You don¡¯t remember Stu Miller, but you should. In 1961, pitching in the All-Star Game at his own home field of Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the Giants righty was hit by a gust of wind so strong that the story goes that he was blown right off the mound in the midst of a pitch to Rocky Colavito. The years have added some amount of legend to the truth there ¨C he delivered and got a swing and miss anyway, though it was correctly called a balk -- but there¡¯s a reason that story persists.

It¡¯s because baseball, as a (mostly) outdoor sport, has always had the environment as a main character -- be it rain, snow, heat, sun, lightning, altitude, insects, different insects, or, in today¡¯s case, wind.

Wind can have considerable impact on a ball hit high in the air. We¡¯ve always known this with our eyes. Anyone who has ever sat outside and watched a harmless fly ball turn into a game-changing home run (or vice versa), has seen it in action.

We¡¯ve long had scientific estimates to gauge the impact, too. But now, over the past two Major League seasons, we¡¯ve had Weather Applied Metrics technology as a part of Statcast -- and that's provided the ability to measure wind in-game, in-park, not just pregame from a nearby station, as had long been the standard.

If wind can move a man (partially) off the mound, it can move a baseball. Let¡¯s find the examples over the 2023-24 seasons where that happened the most.

As baseball physicist Dr. Alan Nathan once wrote, adding a mere 5 mph worth of wind behind a ball can add nearly 19 feet of travel distance. It¡¯s why when we looked into the famous Ted Williams ¡°red seat¡± homer at Fenway Park last year, we determined that the accepted 502-foot distance was probably shorting Ted by 25 feet, coming as it did on a day so windy that boats capsized and hospitals lost power. It¡¯s why, too, the wind popped up as a factor in a recent study into why it¡¯s so hard to hit in Seattle¡¯s T-Mobile Park -- not just the wind keeping balls in the yard, but also affecting the pitch on the way to the plate.

It's why the longest home run in Statcast history is 505 feet by an unexpected name -- former Ranger Nomar Mazara -- because the day he hit it, wind prevention screens at the old Texas ballpark had been damaged by a storm. It¡¯s part of why, as MLB's Tom Tango has shown us, you can¡¯t just look at combinations of exit velocity and launch angle to find distance -- because external factors can add plus/minus 50 feet in either direction. That¡¯s not all wind, but it¡¯s usually a lot about wind, as you can see here.

So: What¡¯s actually happened in the Majors over the past two seasons, wind-wise?

To start with, nearly 2,000 batted balls have been pushed more than 10 feet (in any direction) by the wind. More than 600 have been pushed more than 25 feet. If baseball is a game of inches, that¡¯s a lot of inches. (You can learn more about the science behind how the wind impact is determined here, as detailed by MLB data scientist Clay Nunnally.)

If you¡¯re immediately thinking, ¡°I bet this is going to be about Wrigley Field,¡± well ¡­ it's going to be about Wrigley Field. More than 40% of those largely wind-impacted baseballs -- the ones pushed by 25 feet or more -- came in the Sometimes Friendly Confines. Befitting its reputation as a park that plays differently depending on what mood the wind is in, Wrigley had the most batted balls with at least 25 feet added by the wind, and the most with at least 25 feet prevented by the wind.

It¡¯s how when then-Mariners outfielder Jarred Kelenic blasted a ball 482 feet into the Wrigley bleachers in 2023, it came not only with plus-47 feet of wind-aided assistance, it made the Cubs broadcasters absolutely gawk at how they¡¯d never seen a ball hit there before. (¡°I played with [Sammy] Sosa for a few years,¡± said then-Seattle manager and former Cub catcher Scott Servais. ¡°I never saw him go up to that level in center field.¡±)

But despite that, Wrigley didn¡¯t actually have the most home runs created by wind, in terms of the most baseballs that would have stayed in the yard under calm conditions pushed over the fence. (At 13, they were fifth-most; New York¡¯s Citi Field had the most, at 28.) It didn¡¯t have the most lost, either, with Chicago¡¯s 56 prevented homers being second to Kansas City¡¯s 67.

But enough of the charts, right? You came here to see what the most-affected hits look like. Let¡¯s do exactly that. Except ¡­

The most-affected ball by wind in 2023-24 was ¡­

¡­ a flyout that merely turned into a different kind of flyout. Whoops.

Last August, Patrick Wisdom hit a ball very hard (103.1 mph), very high (53-degree launch angle) on a very windy day (15 mph, gusting to 22 mph when he hit it). Since wind can be very different at different elevations, Wisdom hitting this one straight up caught a lot of breeze, costing this one 111 feet of distance and forcing Toronto fielders to adjust by more than 50 feet laterally.

That¡¯s fun. Wisdom seemed to think so, too.

But there are a lot of plays like this ¨C do enjoy Jose Miranda hitting a popup to second base in Fenway, only for the wind to shove it far enough around (68 feet) that the second baseman failed to catch it and ended up throwing to second for a fielder¡¯s choice ¨C and while they¡¯re entertaining, we¡¯re more interested in home runs today. Homers, created. Homers, prevented.

With that in mind, let¡¯s just look at balls where the ¡°was it a homer¡± status was changed by the wind. As for Wisdom, who hits the ball very hard and very high, we¡¯ll be seeing him again.

The biggest wind-prevented non-home runs

1. Enrique Hern¨¢ndez (-82 feet): June 3, 2023

If 82 feet sounds like a whole lot of feet, well, we¡¯re guessing the rain on the camera lens will help the eye test match the data. At the time of the pitch, the wind was gusting at 27 mph.

2. Patrick Wisdom (-62 feet): June 15, 2024

We promised Wisdom would appear again. This one was particularly brutal, because Wisdom hit this one at 111 mph off the bat, and with the Cubs down 1-0 in the eighth and a runner on first, this would have put them ahead. Instead, they lost, 3-0.

This time, he wasn¡¯t quite as entertained.

3. Ceddanne Rafaela (-58 feet): Sept. 20, 2024

¡°That one got knocked down by the wind,¡± the Boston broadcast correctly noted. A double is nice. A home run would have been nicer. A tie game at the time, Boston would go on to lose, 4-2.

4. Shohei Ohtani (-57 feet): April 5, 2024

Back to Wrigley we go, and like Wisdom¡¯s, this would have been a game-changer -- or, at least, a game-tier. We can't ignore that the pitcher was the delightfully named Julian Merryweather.

5. Juan Soto (-53 feet): April 12, 2023

Speaking of a potential game-changer: The Padres were down two, with two men on base. While this one doesn¡¯t look like much, that¡¯s how it works sometimes, especially when you get it high into the swirling air. The wind was gusting at 19 mph at that moment at Soto's future home, Citi Field. (This is actually a three-way tie, as Michael Toglia and Michael Busch also lost homers by 53 of wind.)

The biggest wind-aided homers

There were fewer homers created (around 200) than prevented, but that¡¯s still a lot of fly balls that landed over the fence.

1. Tommy Pham (+56 feet): June 4, 2023

Pham hit this one hard, 106.3 mph off the bat. It was hardly a cheap one. But also, it helps to have the wind going at 29 mph.

2. Max Muncy (+45 feet): April 21, 2023

Wrigley, as should be clear by now, can take away. But it¡¯s important to remember that it giveth, too. "That was a routine fly ball," Dodgers broadcaster Orel Hershiser said, noting that the height of it allowed it to reach the jetstream above the roof of the park. It's a good reminder that wind can act very differently in the same park at different elevations.

3. Brandon Belt (+38 feet): June 4, 2023

Belt, in the same game as Pham, went down to smash a ball near the apple in center field. Hold that thought on this game.

4. Francisco Alvarez (+32 feet): July 29, 2023

That¡¯s right: Despite Citi Field¡¯s deserved reputation as a pitcher¡¯s park, it acts almost Wrigley-esque in terms of how it plays depending on where the winds are blowing that day.

5. Pete Alonso (+31 feet): June 4, 2023.

When you clear the fence by inches, every bit of wind can help.

Now: If you noticed that three of the five came in the same game, then you¡¯re right, which means that the June 4, 2023, Blue Jays-Mets game gets the unofficial crown of ...

The most wind-affected game of 2023-24

The box score tells you the Blue Jays topped the Mets, 6-4, in New York on June 4, 2023, completing a three-game sweep. It also tells you the weather was ¡°5 mph, In From LF,¡± which seems like the exact opposite of a windy day, yet there were 11 balls affected by at least 10 feet, and six that were pushed by 25 or more feet.

So, what happened here? Wind isn¡¯t a constant, that¡¯s what.

As you can see from the hourly wind data from nearby Flushing, it was indeed a calm day, except when it wasn¡¯t -- and it wasn¡¯t right around the 1:40 p.m. first pitch, when the wind picked up and gusted at about 25-30 mph for the rest of the game, dying down as the Jays finished their sweep.

Not only did this affect a number of batted balls -- here¡¯s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., for example, gaining plus-23 feet of wind distance on a frozen rope to left field -- it affected the pitchers, too. Mets starter Kodai Senga averages seven inches of arm-side movement on his vaunted ¡°ghost fork,¡± but on that day, it was 10.6 inches, the most of any start of his career.

The batter helped the most

Dozens of players gained a single homer via the wind. A small handful gained two. Only one hitter, however, gained three. As you¡¯d expect, the city he calls home is the famously weather-inconsistent, uh, San Diego. Three times in the past two years, Xander Bogaerts found the last bit of wind he needed to get the ball over the fence, and all three were in Southern California.

The batter hurt the most

J.D. Martinez hit 49 homers over the past two seasons. Would you believe that it could have been 59, because the wind cost him 10 more? In his case, it¡¯s not about a particularly tough home field, because he was a Dodger in 2023 and a Met in '24, and the 10 came in six different parks anyway. It might be bad luck. It might also be about his famously opposite-field hitting approach, too.

Honorable mention -- dishonorable, perhaps -- to MJ Melendez (8 lost), Cal Raleigh (7), Bryce Harper (7), Salvador Perez (6), Vinnie Pasquantino (6), Anthony Volpe (6) and Ty France (6).

The most important wind-affected moments

We pointed out a few times that if not for the wind, a different outcome might have changed the entire game. But which was the biggest turnaround caused by the wind?

Let's check this out in two different ways. First, to find the most important opportunity that ended with the wind affecting a ball by 25 feet or more, we¡¯ll turn to Leverage Index, a measure which takes the context of the moment -- game score, inning, outs, runners on base -- and identifies how important it is. A leverage index of 1 is average.

The topper, then, with a leverage index of 5.9 -- meaning nearly six times more important than an average plate appearance -- came at, and let us know if you¡¯re surprised here, Wrigley Field last May. With two outs and a runner on in the bottom of the ninth, with the Cubs down 5-4, Cody Bellinger stepped up and crushed an Alexis D¨ªaz pitch at 107 mph for a home run.

Except: No, he didn¡¯t. Bellinger got it high in the air. A 17 mph wind got a hold of it, costing 40 feet. The Cubs lost.

Since the Reds were already winning and won the game, that didn't change the Win Probability very much, but the opportunity to do so was massive.

So let's flip it around from "What was the biggest opportunity" and look for "What was the biggest impact," and well, what we can say. You knew it was going to be at Wrigley, right?

Last June, the Giants were down, 6-4, in the ninth, with two on and one out. That's a 16% Win Probability, which is a good reminder that 16% is not 0%, because sometimes the wind shows up at just the right time and lets Thairo Estrada do this. Look how little the Cubs fans behind the plate react, assuming it was a fly out to left. It was, until it wasn't.

Remember, then, the next time you see the Cubs fly the W flag at Wrigley, that it doesn't have to just be about a win. It can be about the wind, too.

MLB.com's Clay Nunnally assisted with providing wind data.