The Great Salt Lake in Utah looks as if someone with a giant scoop had removed a dollop of the Rockies. It is fed by several streams and rivers, the largest being the River Jordan. But it is remarkable for not having any natural outlet. Because of this, the Great Salt Lake contains a high amount of natural salts. The streams and rivers flowing into it carry these salts into the lake; the water evaporates more or less to match the inflow, but the salts remain and the concentration has increased with time. The result is that the human body floats lightly in the waters of the lake, and it is virtually impossible to sink. And another consequence of this phenomenon is that the conurbation down the road is known as Salt Lake City.
Now there is a strange thing about Salt Lake City. The local baseball team plays in the Pacific Coast League, which otherwise comprises teams from cities along the coasts of Oregon and California. And it is an established fact that a game played in Salt Lake City is much livelier than any played elsewhere on the circuit. The batting, especially, is conspicuously better, the ball being consistently driven a much greater distance. Statistically, the number of instances of what cricketers would call a boundary - a "long fly" to baseball players, I believe - is significantly higher than it is, for instance, down in San Francisco. The answer lies in meteorology.
Salt Lake City, situated on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, is 4,300 feet above sea level. The density of the atmosphere is significantly less at this altitude than down below, so given the same impetus, a flying baseball will travel farther through the rarefied air. The ratio of the difference in air density between Salt Lake City and San Francisco is roughly in the proportion of 26 to 30, so other things being equal, a ball should travel some 17 per cent farther in the Great Salt Lake area than it would on the Pacific coast.
In addition, and unfortunately for the local squad, the physiological effects of altitude also give a visiting team some slight advantage. The exhilaration felt at altitude by those who normally reside at sea level has a noticeable effect on players required to sprint from base to base, and makes their game more lively. This advantage is only partially offset by the tendency of those unaccustomed to the thinness of the air to run quickly out of breath and tire more quickly when faced with making an extended run.