As everyone knows, the increase in home runs a couple decades back was due mostly to steroid use, but it turns out that all major league sluggers need for their home run totals to soar is more carbon dioxide emissions. I wish we could say we’re making this up:

Baseball Home Runs Are Increasing Thanks to Climate Change, Study Says

In a paper published Friday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers from Dartmouth College find that rising global temperatures have led to an increase in home runs in Major League Baseball games — particularly those played in non-domed stadiums — due to reduced air density.

More than 500 MLB home runs since 2010 can be attributed to “historical warming,” the authors write. “Several hundred additional home runs per season are projected due to future warming.”

Who said there are no benefits to global warming climate change? Looks like we’ll need to amend the common phrase to read that a pitcher is “bringing the [greenhouse] gas.”