Manager Jim Fregosi, puffing on a cigarette, sat on the bench and joined the debate of what can be done to change Coors Field.

The outfield already is the biggest in the National League. The ballpark measures 347 feet down the left-field line and 350 feet to right. The alleys are 390 feet in left and 375 feet in right. And the center-field fence is 420 feet away. If you make it any larger, you’d have to play with four outfielders and a rover.

“I hear all of these people complaining about the place,” Fregosi said, “and I just laugh. To me, that ballpark and its design are flawless.

“You sell out a place 81 nights a year, it means you got the perfect place. If I were the Rockies, I’d be laughing all of the way to the bank.”

Indeed, when Astro Manager Terry Collins blasted Coors Field last season, Rocky owner Jerry McMorris took great offense. He even wrote a letter to Astro owner Drayton McLane.

“I thought the objective is trying to promote the game,” McMorris said. “Well, there must be something about our ballpark that people like. It’s sold out every night.”

The only architectural flaw that Gebhard said he would rectify, if he could, is the wind draft toward right-center. It was a concern raised during the planning stages. Yet, to stretch the fence by 15 feet in right-center, it would require moving the center-field fence to a whopping 490 feet away from home plate.

There was talk one time of designing a high-altitude baseball, much like the high-altitude tennis balls and golf balls that are used in Denver. It was too radical of an idea and never taken seriously.

“The last I heard,” Gebhard said, “is that we’re in the entertainment business. Fans come to see hits, runs and home runs, and that’s what you see here.”

Simply, it is a matter of perspective.

“It’s an awesome place if you’re a hitter,” said Piazza, “but being a catcher, I can see why pitchers think it’s a horrible place.

“Maybe the best compromise would be if they could just dig a hole and sink it down half a mile.

“You don’t think they could do that by game time [today], do you?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Ball trajectory

Balls hit at 110 mph with a launch angle of 35 degrees travel 10% further at Coors Field than at sea level.

(Please see newspaper for chart)

Sources: Tom Stephen, University of Denver

Where the Homers Go

Home runs at Coors Field in its first two years of existence and the distances from home plate to the outfiel.*

LF 175: 390’

LCF 40: 420’

CF 93: 415’

RCF 66: 424’

RF 118: 375’

* Through Sept. 11

Sandy Koufax, the Dante Bichette of His Era?

When the Dodgers moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962, Sandy Koufax was helped more than any other player. A look at his year-by-year totals, away and home:

HOME

*--*

Year IP H SO BB W-L ERA 1955 24 16 22 10 2-0 2.25 1956 18 28 8 11 0-2 7.50 1957 50 46 57 21 3-1 3.96 1958 63 55 53 49 2-6 5.60 1959 80 64 98 41 5-2 3.14 1960 70 63 71 49 1-7 5.27 1961 126 111 137 47 9-7 4.29 1962 103 68 118 25 7-4 1.75 1963 144 83 144 23 11-1 1.38 1964 128 82 124 18 12-2 0.85 1965 170 89 208 31 14-3 1.38 1966 171 124 160 45 13-5 1.52

*--*

Koufax pitched in Ebbets Field from 1955-57. From 1958-61, he pitched in the Coliseum, which was a hitter’s park and with the short left-field fence, was murder on left-handed pitchers. In 1962, when the Dodgers moved to Dodger Stadium, Koufax became Koufax. He was 57-15 with a 1.37 ERA there.

AWAY

*--*

Year IP H SO BB W-L ERA 1955 17 17 8 18 0-2 4.15 1956 41 38 22 18 2-2 3.76 1957 54 37 65 30 2-3 3.81 1958 96 77 78 56 9-5 3.75 1959 73 72 75 51 3-4 5.05 1960 105 70 126 51 7-6 3.00 1961 130 101 132 49 9-6 2.78 1962 82 66 98 32 7-3 3.53 1963 167 131 162 35 14-4 2.31 1964 95 72 99 35 7-3 2.93 1965 166 127 174 40 12-5 2.72 1966 152 117 157 32 14-4 1.96

*--*

There is no sharp improvement in 1962 like there was for the home numbers. From 1960-61, Koufax’s ERA on the road was 2.88. From 1961-62 it was 2.71. In 1963, the ERA for the entire National League dropped 65 points after it was decided to widen the strike zone following the offensive explosion of 1961 and ‘62, helping to account for his improvement. Koufax was the same good pitcher he had always been, but the difference in the league rules and home park made him great.

Dodger Pitchers Home and Away

HIDEO NOMO

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 127 1/3 92 135 38 9-6 2.76

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 80 1/3 74 81 36 6-4 4.15

*--*

ISMAEL VALDES

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 107 85 88 27 7-2 2.61

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 96 2/3 120 69 21 6-5 4.28

*--*

TOM CANDIOTTI

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 66 78 39 24 5-4 5.32

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 77 2/3 81 34 18 4-5 3.36

*--*

RAMON MARTINEZ

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 76 1/3 69 55 37 7-3 3.18

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 75 1/3 76 59 41 6-3 4.18

*--*

PEDRO ASTACIO

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 98 91 60 27 5-4 2.76

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB W-L ERA 96 2/3 102 59 33 4-3 3.91

*--*

TODD WORRELL

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB SV ERA 29 1/3 29 28 4 19 2.15

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB SV ERA 31 38 33 24 24 3.88

*--*

DODGERS

HOME

*--*

IP H SO BB ERA 693 579 596 230 2.90

*--*

AWAY

*--*

IP H SO BB ERA 656 1/3 704 513 259 4.10

*--*

The Dodgers ERA is 1.20 better at home this season. The league average is 0.67

How the Dodgers fare at Coors Field

What some Dodgers would do if they played their home games at Coors Field (projection based on playing every game of 162-game season)

*--*

PLAYER AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Piazza 686 156 291 28 0 76 202 .424 Mondesi 714 134 217 34 17 50 176 .304 Karros 690 164 223 42 1 62 149 .323 TEAM 6,074 1,070 1,815 279 72 267 1,028 .299

*--*

Dodgers at Coors Field (1995-96):

*--*

PLAYER G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Piazza 10 48 14 24 2 0 7 19 .500 Mondesi 10 47 11 16 1 2 5 18 .340 Karros 10 45 16 19 4 0 6 12 .422 TEAM 10 395 91 138 19 7 24 88 .349

*--*

How the Rockies fare

DANTE BICHETTE

*--*

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Home 75 314 73 119 21 3 22 95 .379 Away 73 278 37 72 17 0 8 41 .259

*--*

ANDRES GALARRAGA

*--*

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Home 73 300 76 108 21 1 30 97 .360 Away 74 285 35 68 13 2 15 43 .239

*--*

VINNY CASTILLA

*--*