The Alaska citizen., 1913-08-18
Amazing Record Made by
Swiftest Baseball Pitcher

How DO they know what Johason's
tIhether he uses a curve or not
Whether his break is set?
How can they tell INV his outshoots
fall?
Whether his incurve's big or small?
How can they tell what he's got on
the ball?
Nobodys seen it yet
So sang a m nor poet of the major
leagues.
The hero of this baseball epic was
Walter Johns-n. the marvellous
pitcher OF the Washington club, who
has just beaten all records by hurl-
ing the ball for fifty-siX consecu-
i've innings with such skill and cum
ming that not a batsman of an op-
q run.
Speed was the greet factor in
the achieyement-da dazzling siz2l ne
speed. The big Idah ans delivery
is like the flight of a shell. The
mightiest hitters of the American
league are as helpless as town lot
payers when Johnson turns loose
his fastest ball: 'Ty Cobb, Home
Run" Baker and Jackson al Ike are
babes in his hands.
Johnson's amazing swiftness in
pitching is no mere fancy. 1t has
been scientifically measured. In the
testing rom of the Remington Arms
company at Bridgeport. Conn. John
son showed that his right arm could
hurl the baseball at the rate of 122
feet second. 1t was acknowledg-
ed that he could do even better. be
cause. n athletic parlance. he was
not warmed up. 1t is we'll known
that a hurler gathers speed as a
game progresses.
Johnson flung the sphere through
Ian aperture in a frame of wood about
two feet square. Running from top
TO bottom We're ten very delicate
wires. These We're broken by the
ball, and by an electrical device
the moment of passage was accurate
~ timed. Five yards away was
steel plate and the impact of the
ball on this barrier again caused
the electric clock to register Thus
the exact time of the balls flight
was automatically determined.
The velocity obtained by Johnson
is all the more extraordinary when
t is known that bullet from the
new government 40 automatic pis.
tOl travels 500 feet per second.
A high power hunting rifle, 80
calibre, autoloading, travels 2,000
feet per second
The Twentieth Century Limited
the fastest, long-distance train in
the world makes the 97S.7 miles
from New York to Chicago is just
twenty hours, or an average speed
of 4s.9 miles every hour. This
means velocity of nearly seventy
two feet a second.
Suppose Johnson's speedball kept
on travelling at 122 feet a second
right on toward the Windy City
at its own hurricane speed. 1t would
eat up the 5.163,S40 feet to Chicago
n just II hours and As minutes The
ball would beat the train to Chicago
by hours and IL minutes. In
other words. the catcher who re-
ceives the ball could go to bed, have
a full nights rest, get up and into
his uniform again, and be on hand
in the morning to meet the Tween
tieth Century as she rolled into Chi
cago.
Putting it another way-the train
leaves New York at 2.45 p M daily
Time is set back at Buffalo by just
an hour, so that the onrushing train
gains sixty minutes on her west
ward journey. Eleven hours and
forty-eight minutes after the start
Johnson's bender has reached Chi
cago, or at :33 a. M Chicago time,
the roaring locomotive has just
plunged through Cleveland without
stopping, more than $50 miles away.
The striking energy of Johnson's
missile was shown to be 100 foot
pounds. That means that is pes
sessed approximately half the force
in impact of bullet fired from a
As automatic pistol!
According to these figures. it takes
less than half a second for a ball
thrown by Johnson at his high speed
to travel from his fingers to catch
er's glove!
That is why he bewilders even
the quickest witted batsman He
isn't able to guess whether it is a
straight ball. an in or an out curve
a drop. or whether the sphere is go
ing to jump up into the air in de-