Cloudy Weather: A Pitcher's Dream or Nightmare?

Corey Wald

The title of my paper was “The Sky’s the Limit- An Investigation of Cloud Cover on Major League Baseball Performance.” My research project was inspired by a genuine passion for the game of baseball and my desire to learn more about its subtle nuances. I often wondered how much weather variables such as sun, clouds and shadows affected the outcome of a game or individual player performance. My curiosity prompted me to do some preliminary research to identify whether these questions were previously investigated. This served as the impetus for my project and interestingly the results only led me to formulate more questions … The focus of my project was to investigate whether different percentages of cloud cover during a baseball game favored batters or pitchers. Additionally, what effect cloud cover percentages had on fielders during a Major League Baseball game? The data collected for this investigation was obtained from the years 2007 to 2010. Baseball data gathered during day conditions were also compared to baseball data gathered during night conditions to see if any significant differences existed. Baseball data was collected from www.baseball-reference.com and weather data was gathered from the National Climatic Data Center. Seven variables were compared across three categories of cloud cover, 0-29%, 30-79% and 80-100% cloud cover during day games and night games, which served as the control for my study. The overall results suggest that clearer conditions tend to favor the pitcher in each day game while cloudier day games tend to favor the batter.