{"id":18119,"date":"2023-06-02T20:12:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T00:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=18119"},"modified":"2024-08-13T15:51:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T19:51:12","slug":"hot-air-and-home-runs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/hot-air-and-home-runs\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate and Society: Hot Air and Home Runs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
On October 4, 2022, the New York Yankees played a baseball game with the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. It was a sunny day with temperatures in the low 80s and winds at just 5 miles per hour. The roof of the domed stadium was open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that game, Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees hit a home run in the first inning. The Yankees would lose the game, but Judge and his teammates had a reason to celebrate. It was Judge\u2019s 62nd home run of the season, a new record for major league baseball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But would it be accepted as a new record?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True, it was the most home runs ever hit in a single season by an American League player, but three players in the National League \u2014 Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds \u2014 had hit more home runs in a season. Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds set their records during baseball\u2019s steroid years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and baseball purists considered their achievements tainted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Baseball fans and historians take their records seriously, and no record is more sacred than the single-season home run record. Babe Ruth was the first to hit 60 homers in a season, achieving that mark in 1927, and 34 years later, another Yankee, Roger Maris, broke Ruth\u2019s record by hitting 61.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, even Maris\u2019 accomplishment was, at first, discounted because in 1961 he had played in 10 more games than Ruth did in 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n