Free trader-journal. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1916-1920, 1917-09-12
HOW FAST DOES A
BASEBALL TRAVEL?
Ball Has About Seven Feet In When
to Take Unexpected Jump Up. Down
or Sidewiss Between Time Batter
Starts Swing and Time Il Is Con.
Guided.

Starts Swing and Time Il Is Con
Guided.
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 r. Gilbreth. an ETH
cheney engineer Of Providence. X. l., as
described in the Popular Science
Monthly.
First and foremost Mr. Gilbreth found
that fast ball thrown by Il reasonably
fust pitcher. from the time it, left his
hands to the time 1t reached the bat.
required 0.2SS seconds. That was truv-
cling at the rate of 2l007 feet per sec
ond or about "a miles per minute.
which Ia nothing like the speed gener-
ally attributed to II fast ball by the pub
lie or by the ball players themselves.
The pitcher In this particular case
was Arthur Fromme. formerly Of Gin
cinnati nnd the New York Giants
Some comparisons are interesting
Minute Murphy rode bicycle
by his own foot power. paced by u rail
roud train. one mile In fraction Of Il
second less than minute Bob Bur.
man drove an auto mile on the beach
ut Daytona. Fla. in 25.40 seconds In
1914 Tetzlafr drove an auto mile In
25.a0 seconds ut Saldnra. Utah. in 1914.
Tetzaff was travelling at the rate of n
very small fraction more than 23 miles
per minute.
Surprising Point.
Mr.. Gilbreth found some exceptional
~ fast pitchers who delivered bah
at the rate OF 2.SS miles per Minute. In
that case the latter occupied 0.0i2 Sec
onds In swinging mt the ball. but the
most surprising point is that the photo
graphic machine showed that the batter
began to swing on that fast one when
1t was 92i 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 |
Ut them?
Then again. the revelation OF how /
far the ball Is in front Of the batter
when he starts to swing will help both
the player md the fan to understand
how much opportunity the ball has to
break. Since the batter would Ordinari
~ not swing more than two feet IN /
front OF him. and some late" httcrs |
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 II Is concluded.
Why Drop 10 Effective.
As It would be practically impossible
for the batter to change the plane In
which his swing Is started, II can be
seen what tremendous advantage the
pitcher Of ball like Mathewsons fade
away drop had when he was In good
form. On the other hand, pitcher
with 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 IL
SO little hitting, but that there Is 80
much.
The present writer once tried to get
the ordnance officials Of the war de-
partment at Washington to conduct OK.
periments similar to those Of Mr.. Gil
breth, but nothing ever came OF 1t.
The machines used for determining the
speed Of guns OF all sorts are SO finely
adjusted that they could not register
the comparatively dead slow motion Of
q thrown baseball. That was found to
be the case when Nap Rucker and
Walter Johnson were invited by GER
tain arms manufacturing company to
test their speed at Its plant. The re-
suits were almost certainly inaccurate.