Effects of Travel and Length of Home Stand/Road Trip on tie Home Advantage

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of season game number, series game number, length of home stand, length of visitor's road trip, home travel, and visitor travel on the home advantage in minor league Double A baseball (N= 1812 games). Initial analysis indicated that the home team won 55.1% of the games (p<.001). Forced-entry multiple regression analyses determined that the combined main and interaction effects of the predictor variables explained less than 1.2% of the variance in win/loss outcome (p>.49). Chi-square analyses revealed that the variable of length of visitor's road trip produced the greatest change in the magnitude of home advantage. When the length of visitor's road trip was cross-tabulated with the length of home stand, me change in home advantage was statistically significant for the home team's later series (p<.05). The implications of these results for the various home advantage explanations are discussed, and future directions for home advantage research are offered.