‘Sex and the City’: Carrie Bradshaw Once Caught a Foul Ball at Yankee Stadium, Can You Calculate the Odds?
Sex and the City ran for six seasons on HBO. During the show’s more than 90 episodes, Carrie Bradshaw and her pals rarely left Manhattan. Save for a couple of short trips to the Hamptons, a night out on Staten Island, and a failed business trip to California, Carrie preferred to stay in the city. At the urging of Miranda Hobbes, Charlotte York, and Samantha Jones, she did venture to the Bronx once to take in a Yankee game, though. In the season 2 episode, Carrie caught a foul ball and pondered the odds of it happening. As it turns out, the odds of catching a foul ball are something fans have spent years debating.
Carrie Bradshaw got lucky at Yankee Stadium in season 2 of ‘Sex and the City’
In the season 2 opener of Sex and the City, Carrie’s pals drag her to a baseball game in hopes of getting her mind off of Mr. Big. Seated in the upper deck of the old Yankee Stadium, Carrie smoked and drank. At the same time, Miranda rattled off states for the “New Yankee,” the team’s newest star.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Carrie snagged a foul ball that the New Yankee hit. Carrie might have wondered about the likelihood of catching a foul ball, but she didn’t let it stop her from turning the catch into more. She ended up snagging a date with the New Yankee. It didn’t work out in the end.
The odds of catching a foul ball are actually hard to calculate
Carrie Bradshaw isn’t the only person to ponder the odds of catching a foul ball at a baseball game. While some basic math suggests that the odds are better than 1 in 1,000, it’s pretty hard to calculate the odds of catching a foul ball. There are a lot of different factors to consider. For example, the stadium you are visiting and where you are sitting in that stadium could increase or decrease your odds of catching a foul ball.
If you calculate things with basic math, the odds don’t seem too bad. Let’s assume there are around 45 foul balls hit in any given baseball game, and about 30,000 people are in attendance at the game; It would seem that the odds of catching a foul ball is one in under 700. It’s not that simple, though.
Millions of fans will attend games and never catch a foul ball, which suggests the odds aren’t all that good. There is a reason for that. If 45 balls are hit foul in a single game, only about 3/4 of them will find their way into the stands. Most of them will end up in the lower deck, so fans who sit in the upper decks are less likely to catch foul balls. Some fans are seated in fair territory, meaning they aren’t eligible to snag a foul ball based on where they are seated. Some sections are hot zones for foul balls, while others are cold. So, in theory, you can raise or lower your odds of catching a foul ball based on where you sit. Carrie’s chosen seat, where she could still smoke, was in a decidedly cold zone.
So, what were the odds of Carrie Bradshaw catching a ball from her seat in Yankee Stadium?
It’s impossible to ascertain the exact odds of Carrie catching the ball. We can tell you that the odds were far worse than one in 600 or even one in 1000. Carrie’s seat in the upper deck of the old Yankee stadium made it less likely that a ball would find its way to her.
According to Foul Ballz, the upper deck of a ballpark is largely unreachable for foul balls, although not for home runs. Considering the vantage point shown, Carrie and her pals were sitting in foul territory. If you assume most foul balls won’t ever make it to the upper deck, Carrie’s odds of snagging the ball are exceedingly small. It’s hard to say if those odds are better or worse, as Carrie pondered, than the odds of finding a lasting relationship.
