Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute. While reading the sports page a few days ago, I saw a quote by a teammate of Mark McGwire, the St. Louis Cardinals' slugger who just hit the 500th home run of his major-league career. Actually, the honor of the farthest-hit baseball goes to Mickey Mantle, who played with the Yankees in the 1950s and 1960s. I suffered from physics phobia in high school and college, but I like it when the science of matter and energy is applied to sports. Adair took a look at the natural laws governing the national pastime in The Physics of Baseball .
Simple physics explains why major-league pitchers have a rough time in Denver, for example.
The Colorado Rockies play home games at an elevation of more than a mile above sea level. As mountain climbers know, the higher one goes, the thinner the air becomes. The drag of air molecules on a baseball is less in mile-high Denver than in New York City, close to sea level. Adair calculated a home run that traveled 400 feet at Yankee Stadium on a windless day would fly about 430 feet in Denver. If a batter hit that same home run in Mexico City, at an elevation of 7,800 feet, it would sail 450 feet.