# Home plate baseball holder



## dakotanut (Sep 11, 2018)

I am trying to design a home plate shelf for my autographed baseballs. I've got most of my measurements down but not the diamond part at the bottom. Having trouble with the length of the sides and angle. Is there a way to calculate this or figure it out? Thanks.


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## Ripper70 (Nov 30, 2015)

The blue squares in the corners and at the point are 90° angles.


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## squazo (Nov 23, 2013)

easy peasy.
think of this in 2 shapes a rectangle sitting on top of a triangle
you have a triangle with a base of 17 and to legs of 12 
now if you split that triangle down the middle you have two right angle triangles.
each right angle triangle has a base of 8.5 and a hypotenuse of 12.
Pythagorean theorem tells us that the third leg will be 8.4705371730487081311459128353654, which is nearly 8.5.
you have your self rougly a 45 degree angle.

a little but of trig tells us that it is actually 44.9005279606889

and then come to think of it you could make it a 45 by turning your 12 legs into 12.0208152801713


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## ColonelTravis (Mar 19, 2013)

Don't use math, you'll really screw it up because home plate dimensions as spelled out by the rule book are mathematically impossible. Plus you don't need math. This is one of the few times where I think something from a rule book as big as the MLB rule book is easy to comprehend:



> It shall be a 17-inch square with two of the corners removed so that one edge is 17 inches long, two adjacent sides are 8½ inches and the remaining two sides are 12 inches and set at an angle to make a point.


Just use those numbers like Rippers diagram and make a template.


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## dakotanut (Sep 11, 2018)

Thanks. I was actually going to make it a little bigger than this. I'll get back to you this evening with actual dimensions.


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## Ripper70 (Nov 30, 2015)

All you need to remember is that the sum of a polygon's angles is 540°. So, if you know that home plate has the three 90° angles and the other angles are equal you can calculate that the other angles must be 135° each.

Like so:

90° + 90° + 90° = 270°

540° - 270° = 270°

270° ÷ 2 = 135°


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## dakotanut (Sep 11, 2018)

Ok. Thank you


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## BHZ (Sep 21, 2015)

> Don t use math, you ll really screw it up because home plate dimensions as spelled out by the rule book are mathematically impossible. Plus you don t need math. This is one of the few times where I think something from a rule book as big as the MLB rule book is easy to comprehend:
> 
> It shall be a 17-inch square with two of the corners removed so that one edge is 17 inches long, two adjacent sides are 8½ inches and the remaining two sides are 12 inches and set at an angle to make a point.
> 
> ...


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## dakotanut (Sep 11, 2018)

Outstanding.


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## WoodChuckCreations (May 2, 2019)

Here is how I did mine:


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