When will the lies stop?

Sometimes it's hard to tell who's telling the truth. Other times, all you need is a tape measure. This is one of those times.

Tyler Kepner reported in yesterday's Times on the right-field power surge at the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience. There are a few theories here: no more swirling winds beacuse of the un-Stadium like profile of the upper deck; a shallower fence in right-center because the fence follows a different path from the 314 sign to the 385 sign; the ghost of Babe Ruth picking up baseballs and placing them in the short porch for spite; etc.

But one thing is obvious: the fence is two feet lower. Which is funny, because as Kepner reports:

The Yankees’ president, Randy Levine, declined to be interviewed about the ballpark’s design. But the club has maintained that the field is oriented in the same direction, and that the dimensions and height of the fence are exactly the same.

That's funny...let's compare two pictures. Here is Paul O'Neill making a leap at the Stadium in the late 90s:

And here is Nick Swisher lithely hanging on the fence of the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience earlier this week:

So either (a) Nick Swisher is two feet taller than Paul O'Neill, (b) Swisher has a freakish vertical leap, or, (c) the facts prevail: The fence in the Stadium might have looked at a glance like it was the same height all the way around, but closer examination would reveal that it was in fact 10' in the right field corner, sloping down gently to 8' in center, then it was 8' the rest of the way to the left field corner. Anyone who ever went on a tour and walked the warning track could attest to that, as could anyone who ever noticed how outfielders could climb the center- and left field fences like Swisher in the picture above, but never got more elevation than O'Neill in right.

It's not a big deal, I suppose, but it would be nice if the Yankees wouldn't try to dispute an obvious fact, particularly when acknowledging it wouldn't really hurt anyone.