Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-03
SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLE OF
 CURvING A PITCHED BALL

IL IS now IHlTIy- -u1Tee years since the question arose as to whether on not base ball thrown from the hand could be made to deviate horizontally from a straight line. Experiment proved that the flight of ball could be made to curve to the right or to the left by Skilful pitching This was accom- i 'plished by the simple expeddent of placing plank upright on the ground, and from q point at right angles to the middle of one of its broad sides. bwirl- ing ball to point back of the center of the plank Since then it is accepc- ed as fact by all base ball players, that the flight of a ball can also, under fine handling, be made to incurve abnor- mally downward or upward with ref erence to it's landing place. that Is either in the direction of or contrary to the attraction of gTavitation.
 The period mentioned was in the in- fancy of skilled base ball playing. Since then generation of players of the game have grown up, and the con- stant repetition of the phenomenon mentioned has become so engrafted with common experience that few per- sons conversant with the game ever 1 think that it needs explanation. The character If the pitch, whatever it may be- seems just as natural to them
 
 the ball when compounded simply of the forces of it's projection. To so feel about the abnormal curved courses of the ball is, however. only a habit of mind, habitual experience of any kind of action mostly assuming, without ap- preciation, the reason for things The average base ball player accounts for the phenomenon by saying that it is caused by the pitchers giving the ball q twist as it leaves his hand. But that statement does not account for it's being thereby compelled to move in an eccentric orbit.
 If, in calm, one lets fall feather, one sees that it descendls slowly and with deviation from the vertical. But let him cause a feather to fall from the top of the inside of the exhaust glass receiver of a glass pump, and he wdl see that it falls plumb like shot. A body projected in space would pro- ceed forever at the same rate, and in a straight line, were not the space full of bodies that would attract 1t. This is one of Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion. Resistance of some kind, in word, indispensable to making q moving body deviate from the partic- Ular speed and course impressed upon by it's original projectile force and by the attraction of gravitation.
 It is, therefore, the resistance Of the atmosphere, as well as the force of projection and rotation of the base ball, which makes the ball describe Il curve to the right, to the left, upward or downward. The right handed pitcher delivers his "ollt-shoot'' with much greater effect of dncursve at the plate than he can accomplish with his "in-shoot." The left-handed pitcher, in reversed position, but correspond ingly delivers his .out-shoot" more eff fectiveIy than his 'sin-shoot' The resl- son is that, although in each case the speed of the ball for "out-shoot'' and 'in-shoot' is the same, the speed of it's rotation is very different. The centrifugal rotary force impressed by the pitcher upon the ball, opposed by the friction of the atmosphere, packed by the balls rapid duplex movement. being weaker in the 'in-shoot" than in the .'out-shoot' permits of less curva- ture there in the balls flight than Is possible than in the 'tout-shoot.'' In all cases the ball makes it's incuTrve at the. plate, whether horizontally, from the right or left, or vertically from above or below, because friction of the atmosphere, compressed by the balls combined velocity and speed of rotation retards and finally exhausts its movement of rotation at the end of its flight.
 The two movements of the ball, and the resistance of the atmosphere, form ing together three compound forces, compel the flight of the ball to as- stAme the form of a curve. As tue ball leaves the hand of the pitcher, it whirls onward until, the qJ1hclzness of its rotation being diminished by fric- ton on its surface from the atmoS- phere, and thereby weakened, it curves, either upward, nwards or from right to left, wdth reference to the plate of the baseball field. Any one should be able to realize the truth, of this demonstration of the principle through which the course of balls can be curved, if one has ever realized the density of the atmosphere, and the fact that it is compressible elastic gas. These properties of the atmos- phere made of it under the circum- stances described, continuous elas- tic cushion upon which the rotating ball impinges, and by the intervention of whose moderate resistance the course of the ball is modified in di- rection. The average pressure of the atmosphere at the level of the sea to the square inch of the earths surface
 
 round numbers, 15 pounds. The ay- craze barometric height at tue level of the sea is about 30 inches, but it is only 24.75 inches in height at Den yer, Colorado, a difference in weight of atmosphere of over two and Calf pounds out of nearly. 15. Yet it has been lately stated that the batting nv- erages at Denver are the same as those on the eastern coast of the Unit ed States. However that may be, and it seems utterly irreeonciliable with what has been shown here, there must be. in so rare an atmosphere as that of Denver, compared with that of the eastern coast of the United States a less possible curvature to the flight Of balls than is common to pitching them in the latter region.
 The main fact here elaborated here as to cause may be concisely stated in language not formidably scientific. The s.Ipe shoot" s'down-Shoot' and