America’s Sportswriters Confirm: Bases Big

Have you heard? The bases are bigger. This is part of a suite of changes designed to make major-league games a little shorter, a little faster, a little less true-outcome-dependent. The bases have expanded from 15 inches on a side to 18 x 18, which makes the distance between them a little more than four inches closer, which should, ideally, lead to more stolen base attempts and successes.

But what does 18 x 18 really mean? Red Sox manager Alex Cora said "they look like a pizza box," but how much of an exaggeration is that? How big are the big bases? With pitchers and catchers reporting this week, our nation's foremost bad-photo-takers have fanned out across Florida and Arizona to document the base bigness. Let's take a look at their work.

That's a base all right, but without something for scale, this is extremely unhelpful, Bob. Go think about what you've done, and don't come back without a photo that has context. Grade: Incomplete.

That is only slightly better. I don't know how large your foot is. Grade: C

Now we're talking. Old base for context; appealing shadows suggest depth; good posing. Grade: A

How did Andy get such a worse shot than Ben of the exact same subject? Grade: C-

Duty fulfilled, sir. Grade: A-

Interesting posing. Nice white balance work to get the texture on the bases. Grade: B+

That's certainly two bases. Grade: B

Big base looks big. Grade: B-

Little base, big base. Grade: B+

A photo of someone taking a photo of the base. Interesting. Grade: B+

Now we have something very special, a Defector Exclusive Photo™ from the Wall Street Journal's Lindsey Adler:

Terrible photo, Lindsey. Grade: C

Lindsey requested a second chance on this assignment, and this is much better. Grade: C+

Bob, any luck out there?

You did it, Bob! Sort of. Grade: Gentleman's C