“Applying that to baseball and home runs, would it not follow that, all else being equal, a well-hit baseball would travel farther in warmer weather?”
Yes, friction would be less in warm weather (although I don’t know if the effect would be appreciable - perhaps the pilots out there could tell us how air temperature affects lift).
However, note that in the equation governing the behavior of an ideal gas, there is no variable for CLIMATE - there is only a variable for Temperature.
Thus, in order to test McCarver’s hypothesis, one would need to plot air temperatures for every baseball season in the last 50 years, control for the size and strength of players, the liveliness of the baseballs, and the use of anabolic steroids, etc, etc and do a multivariate analysis to see if there is correlation with any of these variables.
Other variables might be home runs or batting averages with a quantification of how well players took care of themselves: how many home runs would Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth have hit if they had not been out carousing as they did? What would Billy Martin’s batting average have been or Whitey Ford’s ERA if they had not been drunk so much?
Baseball stats are very sensitive to weather. Indeed, baseball stats can be used as an accurate barometer.
The primary cause of heightened HR rates is air density. The thinner the air, the less a thrown pitch will break...and the further a batted ball will travel.
Three phenomena create thinner air: P> 1. Temperature -- the hotter, the thinner. Air temperature has a pronounced effect on takeoff roll for airliners, e.g.
2. Altitude -- the higher the park, the more offense it will generate. See mile-high Coors Field vs sea-level Petco.
3. Storm fronts -- are generally preceded by low pressure areas, then followed by high pressure areas. You can sit in the stands at The Ballpark in Arlington (TX) e.g. and, if there is lightning to the Southwest, the ball will start flying out of the park. But, once the storm front passes and the game is re-started, pitchers will be in charge the rest of the way.
According to Rush today in the post steroid era, we have less home runs in MLB.