Juiced baseballs, harder throwing pitchers, bigger bats and hitters, smaller parks (and more at altitude), changes in mound heights, more teams (meaning more players to actually hit the dingers), etc have contributed to the rise in home runs. As for why more shortstops have, the type of athlete playing shortstop has changed from the nimble defensive player like Rey Ordonez is now (or Ozzie several years ago) to the less mobile but bigger guys like Nomar.
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