Baseball is finally back as Spring Training continues to push through March, getting us closer to Opening Day. But one lingering question from last year remains: why the increase in power and home runs? While Major League Baseball (MLB) says there has been no change to the baseball, many think otherwise.
FiveThirtyEight published a piece looking at the insides of eight baseballs, four predating the power surge, which began after the 2015 All Star Game, and three balls since in addition to a newly manufactured and unused ball.
The piece uses a few graphics to showcase the differences, including this cutaway diagram highlighting the different layers of a baseball.
![What's inside a baseball?](https://coffeespoons.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cutaway.png)
But the real gem is the X-ray photography done to examine the balls without cutting into them. Thankfully for those of us unfamiliar with x-rays, the designers provided a legend showing the clearly different core densities in the balls.
![Old balls vs. new balls](https://coffeespoons.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/xrayComparison.png)
If you are interested in baseball, and in particular the increase in home runs, the whole article is worth the short read. And if you’re not, well, the x-ray views of baseballs are still pretty neat.
Credit for the piece goes to Rob Arthur and Tim Dix.