The batter's eye or batter's eye screen is a solid-colored, usually dark area beyond the
center field
A center fielder, abbreviated CF, is the outfielder in baseball who plays defense in center field – the Baseball positions, baseball and softball fielding position between Left fielder, left field and Right fielder, right field. In the numberi ...
wall of a baseball stadium, that is the visual backdrop directly in the line of sight of a
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
batter, while facing the
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...
and awaiting a pitch. This dark surface allows the batter to see the pitched ball against a sharply contrasted and uncluttered background. Its purpose is the safety and hitting success of the batter. The use of a batter's background has been standard in baseball (as well as
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
) since at least the late 19th century. The batter's eye performs the same role at a baseball venue as the
sight-screen does at a cricket venue, except that a cricket sight-screen is usually white in order to contrast with the dark red cricket ball. Alternatively a black screen is used to contrast the white
Limited Overs
Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty ...
cricket ball.
Design and seating
![Detroit 3 Automakers Homerun Fountain at Comerica Park 2009](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Detroit_3_Automakers_Homerun_Fountain_at_Comerica_Park_2009.JPG)
The batter's eye area is usually painted or otherwise decorated in black, dark green, or another color dark enough to allow batters to track the flight of the white ball. If there are seats behind center field, they are painted a dark color and are not occupied during baseball games, as the "black bleachers" section is directly in front of them. If fans were allowed to sit in this section, it would create a pitcher's advantage, in addition to raising the batter's exposure to danger, as it would make it more difficult for the batter to track the ball if a substantial number of fans were wearing white shirts.
One example of a batter's background is the black area in the center-field
bleacher
Bleachers (North American English), or stands, are raised, tiered rows of benches found at sports fields and other spectator events. Stairways provide access to the horizontal rows of seats, often with every other step gaining access to a row ...
s section of the
original Yankee Stadium, known as the Black Seats. At one time, there were seats where the black area was, but because of distractions the seats were removed and the area painted black. (Before the stadium's mid-1970s renovation, a batter's eye screen was often put up in front of the section.)
At
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball stadium located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, near Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home of the Boston Red Sox, the city's American League baseball team, and since 1953, its only Major League Base ...
in Boston, the batter's eye is made by laying a tarp over a section of the center field bleachers. During day games, the seats will not be sold so the tarp can be laid down; however, during night games, when the batter is more likely to be able to see the ball regardless of the backdrop, the seats are sold. This has often created unusual seating arrangements during night games that are made up during part of a day-night
doubleheader as the sections remain uncovered for the people who have purchased the seats. The Red Sox have solved this problem by handing out T-shirts of the same color to these fans to wear during the game. At
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...
, the center field bleachers used to be closed off and covered by a tarpaulin, and later by juniper plants. There is now a shaded luxury suite there referred to by the Cubs as the "
Bud Light
Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, is the largest brewing company in the United States, with a market share of 45 percent in 2016.
The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and nearly 20 in othe ...
Batter's Eye".
Some stadiums have rotating billboards in this area. In this case, advertisements are displayed in between innings, while a dark surface is rotated in while the game is in play. This method was used at
Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium (), formally known as William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, New York City.[Citi Field
Citi Field is a baseball stadium located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in New York City, United States. It opened in 2009 and is the home field of Major League Baseball's New York Mets. The stadium was built as a replacement for the adjacent ...](_blank)
) in New York,
Oracle Park
Oracle Park is a Major League Baseball stadium in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's curre ...
in San Francisco, and at
Petco Park
Petco Park is a baseball stadium in Downtown San Diego, California. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres, and has also been used as a venue for concerts, soccer, golf, and rugby.
The ballpark is located between Se ...
in San Diego.
Tropicana Field
Tropicana Field (commonly known as the Trop) is a Multi-purpose stadium, multi-purpose domed stadium located in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The stadium has been the home of the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB) since the ...
in
St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...
had a restaurant called the Batter's Eye Restaurant. The current
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the origi ...
has a restaurant with dark tinted glass that serves as the batter's eye.
![Peoria Stadium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Peoria_Stadium.jpg)
Ballparks in
Minor League Baseball are normally much smaller than major-league parks, and the vast majority have no seats or other sections in the outfield that would distract the batter or obstruct their view of the pitched ball.
Bradner Stadium
Bradner Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Olean, New York. The stadium, which can accommodate both baseball and football, served as home to minor-league baseball teams including the Olean Oilers and Olean Yankees. The stadium was built ...
in
Olean, New York
Olean ( ) is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County and serves as its financial, business, transportation and entertainment center. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern ...
, was notorious for its configuration that had batters facing directly into the sunset, requiring
Olean Oilers
The Olean Oilers were a minor league baseball team located in Olean, New York which played primarily in the New York–Pennsylvania League from 1939 to 1966, with a hiatus in 1960. Starting in 1959, the team shared nicknames with its major league a ...
games to temporarily stop for "sun breaks" and resume after sunset; the professional Oilers left Olean in the 1970s and when baseball returned in the 2010s, the stadium reoriented to avoid this problem. Other minor or independent league stadiums have erected tall, dark, stand-alone batters-eye screens in center to ensure there is no interference with the batter's view. For example, beyond the batter's eye screen looming over center field in
SIUH Community Park, home of the
Staten Island FerryHawks
The Staten Island FerryHawks are an American minor-league professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Staten Island. They are a member of the North Division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a "partner leag ...
, is
Upper New York Bay
New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...
. The batter's eye screen prevents, in day games, the glare of the hazy ocean air and, in night games, the lights from lower Manhattan, from being an impediment to batters. During intermission or when there is no game happening, the screen is able to be retracted to allow the spectators to view the skyline of New York in the distance.
[Baseball Explained by Phillip Mahony, McFarland Books, 2014. ]
See also
*
Sight screen
In cricket, a sight screen is an apparatus, often comprising wooden or poly-carbonate slats, or cloth sheeting, on a large frame made of wood or another material, that is positioned alongside the cricket field to provide the batsmen a clear view ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Batter's Eye
Baseball field