Would Willie Mays have hit 800 HRs if he had played in a normal park?

That is what a couple of announcers said the other day. The idea is that winds were so strong that Candlestick park cost him alot of HRs.

This issue has come before. Here is a letter I wrote that was printed in the NY Times back in 2010 that explains why this is not likely. See Love and Baseball.

"I certainly enjoyed reading Pete Hamill’s review. But I disagree with him that Candlestick Park and its strong winds cost Mays 100 home runs. Using the Retro­sheet data, I found that from 1960 to 1971, his home home-run percentage was 6.72. In road games, it was 5.8 percent. He played only part of 1972 with the Giants. His home home-run percentage was 15.8 percent better than the road home-run percentage (since 6.72 divided by 5.8 equals 1.158). For the average National League player in this period, the home home-run percentage was 2.34, while on the road it was 2.25. The home home-run percentage is 4 percent higher than the road home-run percentage (since 2.34 divided by 2.25 equals 1.04). Mays seems to have gotten more out of his home park than most players. If we give him 100 more home runs at home (he actually hit 202), his home home-run percentage rises to 10.04. That is about 50 percent better than what it really was."