There have been a monstrous amount of home runs hit at the New Yankee Stadium this season, 71 to be exact and 37 by the Bombers themselves. This is a pretty fair ratio of home team to visiting team home runs hit at the new park. But the question still remains: Why are so many home runs being hit at the new Stadium?

I bring up this gossiping topic simply because of the back, to back, to back performance by Swisher, Cano, and Melky Wednesday night. As an avid Yankee fan I can safely say that only one of those was a definite homer, Melky’s. The other two just seemed to will themselves over the fence; in fact Swisher’s seemed to look like it was going to be a pop out by his choked swing. And Cano’s was a pop out that fell on the right side of the fence.

With all the mistakes of the New Stadium: robbing Bronx residents of money and parks, building seats with obstructed views, over priced tickets, and failure to sell-out games, is it any surprise that the Yankee organization didn’t think about the effect the wind would have on the new digs? Plenty of people are debating this topic; NPR had a half hour dedicated to the “wind at Yankee Stadium” discussion. Any way you look at it the reasoning seems to be pretty simple to me. It’s a small dinky little stadium in comparison to the old one.

The seats don’t go as high and they don’t tower over the field. The playing field is set at an exact west to east line (an almost 20 degree angle difference from the classic stadium) and the wind coming off of the Hudson blows directly west to east. We can just chalk it up to that and move on just as they did in Colorado with the “thin air discussion” in the 90’s.

I know of little writers and sport enthusiasts who are bringing this up but maybe the Yankees are finally getting what they paid for; hard throwing fastball pitchers, and powerful long ball hitters. This obviously isn’t the sole reason for the short balls turned long but I like to think it’s a contributor. The Yankees have Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Hedeki Matsui, Joerge Posada, and Nick Swisher normally hitting in that order when everyone is healthy. All who can be counted on for 20+ homers a healthy season if not 30+. Seems like a good reason for long balls to me.

Along with our power line-up, which is starting to resemble its salary, we have a plethora of fastball pitchers. Joba, CC and AJ, the harder you throw the farther it go and that’s in any park.

Ok so it’s a stretch of an argument that doesn’t explain Johnny Damon, but since everyone is talking and arguing about a strange display that seems to have a simple set of reasons, I thought I might as well throw in my two cents. Everyone knows the smaller stadium has created a powerful wind tunnel to right field and that is the reason for all these bombs.

The thing about this is we’re stuck with it. Maybe if the Yankees were a little more concerned with the stadium being designed and not the pace in which it was put up a few of these kinks could have been worked out. But they weren’t concerned with the little kinks (morons) they were worried about making money and spending money. Well guess what? They got what they paid for: A LOT of home runs and A LOT of press.

I’m not really sure how I feel about all these home runs just yet. I mean it’s exciting to watch but I do worry about the home run getting “played out.” I don’t like the idea of having Coors Field 2.0 but I’m stuck with it so might as well figure out a way to enjoy it. It doesn’t make a home run hit at the new stadium very impressive but we could follow the Red Sox lead and change the number on the fence to make it seem farther than it is and then not allow anyone to measure it. Nah I think we’ll keep the dimensions and the home runs, and enjoy the idea of always being just one ugly, sawed off or end of the bat swing away from victory in the bottom of the ninth.