Is There a Relation

Between Home Runs and

Elevation?
By: Alex Gudalis
 Introduction: The reason for this project is to find out if the
elevation of a ballpark has a relationship between the
amount of home runs hit there. I believe that the higher
the elevation of the ballpark, the more home runs will be
hit. I also believe this will have a positive direction with a
strong range as well. The method used for this assignment
is a sample survey.
Data Set: The population of this project is all 30 ballparks
in the MLB. The sample for this project is all 30 MLB
ballparks. The explanatory variable is the elevation of each
ballpark. The response is the amount of home runs hit at
that particular ballpark. I used these because, the higher
the elevation, the farther a baseball goes.
Variable: Any characteristic of an individual.

Introduction
 Population: The entire group of individuals being studied.
The population is all 30 ballparks.

Sample: A part of the population from which we actually

collect information.

Sample: Home Runs.

Variable: Any characteristic of an individual.

The explanatory is the home runs and the response is the

ballpark.
 Elevation to Home Runs
Elevation (ft) Home Runs
5211 202
1059 155
939 113
886 130 Explanatory Variable: Elevation
Response variable: Home Runs
840 164
724 130
616
160
177
164 I chose the
130
596
222
153
explanatory variable to be the
20
582
167
149
elevation because that will
42 139 never change.
247 203
10 180 I chose the response
variable to be home runs hit
44 174
596 156
54
63
219
109 because that will change with
455
9
119
171
every home run hit.
267 166
15 111
683 183
593 189
38 198
13 166
25 163
54 164
596 171
 Elevation to Home Runs
250

200
y = 0.042x + 161.39
R = 0.176
r = 0.133

150
Home Runs

Series1
100 Regression Line

50

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Elevation

I have one outlier. This is the ballpark which is at 5211 feet.

All of the other ballparks are close in range to elevation.
 Correlation: r describes the direction and strength of a
straight line relationship.
The direction and strength of r2 (0.176) is positive and
weak making the correlation mostly invalid. Since r2 = .176
then r = .133 making any prediction have a 13.3%
variation.
Coefficient: r2 variation the the values of y that is
explained by the least squares regression line of y on x
(0.176). The variation of any prediction is a 17.6%.

r and r2
 Least squares regression line: A line that makes the sum of the squares of the
vertical distances as small as possible.

Equation: y = a+bx (a is equal to the y intercept and b is equal to the slope.)

y=0.042(5211)+161.39
y=218.862+161.39
y=380.252

If a ballpark is 5211 feet in elevation, I predict 380 home

runs will be hit there annually with a 17.6% variation
meaning it is invalid.
 Lurking Variable- A variable that has an important effect on
the relationship among the variables in a study, but is not
one of the explanatory variables studied.

A lurking variable that could be in this study is the

elevation at a certain ballpark because more home runs
could be hit there because of this factor.

Lurking Variable
 My hypothesis was the ballpark with the highest elevation
would have the most home runs with a strong positive
correlation of .800 with a 70% variation. After I did my
study I found out my hypothesis was not correct at all. It
actually had a .133 correlation that was positive and weak.
After this study in which I collected all my data and
information I found out my hypothesis was not true. The
outcome of the info and data was a weak, positive
correlation.

Conclusion
Ballpark elevations above sea level. (2016). Retrieved from
http://baseballjudgments.tripod.com/id62.html
ESPN. (2016). Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/mlb/homeruns/_/year/2015
Home run tracker. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.hittrackeronline.com/

Works Cited