Finding #755

I love this story.

It was one of the more forgettable home runs of Hank Aaron's remarkable, record-setting career. But it was nonetheless historic, and the Brewers are going to great lengths this summer to commemorate it.

The club has employed a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee engineering professor and three of his students to identify the precise landing spot of Aaron's 755th and final Major League home run. They still have some tweaking to do, but on Tuesday, Dr. Alan J. Horowitz and his team revealed what they believe is the spot: Coordinates N 43 degrees 1.821 minutes/W 87 degrees 58.347 minutes.

[...]

In order to identify the spot, Horowitz and his team of UWM seniors Colin Casey, Alex Cowan and Michael DeBoer -- all Wisconsin natives -- reviewed video of the home run, detailed seating charts from County Stadium and blueprints of the Miller Park worksite.

"We're still a little bit unsure when we do something like that, that Miller Park was built according to the plans," Horowitz said. "So we will be doing additional measurements to identify this particular location. We are very confident of where we have it, but in order to verify and do some double-checking we will be bringing in some very high-precision GPS equipment."

The only thing better than baseball is baseball geekery. If I'm ever in Milwaukee, I'll have to make sure I visit that spot and see the plaque they've erected there. Many thanks to my friend Katy for pointing this out to me.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 19, 2007 to Baseball