Baseball’s magical 90 feet and other great sports measurements and dimensions

[YahooNews]

While enjoying any sport, whether as a spectator or athlete, it's easy to overlook the important role various distances play in making games interesting. Here are our picks of the 10 best measurements in sports, how they came to be, and why they are so right.

1. Baseball's 90 feet between bases

This distance has proved perfect for creating suspense on the base paths. It all starts at first base, where there are as many close plays as routine plays. A speedy baserunner stands a chance of reaching first on many grounders, especially ones not hit right to the infielders or that require long throws. But even then, a superlative fielding play can often nail the runner, even if by the smallest of margins. The infield, therefore, is capable of rewarding outstanding efforts by both runners and fielders in almost equal measure, making it a geometric wonder.

Furthermore, the distance from home plate to second base created by the "diamond," which is actually a square, is also ideal for creating great drama on steal attempts. Even with a lead off first base, runners are hard pressed to beat the throw of roughly 127 feet.

Just how baseball settled on the 90-foot distance is unclear. It probably evolved during the 19th century, when the game was not well organized and informally played on fields where various existing objects often served as bases, meaning the field was not really square.

A vestige of those early irregular-shaped days, of course, lives on until the present, but in inconsistent outfield dimensions.

2. Football's 100-yard field

The field's length seems so logical today that it's hard to imagine it was ever any different, but it was. In its early days, when the game resembled rugby, the field size – as in rugby up this day – varies somewhat. It wasn't until 1881, according to ESPN, that the field's length was standardized at 110 yards, which is roughly equivalent to 100 meters, and may have been influenced by rugby and a couple of games Harvard played against Montreal's McGill University.

By 1912, the rule makers decided to add 10-yard-deep end zones to either end of the field, which would have made for a 130-yard-long field in toto. The problem was a number of colleges had built stadiums that wouldn't accommodate that length, so the distance between the goal lines was shortened to 100 yards. The modern Canadian field is 110 yards goal line to goal line, probably a carryover from football's early metric/rugby influence.

Standardizing the American field at 100 yards is ideal for several reasons. One is simply that 100 is a magical number. Second, it makes for easy sectioning into 10-yard increments that provide teams and spectators a quick reference for gauging progress up and down the field. And, of course, 10-yard thinking is woven into football's mindset because that is the distance that must be gained for a first down.

3. Basketball's 10-foot-high basket

Oddly enough, James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, makes no mention of any court or basket measurements in his 13 original rules for the game. That may be because Naismith was focused on the concept of play and not dimensions, which were bound to vary from gym to gym. The basket's height was basically a factor of where the first peach baskets could be attached to an overhead running track, which happened to be 10 feet off the floor.

That height has served the sport very well, even as the players have gotten taller. At times, however, people (including UCLA's legendary coach John Wooden) have suggested raising the basket to neutralize the potential dominance of big men. The NBA even played one game in 1954 – a regular-season game, to boot – with 12-foot baskets. The NCAA's strategy was to outlaw dunking from 1967 to 1976, a rule that grew out of concerns that 7. ft. 2 in. Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdu-Jabbar) would be unstoppable at UCLA if he could dunk. He developed the Sky Hook and UCLA remained virtually unbeatable.

Surprisingly, Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's championship women's team, has suggested lowering the basket for women by seven inches, actually 7.2 inches to honor Title IX – this based on average height differences of the players in men's and women's basketball. Auriemma says that a lower basket would allow women to make more layups and tip-ins, and cites volleyball as a sport that uses different net heights for men's and women's games. But having adjustable baskets could be prohibitively expensive, as well as unnecessary. Women, after all, are getting taller and more skilled all the time.

As for the men's game, 10-foot-high baskets have not led to dunkathons even in the NBA, where virtually every player is capable of dunking. The reasons are simple: playing against equally tall players makes dunking difficult, and gaining position close enough to the basketball to dunk is not easy. Plus, dunking requires skill. Just think of the risks involved in slamming a ball down through an unforgiving metal hoop.

When it comes to regular shots, the basket height has worked well. After all, no matter how tall the players, they still are going to arc their shots for two reasons: 1) so shots don't get blocked; and 2) because an arched shot has a better chance of success than one with no arch.

4. Hockey's 4 x 6-foot goal

This could be one of the more controversial inclusions on this list, since at least at the NHL level, some believe the game would benefit from more scoring. Larger goaltenders, the reasoning goes, make for a smaller target area. In one minor experiment undertaken several years ago, the Maple Leafs trotted out a goal that was no larger but used oval-shaped posts designed to send more ricocheting shots into the net than circular posts do. That idea clearly wasn't pursued.

The goal measurements supposedly have never changed, which if true, means that the sport's forefathers instinctively got them right. Anything bigger and goalies might be forced to make too many guess plays and find it harder to cut down on the angle of shots.

And let's face it, in ice hockey the skill of the goaltender is a major part of the show. A talented player between the pipes should be able to fairly defend his territory, and currently seems able to do so. That seems the more important consideration than jacking up goal scoring. Because of the small playing surface and speed of the skaters, there are many more shots on goal than in soccer, so hockey already provides plenty of excitement, even in low-scoring games. And the average shots on goal per game has remained remarkably stable over the years, so as long as that is the case, the goal dimensions need no tweaking.

5. Tennis's 3-to-3-1/2-foot-high net

To be accurate, the net is 3-1/2 feet high at the posts on either side of the court, but in the middle it is pulled down to just 3 feet. The beauty of this nuance is that it offers a greater opportunity to successfully hit a low cross-court shot, keeping rallies alive, while making shots hit directly down the sidelines a riskier proposition. It introduces a bit extra strategy into the game.

How tennis ended up with its present dimensions is interesting. The sport grew out of various other sports that date back to the 12th century. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a British Army officer, patented the rules to "lawn tennis" in 1874. But it was something of an odd duck at first, with a five-foot-high net, as in badminton, and an hourglass-shaped court. This didn't work, and Wingfield let the patent expire so that he could make some changes, switching to a rectangular court and, in 1882, lowering the net to 3-1/2 feet, making for a quite different game. The lower net means that players can hit harder, flatter shots while not eliminating lobs.

6. Soccer's field width of 70 to 80 yards

There is actually quite a bit of variation to the size of soccer fields allowed in the rulebook. When it comes to international matches, however, FIFA, the sport's governing body, tightens the parameters. Therefore, fields must be 70 to 80 yards wide, or 64 to 75 meters.

The width of the field, of course, has an impact on how the game is played, but where it may most consistently lend excitement and hold-your-breath suspense to any game is on corner kicks.

The distance seems just right to let players boom kicks with enough pace and precision to set up teammates stationed in front of the goal. They stand a decent chance of scoring on headers. And occasionally the kick itself curves into the net for a score.

7. Baseball's 60 feet, 6 inches pitching distance

This distance achieves the desired equilibrium between pitcher and batter. Whatever minor adjustments may have been necessary over the years have been made by altering the height of the mound or redefining the strike zone.

The oddball measurement surely is one of the quirkiest distances in all of sports because of those six inches. Just why they became part of the official distance is tied up in baseball's evolution during the 1800s and the transition from a "pitching box" to a pitching rubber.

The oldest pitching distance of 15 paces or 45 feet dates to when pitching was done underhanded. As overhanded throws were allowed, the distance needed to move back to give batters more time to get a bead on faster pitches and avoid "monotonous strikeout games." The pitcher's rubber is a few feet closer to home plate than second base, with the 60 feet 6 inches measure from the rubber to where the first and third base foul lines intersect at home plate.

8. Track and field's 100-meter dash

As with football's playing field, 100 has the advantage of being a nice round number, and, in track and field's case, also being the shortest distance for Olympic races. It's the sprint race used to bestow the title of "world's fastest human." It seems safe to say, therefore, that while Jamaica's Usain Bolt owns the world records at both 100 meters and 200 meters, the record that attracts greater attention is that in the 100.

There's no doubt that longer races provide interesting strategic story lines that an all-out, pedal-to-the-metal sprint can't. But there's always a public fascination with pure speed, and 100 meters is short enough, but not too short, to capture speed in all its raw power.

The distance obviously puts a premium on a fast start, yet 100 meters is long enough so the die is not cast at the starter's gun. The complexion of the races changes as runners hit full stride: Some fade; others surge. Studies show that top speed is usually achieved between 50 and 60 meters into the race, and then it's a matter of trying not to slow down. At the end, it's not surprising to see several runners leaning into the tape in a photo finish.

9. Basketball's 15-foot free throw distance

While it's hard to imagine, free throws weren't introduced to basketball until 1894, three years after the game was invented, and then they were a 21-foot shot! That's slightly farther out than today's college three-point shooting arc, which is 20 feet, 9 inches from the basket. The 21-foot distance was only used for one year, though, and in 1895 the present distance of 15 feet was adopted.

What primarily makes this distance so ideal is that it is short enough to lead to a relatively high shooting percentage in games from the high school level to the pros. That's how it should be for a shot meant to discourage players from fouling. The distance also is short enough to allow players to shoot comfortably while keeping their feet on the floor, thus making it more possible to develop repetitive mechanics through regular practice. Even seven-footers, who sometimes struggle to make free throws (Wilt, Shaq, Dwight Howard et al.), can become quite proficient.

Another plus to the 15-foot distance is that it makes the free-throw lane just the right size to fit three players on either side and creates a lot of close-quarters rebounding action.

10. Marathon racing's 26 miles, 385 yards

The official marathon distance works partly because it is such an oddity that it begs for attention. Instead of the distance conforming to some regular interval, it tacks on those mysterious 385 yards to add to the mystique.

Ancient history, as many people know, plays a role in the marathon's length. It spins out of the legendary run of Pheidippedes, a Greek messenger, who supposedly ran from the battlefield in Marathon to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians, only to collapse and die. The story may be apocryphal but it's a wonderful part of the race's modern lore.

When the modern Olympics began in 1896 in Athens, the organizers wanted to make a connection to ancient Greece, so the marathon was created. It was 40 kilometers or roughly 25 miles long, the approximate distance Phheidippedes might have run. The marathon has remained part of the Olympics ever since, and uses the men's race as the capstone on the final day of competition. (The women's marathon was added in 1984 in Los Angeles).

Marathon racing didn't fix on 26 miles and 385 yards as the official distance until 1921, when the decision was made to use the distance of the 1908 London Olympic marathon. That unusual distance grew out of an effort to have the race from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium extended enough to finish in front of the Royal Box.

This historical background is an appealing factor, but so too is the feeling that the distance requires a heroic effort to complete. Much is often made of how runners hit "a wall" at about 20 miles, but push through to the finish line on grit and determination.

The magic of this distance has played a role in popularizing the marathon with the masses, who have found that with concerted training that it's possible for recreational runners to complete the race – and participate in the same event with world-class athletes.

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