Why do major league baseball teams do so much better at home than on the road?

Question

What is it? The stress of traveling, time differences, bad food, unfamiliar ballparks, or too much partying without their wives to keep them under control?

Answer 1

not all clubhouses have trouble on the road, take the halos for example(:

Answer 2

Because at your home park, I think you have are more comfortable and know it so well.  More fans of your team.  

Answer 3

cuz they are much more pumped up

Answer 4

It is a combination of a bunch of things. Mostly the familiarity of playing at your home park( play 82 home games which is far more than at any other park). Plus they get to go home and be with family rather than staying in hotels and traveling. Plus there is the fact that the home team has the crowd cheering for them which can be an added incentive to do good.  

Answer 5

The fans!

Answer 6

home field advantage

Answer 7

They have more fans and more to prove

Answer 8

I think the Angels have a better road record than home record. Wierd...

Answer 9

I would say...

1- Comfort of home...

2- Teams built around their parks...

Answer 10

Some of your reasons are obviously really stupid. But mainly because at home they have their huge fan base (unless your the Cardinals and Cubs and seem to have fans everywhere). They are also more familiar and more comfortable with the field, they know it better. Also with traveling that can be tiring and stressing, and time differences don't help.  

Answer 11

Actually, teams haven't done all that much better on the road historically. Baseball has always had the smallest home/away winning percentage differential among the major sports.

But this year we are seeing a much greater disparity between home and road records -- only a few teams have winning records on the road. Why? Many are attributing it the crackdown on amphetamines, which have been widely used in baseball since WWII at least, and have never really been considered "cheating" in the way that steroids have been.

Amphetamines allow players to mitigate the effects of long plane flights (or train trips, as in the past) and feel fresh even in the face of all the road hardships that you and others describe. Amphetamines have been even more important to older players, who have to recover not only from bad sleep but the physical grind of back-to-back games and travel. With players staying in the game longer than ever, the amphetamines ban probably has had an even bigger effect that it would have 25 years ago.

Answer 12

Several reasons:

1)  As you note - being on the road is stressful, and that can have a subtle effect on performance.

2)  Each ballpark is different.  Smart general managers tend to stock their teams with players who can take advantage of the ballpark's attributes - they'll stockpile lefty power hitters, for example, if it's a field with a short right field fence.

3)  The home crowd.  Again, it's subtle, but having 20,000 fans cheering for rather than against you can improve your performance.

4)  The game itself.  There is a small advantage to fielding first and batting 2nd in an inning, as home teams do.

5)  Plain ol' familiarity.  You're at your home park, you know the distance to the fences, how large foul territory is, and even how the ground and grass feel underfoot.  You have a comfort level that your opponents do not possess.