Atlanta Braves: How long was Jorge Soler’s World Series homer?

Which number do you want?

Using Google Earth, we can draw a line from that 500 Crawford St. awning to our estimated home plate location.

Measuring somewhat conservatively, that works out to something close to 584 feet.

Given that this could not have been the direct path, I also measured a couple of additional trajectories that might have been in play without caroms being involved.  Those worked out to distances between 590 and 594 feet to reach the far side of Crawford St. on a direct line.

Then there’s the question about how far the ball flew in the air.  That’s much more difficult to discern, but check out this Google Street View shot of the Left Field entrance to the stadium.

Note the sloped roof… perfect to redirect the ball toward the 500 Crawford St. Apartments awning.  My belief is that the ball struck that roof and bounced across the street toward the awning from there.

That measurement?  Somewhere between 470 and 490 feet on the fly… and it likely would have made 500 feet had that roof not been in the way (which itself is above the ground by approximately 7-to-16 feet).

There’s nothing obvious on the photos of the ball itself to suggest impact with something green like that roof is painted… so that part remains inconclusive.

NEW Information

This comes directly from Rick Ramos, one of the eyewitnesses that night who has kindly enlightened us with the details needed.

In short:  the awning referred to in Manuel’s letter is NOT the one at the entrance to the apartments.  It was actually the curved roof over the stadium entrance.  We thank Mr. Ramos for providing that clarification!

So we guessed correctly that the ball hit that roof — “awning” — but instead we’re looking at more of a direct line to bounce it across the street to the point it was picked up… no left turn from that Minute Maid Park left-field entry awning.

That changes our estimated distance… but not by a lot.  The updates to those measurements are below.

The surveyor says….

Here’s the new conclusions we can draw from that:

• The ball almost certainly traveled something in excess of 470 feet in the air before hitting anything.
• Had the ball continued to ground level before striking any object, a 500 ft. result is a reasonable extrapolation, given it’s relatively flat trajectory when leaving the park (it began life with a 27-degree launch angle).
• Counting rolling and the bounce off the Astros awning, etc., a final distance of at least 590 feet now appears quite plausible.

While others may have clouted longer drives interrupted by stadium walls, this still should have ranked as one of the longest drives recorded in 2021… all the more remarkable given that Soler turned around a pitch thrown at “just” 83 miles per hour.

Statcast rankings for the year (regular season only):

• Miguel Sano:  495 feet
• Tommy Pham:  486
• Adam Duvall:  483
• Ryan McMahon: 478
• Fernando Tatis, Jr:  477
• Trevor Story:  475

These figures aside, Soler’s shot was clearly the longest one on the biggest stage in Atlanta Braves baseball history… and that goes back quite a ways.

It also crushed the hopes and dreams of an entire stadium of Astros fans as the Atlanta Braves cruised from there.  Game over.  Season over.