ANAHEIM, Calif. — Six-thousand-and-some home runs will be hit this season at about 400 feet apiece, which is about 455 miles of home runs, which sounds like a lot and is a fine story about where a game turned gluttonous finds itself.

Some will benefit. Many will not. Pitchers, for one, will not. This isn’t really about any of that.

What no one ever talks about — part unwritten rule, part brotherly gesture — is the empty miles logged by outfielders on courtesy trots.

More baseballs clear more fences by a greater margin than ever before, meaning more no-doubters than ever before and, league wide, outfielders will make their half-hearted, half-earnest jogs to the place at the fence the ball will be last seen, because a long time ago they were told it was the polite thing to do.

“I’m not going to stand there and have people say, ‘Kole Calhoun didn’t even move for that one,’” the Los Angeles Angels outfielder himself said this week. “Just having an old-school mentality, I suppose.”

View photos Hunter Renfroe of the San Diego Padres leaps on the outfield fence as he watches a home run by David Peralta of the Arizona Diamondbacks land in the bullpen. (Getty Images) More

Pitchers complain about the new ball. Traditional baseball fans wonder where their game went. Players from past eras wonder where their records went. Outfielders are the hidden victims, as they wear paths to and from fences, not for no reason, but for the best reason — “That’s your guy,” Texas Rangers outfielder Joey Gallo said. “When the pitcher’s on the mound, that’s your guy.”

Everybody else gets to stand and watch. Even, often enough, the guy who hit it, for a while. In 2019, there have been 311 home runs of 421 feet or farther, 241 of 430 or farther, which is to say that’s a lot of long home runs that wouldn’t be held in any park under any conditions short of a Cat 5 event. The deepest fence in the big leagues is in Comerica Park’s center field, 420 feet from home plate. More, there have been 52 home runs of at least 462 feet. So, 52 especially hopeless slogs in the direction of the fence in case the ball strikes a crow or a Cessna or a satellite and falls to Earth, 52 courtesy trots that with a straight face whisper to a crestfallen pitcher, “Almost had it.”

Still, the duty of the outfielder in a time of intercontinental home runs is to run under them for a good 50 or 60 feet in order to properly monitor the situation and offer a traditional act of kindness in an often unkind world. It is referred to as the courtesy trot or courtesy jog, whereupon the outfielder is expected to pretend he has a chance to catch that ball, that that ball was not struck quite as hard as everyone knows it was, that he and his pitcher are in this together, all that even in absurdly small ballparks beneath absurdly long home runs.

“It’s just a respect thing,” Angels outfielder Brian Goodwin said. “The pitcher’s out there working his ass off. He’s not trying to give up the longest home run of the day or the week. It happens. You got the guy’s back, who’s playing his heart out for you. Now, I might not take the lo-o-o-ng jog, but … ”

A conversation in two clubhouses this week about courtesy trots stemmed from a larger dialogue about the juiced ball, about how the public emphasis is on pitchers and hitters, and how no one ever mentions the guys who must chase it. The new ball comes off bats hotter, changing trajectories and predicted landing spots, and potentially challenging instincts built over decades of outfield play. Outfielders for the Angels and Rangers reported batted balls that stay in the ballpark — there’ve been a few — generally behave the same as they always have. Observations were made about smaller hitters going to the opposite field with a bit more carry than expected. Some outfielders said they play shallower, a counterintuitive adjustment explained by the fact anything over their heads is likely to be a home run anyway. And all of them said they will watch a ball carry over their heads, still rising in some cases and headed for a seat or concourse or parking lot or river or bay or road maybe 500 feet from home plate, put their heads down and dutifully pursue the uncatchable.

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