The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1917-09-18
HOW FAST DOES Al
BASEBALL TRAVEL?
Pitcher Throws Sphere Nearly
Three Miles a Minute.
WHYTHE DROP is EFFECTIVE

Ball Has About Seven Feet In Which
to Take Unexpected Jump Up, Down
or Sidewise Between Time Batter
Starts Swing and Time II Is Con.
ciuded.
How fast does thrown baseball
travel?
That question has been asked many
times and had never been satisfacto-
rily settled until some recent expert
ments of Frank B. Gilbreth, an eff
cheney engineer Of Providence r. l.. us
described In the Popular Science
Monthly. 't{ 4}i
First and foremost Mr.. Gilbreth found
that fast ball thrown by reasonably
fast pitcher. from the time it left his
hands to the time it reached the, bat,
required O.2SS seconds. That was trav-
cling at the rate of 2lO,O7 feet per, sec,
ond or about "a miles per minute.
which is nothing like the speed .generr
ally attributed to fast ball by the pub
lie or by the ball players themseEes.3
The pitcher in this particular case
was Arthur Fromme, formerly of Gin
cinnati and the New York Giants.
Some comparisons are interesting
Mile-a- Minute Murphy rode a bicycle
by his own foot power, paced by rail-
road train, one mile in n fraction of q
second less than a minute Bob Bur-
man drove IN auto n mile on the beach
ut Daytona, Fla, in 25.40 seconds in
1914. Tetzlaff drove an auto a mile In
$500 seconds at Saldura, Utah, in 1914.
Tetzaff was travelling at the rate of a
very small fraction more than % miles
per minute. n
Surprising Point.
Mr.. Gilbreth found some exceptional
ly fast pitchers who delivered a ball
at the rate of 2.SS miles per minute, In
that case the latter occupied 0042 sec
onds In swinging at the ball,s but tue
most surprising point is that the photo
graphic machine showed that the batter
began to swing on that fast one when
it was 0.24 feet away from him.
How many batters have figured that
in going after fast one they have fire.
quently started the swing when the
ball was three yards or more In front
Of them? '' i'''
Then, again, the revelation 'Nof how
far the bali Is In front of the batter
when he starts to swing will help both
the player and the fan to understand
how much opportunity the ball has to
hn hnt yunttl1 nr i'm N n
ly not swing more than two feet In
front of him, and some Tate hitters
not that far, the ball has about seven
feet in which to take an unexpected
jump up. down or sidewise between
the time the batter starts his swing
and the time it is concluded. N!
Why Drop Is Effective. .tt
As 1t would be practically impossible
for the batter to change the plane in
which his swing is started, 1t can he
seen what tremendous advantage the
pitcher of ball like Mathewson's fade
away drop had when he was In good
form. On the other hand, pitcher
with q rise ball, such as that which
made Joe McGinnity famous, would
have almost an equal advantage.
When the mathematics Of pitching
are brought home in such fOrcible
manner the wonder is not that there Is
so little hitting. but that there 10 SC
much. ,,..a
The present writer once tried to get
the ordnance officials of the war de
partment at Washington to conduct ex
periments similar to those Of Mr. Oil
breth, but nothing ever came Of 1T
The machines used for determining thu
speed of guns of all sorts are so finely
adjusted that they could not. Register
the comparatively dead slow motion OF
thrown baseball. That was found Il
be the case when Nap Rucker ant
Walter johnson were invited by Ger
tain arms manufacturing company y
test their speed at its plant. The re
suits were almost certainly inaccurate.