ATLANTA — There’s a new addition to Dodger Stadium for the 2022 season that fans won’t see but could impact the games they watch.
A humidor occupies a room down the hallway from the home dugout. It will be powered around the clock this season, storing baseballs at a precise temperature and humidity before they’re used in games starting with the team’s home opener next Thursday against the Cincinnati Reds. It’s the result of the league’s latest experiment.
This season, for the first time, Major League Baseball will store game balls in humidors at all 30 stadiums. Previously limited to 10 ballparks, most famously at Coors Field to counter the thin air in Colorado, the storage unit will be used across the board in attempt to standardize baseballs in different environments. The humidors were recommended in a 2018 study commissioned by MLB that examined home run rates.
