Why the Colorado Rockies Will Fly High Again This Year

Since 2002 the Colorado Rockies have been humidifying baseballs by placing them in a humidor room, which adds moisture to the balls, and makes them harder to hit well. If you've ever played baseball with a wet ball, you already know how moisture slows a ball down, and makes it harder to hit hard and far. It's basically the same principle, but to a much smaller degree.

The Rockies had been doing this to try and offset the high altitude conditions that exist when you play baseball a mile high in the air, which the Rockies do at home in Coors Field.

The tactic has had success, as run scoring in Coors Field had been 20-30% higher than the baseball average prior to 2002, but dropped to just 7-20% higher with the use of the humidified baseball's. But as we head into the 2007 season, Major League baseball has banned the Rockies, and everybody else, from humidifying baseballs.

Why would baseball ban the use of a humidor?

The answer to that is simple. The integrity of the game.

Humidifying baseballs is tampering with, or doctoring baseballs. That can never be allowed. What was stopping the Rockies from making sure that, over the last few years, their pitcher's were using the humidified baseballs, while their batters were facing regular, non-humidified baseballs?

The Rockies could easily have been doing this. They could have made sure, as the game starts, that their bat boys give the home plate umpires humidified baseballs. Thus giving their pitchers an advantage. And when the Rockies came to bat, the bat boys could then have fed the home plate umpires non-humidified baseballs. Which would have given the Rockies hitters a big advantage.

I'm not saying the Rockies actually did this, but they easily could have. That is why baseball had to ban the use of humidors. If it was OK for the Rockies to use a humidor, why not any other team in baseball? And what would prevent other teams from feeding the umpires doctored baseballs when they were in the field, and regular baseballs when they were batting?

What does the ban on humidifying baseballs mean for the Rockies this year? It means that run scoring in Coors Field will go back to the 20-30% higher levels this year, that were prevalent in the days before the humidor.

For fantasy baseball players it means you will, once again, want as many Colorado Rockies players on your fantasy team as possible (with respect to talent). And you will want to avoid the Rockies pitchers like they have the plague.

The ban of humidors by Major League baseball means that the Colorado Rockies will fly high again in 2007.