Slashdot Mirror
The Physics of Baseball
beatleadam writes "After seeing Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks pitch a perfect game (coverage here), I searched Slashdot in the hopes of reading more about what the Slashdot readers thought of this feat of athleticism and science and to learn more about the physics of baseball (More information to be found here and here). As nothing was posted, I submit for your viewing pleasure a "course" in the Physics of Baseball and the subtle science that is pitching."
Which link is most pertinent? Must I follow them all? Must I RATFA?
Patiently awaiting Curt Schilling's comment... ;)
:wq
It's boring as physics 101 is..
:D
Instead look at the physics of HOCKEY! Now there is something interesting.. A 250lbs player moving on a surface at 45km/h with almost 0 friction, hitting another 220lbs player into the boards traveling in the opposite direction, cause X joules of energy to be transferred to the glass..
Mod +5 Drunk
People don't care about your old-style sports like baseball or basketball.. :)
We want BASEketball!
Who's on first?
Back in the day, we just threw/hit the ball and hoped for the best!
Some "nerds" have interests other than the Physics of Star Wars and the possibility that nanobacteria exists. Nevermind the fact that we might need to know the physics of women.
Shocker, I know.
Now I can read how they do something I will be never be able to do. Maybe I can impress chicks with teh knowledge of this. Oh, wait...
Evolution or ID?
discussing the ECONOMICS of baseball? A breif list of the salaries of the overweight, corn-fed, ball-chuckers oughtta be interesting.
"If you build it, he will come".
The law by which Red Sox and Cubs are repelled by the World Series and especially by the prospect of each other's presence in it.
The Goat Rule
The Curse of the Bambino
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Since it was a perfect game, it was missing the trajectory (batting) half.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Ask any Red Sox fan about baseball, they will tell you laws of physics do not apply as the Bambino curse is the ONLY law in the land of Boston Red Sox :)
As a sidenote, watch the movie Still We Believe for an inside view of how Boston fans related to the Boston Red Sox.
And the only people who can really relate to us are Chicago Cubs fans.
In one of the many links.
"The ball is still traveling along an almost straight line, and it may even still be accelerating."
Now I understand that when a ball slows down, its accelerating in a negative direction (Depending on your view I guess). But i'm pretty sure they are talking about the ball going faster and faster as it travels. With my limitied knowledge of physics, I don't see how a ball can just accelerate with no force applied to it.
Mark
Technically, it would be 27 pitches. 3 batters per inning, 1 pitch per batter. So long as each person swings at the first pitch, and either pops up or grounds out.
Perfect game means no one reached base. You could actually pitch a perfect game in 27 pitches, all first pitch hits. This is why pitch count doesn't matter.
Less on the physics than the effects of that physics, from the New Yorker last week; here's a general audience article on knuckleball physics, an interview with Robert K. Adair, and finally, another physicist, Joel Hollander, who works on baseball: if you look at the master's theses list, you'll see one on the physics of pitching.
Robert K. Adair's book "The Physics of Baseball" is a good source of information on this. Both the physics-geek and physics-neophyte can find interesting tidbits in it.
Has anyone else here read the old "Brains Benton" series of juvenile mysteries? Sort of like "Hardy Boys" and "The 3 Investigators", but vastly superior to the former. Brains Benton himself is a prototype stereotypical nerd genius (in a pre-computer era), except that he is good at baseball.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I read a newspaper article once about how outfielders catch fly-balls. Basically, the ball follows an arc in the air. It's parabolic (which is fairly obvious). The way a fielder judges how far or back they need to be to catch the ball is what is interesting. The fielder will move so the ball will always appear to stay in one spot (and just get larger), even while it is on its descent. As long as this apparent motion is kept, the ball should go right into the glove. If the ball appears to move down, the fielder must move forward. If the ball appears to move up, then the fielder needs to go back. If the fielder sees any curve to the path, then he/she needs to move to the sides to "straighten" out the path. A really interesting read, wish I could find a URL w/ it.
Not necessarily. Each batter could hit the first pitch and have it caught by a fielder. Then there would be 27 pitches. And a perfect game can have "balls" thrown, as long as no one reaches base.
IOW, "perfect game" tells you nothing about the number of pitches thrown.
The previous sig has been removed due to
> God, baseball. The most mind-numbing sport in the world.
You must come from a part of the world where they don't have Cricket.
(Note to Mods. I used to like Cricket, then the SCG banned full strength beer and installed seats in Bay 13. What were they thinking?)
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
What about the subtle science of proper link naming? (With links like those in the article, the box of "related links" isn't really helpful...)
Nope. That would be a sort of Sidd Finch Zen ultra-perfect game. In The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, the title character, an American brought up on a Buddhist monastery who pitches 130 mph fast balls, pitches one game: 80 strikes. He walks off the mound before throwing the last strike to complete the game, as a kind of Zen gesture.
> Ron Jeremy's ejaculate travels in a parabola.
Remember that its only a partial parabola. Allowing something as valuable as The Hedgehogs wad to hit the floor is outside the budget of most porn flicks.
I can't believe I'm posting this to Slashdot.
Yes, true, I am. Note the similarities however
Baseball is the "geekiest" of the 4 major (US) sports. The statistics tracked in baseball dwarf any other sport. Stat analysis is a integral part of baseball.
What other sport do you have stats like: Batting average with runners in scoring position, two outs, late innings, versus a right handed pitcher.
Baseball stats scream "geek".
Casual Games/Downloads
Thought about it and the ball could be accelerating as a curve ball accelerates off of its linear trajectory.
Still, author is an id10t.
there is an book called the Physics of Baseball written by Robert Adair that wonderfully talks about the things you are always have wondered. some things such as how does a curveball curve. the difference between pitches. Its a great read and since I still play baseball its obviously holds interest to me. plus for the physics geek it actually gets into some of the areodynamic effects on the ball and the stitching. very cool!
Is there a name for 27k? Has anyone ever thrown one (even if someone reached base).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
"baseball, baseball game, ball - a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of 9 players; teams take turns at bat trying to score run; "he played baseball in high school"; "there was a baseball game on every empy lot"; "there was a desire for National League ball in the area"; "play ball!"
Ok.. If you don't know what baseball is, raise your hand and Tommy will come over and hit you on the head with a tackhammer because you are a RETARD!
Hmmm.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
For the physics of women click here
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Most Strike-Outs in a regular 9-inning game is 20, shared by Roger Clemens, for Boston (04/29/1986 and 09/18/1996) and Kerry Wood, for Chicago(05/06/1998) http://baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_strik.shtm l
-caf
From what I read about the lax drug testing in US sports maybe a chemical analysis of the player would be more interest?
> Perfect game means no one reached base. You could actually pitch a perfect game in 27 pitches, all first pitch hits.
Quite right. And, you could also have a non-perfect game known as "facing the minimum" with 27 pitches. On the first pitch to a batter, the ball hits the batter, and he gets first base. Next pitch is grounded into a double play. This is also a no hitter. You could also face the minimum throwing 27 pitches without it being a no hitter if one or more first pitches are hit for singles followed by first pitch double plays.Imagine being the 27th batter. Do you swing at the first pitch no matter what?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Any game in which fatasses can lumber around the field, sleep DURING the game while not playing, and smoke heaters in their off-time is hardly a sport.
{funny = on} /. for sports information? Did you forget we are nerds not nuts(as in sports nut). Is there a News for Nuts site, I don't know and quite frankly I don't care.
I'm sorry did I miss something, you searched
Remember we are nerds we Hate:
Outside - Unless we are looking at our older sisters best friend sitting by the pool.
Sports - Unless it includes something with the word Bot in the little.
Athletic triumphs - Unless is the college cheerleading championship on ESPN
{funny = off}
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Technically, it tells you that the same pitcher pitched the entire game, so he must have pitched at least 27 times (not that that tells you much).
A perfect game or a no hitter is great for a pitcher, but what people fail to realize is that for the pitcher to do either of those, requires all of his teammates help as well. How many pitches were hit only to be caught for the out, or thrown to first for the out? To me, a perfect game for a pitcher would be to strike out every player he pitched too.
The pitcher gets too much praise for when most of the work is actually done by his teammates.
From Tim Keown of ESPN: When high-brow attempts middle-brow, hilarity ensues: As just part of what you can learn by reading the sports stories in The New Yorker, there's this description of a knuckleball from Robert K. Adair, professor emeritus at Yale and the author of "The Physics of Baseball" -- "To understand how a knuckleball works, it helps to have a basic familiarity with Bernoulli's principle, the Magnus effect, and the Prandtl boundary-layer theory, for a start."
Mike Cameron on the Mets does it differently. He's trained himself since a very early age to see the ball off the bat and then estimate where it will land. He then runs as fast as he can to that spot, and lo and behold the ball is there for him. He doesn't actually watch the ball in flight, but he knows where it will land quicker than other outfielders. That's why he's far and away the best centerfielder (and outfielder in general) in baseball.
Hockey has some pretty sweet physics too.
- Sighuh?
Way to screw up a perfect Zen game! A pitch isn't legal unless the pitcher is on the mound.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Ugh they're also the most highly addicting!
.400!"
Me: "Sure I'll join your little fantasy league, I don't know baseball all that much but I like stats"
Me (2 months later): "Oh dear god who do I start? This batter is better under windy conditions against this pitcher when the announcer has more barritone voice, but the other is batting
-- taking over the world, we are.
Used to like it?
Man, it's gotten so much better over the years. These new 20-20 matches are great.
I find watching it on TV in the pub to be just as enjoyable. The replays and computer rendered ball paths are top... and the choice of beer is better than good.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
In high school I lived the next town over from Tom Gordon. Tom (Flash) Gordon is still in the big leagues. Here's his bio. He threw a perfect game of strikeouts against our high school. Folks were bragging about even fouling a ball off on him! It was amazing to see someone that young throw like that.
yeah, acceleration is a change in velocity, so changing direction is technically acceleration. b4k4 author
And I gotta say, it was pretty surreal to watch the Atlanta crowd cheering for the "Big Unit". 'Course, some might argue that they had to have someone to cheer for. The game was so dull that I didn't even realize RJ was gunning for the perfect game until I overheard some of my coworkers mentioning it in the bottom of the 7th.
I grew up playing (mostly) softball on city playgrounds of asphalt or concrete. So, I never acquired the skill of diving for a ball. When I got older, moved to the 'burbs and played mostly on grass, I'd get ragged about not diving for balls that were just barely out of reach. I began to practice it and while I became fairly proficient and overcame the initial fear of the simple maneuver, I couldn't bring myself to actually use it in a game; I still had the sense I my chances were better if I stayed on my feet and kept running.
Some years later I read in an article (by some scholar who probably never played the game) that diving for a ball is pure spectacle and is not the best chance to reach a fly ball. Basically, the moment you leave your feet, you begin to slow down. Your best chance is to take the last step or two maintain your speed, and perhaps catch the ball knee high rather than at the shoe-tops.
Maybe it was just affirmation of my belief, but it made sense to me.
Oh, BTW, I don't think Willie Mays or Joe DiMaggio ever dove for a ball.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Perfect game means no one reached base. You could actually pitch a perfect game in 27 pitches, all first pitch hits. This is why pitch count doesn't matter.
I think you mean all first pitch outs.
remember Sammy Jankis
Whatever wanker is moderating today needs his head examined. Look at the original post. Look at my post. Is it just possible I might be making a valid point. The original post has absolutely no reason to be put up on Slashdot.
definitely brush off ya shouldas yun' playa.
George: Guys, hitting is not about muscle. It's simple physics. Calculate the velocity, v, in relation to the trajectory, t, in which g, gravity, of course remains a constant. (Hits a home run) It's not complicated.
Jeter: Now who are you again?
George: George Costanza, assistant to the traveling secretary.
Williams: Are you the guy who put us in that Ramada in Milwaukee?
George: Do you wanna talk about hotels, or do you wanna win some ball games?
Jeter: We won the World Series.
George: In six games.
Try to understand the math involved to do this.
(Link goes to footage of Randy Johnson hitting a bird on a fastball).
This isn't math - this is Chaos Theory!
I'm there this year. Just a small Roto league n yahoo but man can it be addictive...and time consuming..pouring over stats to get an edge
From 1900-1960, there were four; since then, there have been 11. Michael Coffey attributes the increase to:
Apparently, when Cy Young pitched his perfect game in 1904, he wasn't even aware until the last out that he had a perfect game going (the term in fact did not even exist at the time.) These days, if someone takes a perfect game into the sixth inning, it's mentioned on all the broadcasts of the other games and on any of the "sports news" programs that are on at the time.
It's not clear if these are the most important contributing factors but I think these are some reasonable points.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
So it actually is possible to have something more boring than baseball.
Which reminds me of something: Johnson's last pitch of the game was a 98mph fastball. He threw an entire game, and could still hurl a ball at a speed that many pitchers would sacrifice their weak arm for.
Side note: I bet he thanks the guy who nicknamed him "Big Unit". How'd you like to use that one in a bar? "Hi! My friends call me 'Big Unit'", and all of your friends would back you up ("Yeah, that's really what everyone calls him.").
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Although there's probably some bizarre way a batter could be out without getting a pitch.
And they say that the sciences don't have enough funding! Pitchers get millions of dollars every year to work on their "subtle science." Maybe if cancer and AIDS researchers organized into teams and wore uniforms....
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Here's a book on the subject.
When my father and I were playing (softball and little leauge respectivly) he bought an earlier copy of this book.
The fielder will move so the ball will always appear to stay in one spot (and just get larger), even while it is on its descent.
:)
Ummm, wouldn't that mean that the ball will eventually hit the player's face?
You're kidding me..
All this science is involved in getting me to fall asleep in front of my TV?
wow
at least MLB2004 is fun on my ps2
hooray for geekgames!
--- Something must be done about Vengeance, a badge and a gun.
Perfect Game = Pitcher strikes all batters out.
A Perfect Game means 27 batters struck out and non got a hit or walked.
No Hitter = No one makes it on to base (ie. other players catch fly balls or throw runners out).
And I hate baseball.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
The difference is that baseball is much slower and they have time to spit out a bunch of numbers at you to fill time. Also, baseball is a _very_ superstitious behavior from a psychological point of view. The stats can be viewed as part of the superstition. From this link:Baseball is filled with random reinforcers which contributes to the superstitious behaviour. You have ppl, doing all of these nervous ticks, spitting, scratching, hand signals, random fights, wiggling around at the plate and mound, and apparently the numbers at the bottom of the screen have affected you and others as well.
"After seeing Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks pitch a perfect game (coverage here), I searched Slashdot in the hopes of reading more about what the Slashdot readers thought of this feat of athleticism...
:-)
Whenever I'm curious about sports, I head straight to Slashdot too.
I'm not sure if I agree. Basketball has lots of stats as well. So does football, and tennis has gotten pretty cool with the overlay plots of serves and points won.
Baseball plays 162 games a year (and has been around over a 100 years) which gets the stats up into areas that you can start really treating..well..statistically. There's enough sample data to do analysis at levels not possible in other sports
It's a joke. Laugh.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Women? Come on now, we all know THAT is impossible.
An interesting article has recently appeared on the page of Natural History (the offical magazine of the American Museum of Natural History) I suspect the aricle may be available online at the museum website!
Check out Hurling. A player running on a large grass pitch has to be able to catch a small ball in his weak hand (no big mitt to help him), sprint like a 100 metres champion, avoid getting shoulder-charged into the ground, twist and turn like a basketball player, and strike the ball in mid-air whilst on the move and be able to do so with a forehanded or backhanded swing of his stick. If he wants to take more than three steps while in posession of the ball, he has to balance it on the end of his stick, and he can't have the ball in his hand more than twice while in posession of it. And he has to be able to hit it on the ground as well. And he can't pick it up off the ground by hand, he has to scoop it up with his stick. And if someone blocks his stick then it'll shatter. And if someone gets in his way while he's swinging then they'll get their head taken off. See also here.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
There's a little guy inside the baseball, after it is thrown he jumps out (in the opposite direction the baseball is travelling), and due to the conservation of momentum the ball must speed up.
What is it about baseball that makes it the ultimate nerd sport? I see so many articles about the physics of baseball, or the statistics of baseball, but nothing for basketball (arguably a more popular sport in the world these days). Is it that it can be devided into small statistic-friendly chunks? Football has chunks. Is it because the parabolic flight of a homerun makes it an obvious physics problem? Basketball works too for those. What gives?
My dad got me a while ago a book called Newton at the Bat. It dealt with the physics involved in a lot of different sports including baseball.
:)
It's probably dated now (early 90s?), due to the technological advances of sensors, imaging, and athletic study.
Might be worth checking out [no amazon affiliate link to be provided]
--D
I'm not sure if I agree. Basketball has lots of stats as well. So does football, and tennis has gotten pretty cool with the overlay plots of serves and points won.
Yes, they all have lots of stats, but baseball has by far the most. There's really no comparison.
Basketball has field goal percentage, but they don't break it down into: FG % vs 6ft 5in point guards on maple floors at night, on the road.
Football has more stats than basketball, such as yards per run on grass vs turf, yards per pass indoors vs outdoors, pass percentage, but they don't break it down into: Yards per run on grass at home, at night, vs 4-3 defense, vs AFC teams.
Stats are part of baseball history. There is no other sport that statistics plays such a big part in. Managers routinely base many of their decisions in games based solely on stats.
Baseball is filled with random reinforcers which contributes to the superstitious behaviour. You have ppl, doing all of these nervous ticks, spitting, scratching, hand signals, random fights, wiggling around at the plate and mound, and apparently the numbers at the bottom of the screen have affected you and others as well.
I'm unsure what your point is here. This paragraph really doesn't make any sense. I think superstitions in baseball are interesting, but many times really annoying. And I really don't see how the superstitions correlate with statistics.
Casual Games/Downloads
Pitching has a lot to do with physics, true. But I'd say it has much more to do with psychology. It is, after all, the most difficult task of a pitcher to second-guess what the batter is expecting the pitch to be.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Similarities how? Cricket has 5 DAY games. At least Baseball dosesn't last longer than a few hours at most. You hear the announcer say "Here we are bottom of the 8th" not "Here we are day 4."
==>Lazn
On a realated note the economist recently had an interesting article about cricket and recent controversy over one of the more important rules - the bowler (pitcher) is not allowed to straighten his arm when delivering the ball. Some are claiming that new bowlers are breaking this rule and other question whether the rule itself might actually contradict physics. Being an American who didn't know much about cricket I found the article to be thouroughly amusing. That game could never exist here in the states.
Is it really necessary to have a link to Slashdot in a Slashdot article?
If my memory serves me, I believe SI actually published an article about Sidd Finch 15-20 years ago. It was right around April Fools Day so its authenticity is up for speculation but he has become something of an American Folk Legend ... even if he is a brit :)
I believe pitching the perfect game now requires a healthy dose of steroids, HGH and greenies.
Baseball is dead.
I think baseball is also the only sport that has every at bat recorded going back to the 1960's and maybe even earlier. Every game can be recreated, almost at a pitch by pitch basis ... no other sport has done that ...
Maybe he was so disgusted with his team's performance to that point, and so frustrated with the pitcher's dominance, that he steps into the box and immediately hurls his bat at the pitcher?
A few people, and some dogs (most individuals of the Retriever breeds) have an innate talent for being able to intercept an object on the fly. Others (most people, and most dogs outside of the Retrievers) have to learn the skill, and may or may not be able to learn it to a useful degree. It's as if some brains process the "interception math" (essentially trigonometry) automagically, others don't have the talent but can learn it as a skill, and still others can't see the math at all.
I've noticed that having this skill is very much true with the best outfielders -- they don't have to stand there eyeballing the descending ball, they just run to the spot and there it is. Same with wide receivers in football, perhaps even more so since the QB often throws on the run, whereas the batted baseball comes from a known position (as Satchel Paige said, "Home plate don't move").
In fact, one could apply this to anything in sports that involves intercepting moving objects of variable trajectories, and distinguish the good from the great by their ability to use it. Positions like shortstop, where the batted ball can be on you in a fraction of a second, likely need even more of an innate talent for "interception math".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Well, to quote from Bull Durham : "If you believe you're playing well because you're getting laid, or because you're not getting laid, or because you wear women's underwear, then you ARE!"
As much as we may want to get down to the hard science of a sport, there's still a lot of soft psychology involved with the players...
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
Exactly what is athletic about baseball? Stand around in a field for two hours, occasionally catching and throwing a ball.... kinda like playing with a three-year-old. Not exactly an Olympic event.
Pitching is just as athletic as darts, or bowling, or archery. It's an accuracy thing, a skill, not an athletic event.
Randy Johnson is probably in fairly good shape. But look at some of the stars of the game: Mark McGuire is listed as being 6' 5" and weighing 250 pounds when he played - a BMI of 29.6. Than's officially "overweight", and just a tiny hair below "obese", by government standards. That's probably why he used to hit home runs - then he can trot around the bases, instead of actually having to run.
a one day game with a 50 overs (300 balls) innings per side
a test match with two innings per side and of an indeterminate length (with a five day maximum)
Skills and tactics used in the different formats can be very different. IMHO the test format places a greater emphasis on stamina and strategy, but one day games are more fun to watch since the scoring rates are much higher.
I have seen and played quite a few baseball games and spoken to USian friends about the game, and I can only conclude that cricket is a far more complex game. Baseball is two-dimensional by comparison. The level of intelligence, skill and fitness required to play international-level cricket is far higher than that needed by baseball.
OLPC Australia
Baseball still sucks!
Go cricket!!!
The fewest pitches you can through and still pitch a complete game is 25. Playing at another team's ballpark, you pitch 8 innings of all first pitch groundouts/lineouts/flyouts. The opposing pitcher throws a shutout. Bottom of the ninth, your first pitch is hit for a walkout home run.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
"Hit the damn ball!"
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
This post is also completely bullshit.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
It was written by George Plimpton and was wholly false aided in part by the Reds, who at their spring training put up sheets to obscure part of the field as if there was someone to obscure.
George Plimpton was the greatest sports writer ever and popularized participatory journalism (he fought a pro boxer, pitched at an All-Star baseball game, played in a symphony orchestra, and was friend of many presidents). Everyone should read his work.
> The fewest pitches you can through and still pitch a complete game is 25
Hadn't thought of that. You can face the minimum and not only not have a no-hitter but be the losing pitcher. Bummer. Still helps out the ERA though.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
In softball, a pretty close cousin to baseball, the object is to hit a slow pitch (underhand, with arc) ball.
The current Associations starting banning certain Bats and Balls as too powerfull. (www.asasoftball.com)
So.. last year the Miken Ultra ][ was legal and boy was it fun. I hit several out, and enjoyed life. It was 300 bucks.
This year? I purchased a Miken Freak for 300..
Can anyone safely tell me the way these bats are truely banned? Is it not for economical reasons?
If safety was a concern, then Wooden bats would be the only thing allowed.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
You can pitch a perfect game with no pitches thrown, for there are ways that the batter can be called out without a pitch being thrown: if he steps from one batter's box to the other when the pitcher is in position to pitch or if he attempts to use an illegal bat. 27 of those, and the pitcher is credited with a perfect game.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Not quite.
Perfect Game: No batter makes it on base at all. No hits, no walks, no errors. The pitcher does not have to strike everybody out, put-outs (by fielders) are acceptable.
Perfect games are still pretty rare, because a lot of pitchers tend to walk a batter or two, leading us to...
No Hitter: No batter is credited with a hit (but there may be be base runners due to walks or errors). Runs can also score in a no-hitter (again, via walks and/or errors)
-- Joe
You might want to cultivate a taste for women's softball ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"Imagine being the 27th batter. Do you swing at the first pitch no matter what?"
Hell no -- your manager would have your ass!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I even have an autographed ball from the Big Unit himself from when he was a Mariner.
Did anyone happen to spot the number of pitches Randy had to throw? What would they call a game with only 27 pitches? I think there was a game once with only 54 pitches. To win in less than 81 pitches takes some help from your teammates.
Here at the American Institute of Physics, we love baseball. More specifically, our science writer Ben Stein loves the game, and has written several articles on it, including a statistical analysis of the chance of going to seven games, why AL batters get beaned more often, and a new way to determine under- and over-achieving teams.
One of the links says:
"Does sliding help a runner to get to second base any faster? Of course not."
And then goes on to almost figure out that yes, it does.
Sliding allows the runner to run faster until he's very near the base. But he's going so fast he'll go past it if he doesn't slide. The steeper his deceleration, the longer he was going at full speed, and the shorter his total time getting to the base. That's the part the link forgot.
If he could reliably collide with the fielder to shed his inertia, he'd do that, instead, because it'd allow him full speed until he's right on the base.
If I was him I'd ignore the Big Unit nickname and just say, "Hi, I'm Randy Johnson, a professional baseball player. I make millions of dollars a year. You wanna come back to my place?"
Pitching a baseball is the fastest physical human movement. Which tops out at around 100 MPH for professional baseball players.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
For those who are interested in the physics of sports, here's a pretty in depth one on billiards:s /apapp.pdf
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~penningt/262/p
I'm not sure if I agree. Basketball has lots of stats as well. So does football, and tennis has gotten pretty cool with the overlay plots of serves and points won. But basketball is a sport that stats don't mean very much. Is a player averaging 30 pts a game better than a player averaging 25 pts a game? The former might just be in a really bad team and have way more shot attempts. Another example is that a team that leads the league in offensive rebounds is almost always a bad shooting team, which leads to more offensive rebound oppurtunities, and not because the team is actually any good at getting offensive rebounds.
I always thought a perfect game was 27 strike outs, and a no-hitter covered other variants where players may have gotten to the base (walks, hit by pitches, balks, etc).
I guess I'm wrong, as a quick google suggests that Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood share the record of 20 in a 9 inning game.
AN really Ls TC, but does TC L AN?
Baseball's not a sport.
No strategy
No need to be in good shape
Supersize me !
I dunno. The guy has only thrown 26 pitches. I'm looking for his best pitch down but still a strike or close. He's going to give me something I can hit, cause he wants the 27 pitch game. I just need to get it between the infielders. A single wrecks the whole thing and I'm giving him a legitimate shot at it. OTOH, in a 0-0 tie in a game that matters, I'm taking all the way.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Um, in this example the pitcher pitched a one-hitter and lost.
However, you can (and I believe it's happened) pitch a no-hitter and lose. In fact, to make the example valid, instead of a walkoff home run, call it a ball hit down the right field line... The right fielder drops the ball (error, not a hit) and, for whatever reason, the batter-runner is able to circle the bases and score the winning run. The pitcher has faced the minimum, thrown only 25 pitches, threw a no-hitter, and still lost. It's not a perfect game though, because of the error. There's no way to throw a perfect game and lose, as far as I know.
I dunno about fitness... i think it's about equal there. Can't conceivably call David Boon fit :)
> The fewest pitches you can through and still pitch a complete game is 25
More on this at the rec.puzzles archive. IIRC, it takes one pitch per inning: first guy up triples.
Then the pitcher throws a pitch, but the guy tries to steal and the batter steps in the way. It's ruled no pitch and he's out on interference. Do this three times per inning and you've finished the game with 9 pitches.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
>However, you can (and I believe it's happened) pitch a no-hitter and lose
Yes it has, and more than once. Usually it involves a walk or two followed by an error. I don't see how you could throw a perfect game and lose. You could retire 27 straight batters and lose in extra innings. You could retire 27 straight, get relieved at the start of the tenth (injury?) and get no decision. Both of those would suck. I don't think there has ever been a perfect game of more than 9 innings in MLB.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Howabout the databases (or sysadmins) behind baseball? How the heck do they come up with those obscure statistics so fast? The last left-hander to pitch a 4 hitter in the city of new york....
The feat of the no-hitter is indeed special, but you do truly have to be a sports fanatic to really be moved by the act. Ironically, the act of hitting a baseball is statistically one of the most difficult feats to perform (a 90 mph fastball crosses the plate approximately 0.4 seconds after it leaves the pitcher's hand (for those who need perspective, try this test Reaction Time) as the hitter must determine location (strike or ball), spin on the ball (curve, slider, fastball, splitter) and then swing a round bat to hit the round ball providing for a small margin of error for effective contact...not to mention that there are 9 guys on the field trying to catch the ball too...surprising that there aren't more perfect games. Thus, it is no surprise that those people that are considered "Hall of Famers" that have .300 batting averages failed roughly 7 out of 10 times. Or was that software projects?
"Everything in the universe is clouded by the impositions of the mind"
Your scenario was off still, but here's another one.
It's not impossible, but let's just say EVERY batter on one team bats out of order. When each batter initially steps into the batter's box, the opposing team confers with the home plate umpire, who sees the batter is out of order and calls him out. If each batter does this, and the other team scores at least one run, then the pitcher can complete a win while not throwing any pitches at all! Of course it would take an incredibly stupid manager let this happen.
Ah, yes, thanks for the correction. (Are you sure it was 168 mph though? Are you talking about the SI article or the book?)
Pitching a baseball is the fastest physical human movement.
:).
Hrmmm, I would think faster movements occur in martial arts... or maybe on the PWAMT (Professional Whack-a-Mole Tour
enumerated in another thread, but this is my 'out-there' game:
Visiting team's batters are all out of order. Home team has ump call each one "OUT!" before first pitch is thrown. Repeat for nine innings and you can have a pitcher throw a complete game with no pitches.
White robots, programmable bats, exploding balls - even Kerry Packer would be on to a winner with that sort of sport!
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
the reason he's called 'Big Unit' would be quite apparent at first sight, he's 6'10" after all...
Well, except cricket of course. Back to the mid 1800's.
My old chemistry professor wrote an extremely funny article on the subject of quantum baseball. Okay, so extremely funny is a relative term, but at least I enjoyed it...
http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0100/010008.cfm
Cricket doesn't count ... we don't play it in the US and afterall only the United States REALLY matters :)
"There's no crying in baseball."
...is Ben Sheets' near-perfect game just two days earlier against the same Braves team. Such a miserable offensive performance by the Braves against Sheets should have left them eager to pound the ball against Johnson on Tuesday. And, in comparison, they did.
Sunday: Ben Sheets of the Milwaukee Brewers allowed three hits and struck out 18 Braves in a complete game win over Atlanta. With 18 strikeouts, one walk, three hits, and one sacrifice bunt, Braves batters retreated to the dugout without putting the ball in play or reaching base 18 out of 31 times (58.1%).
Tuesday: Randy Johnson's game may have been perfect (meaning no Braves reached first base safely for any reason), but his 13 strikeouts mean that the Braves retreated to the dugout without putting the ball in play or reaching base only 13 out of 27 times (48.1%).
So while Johnson's game is defined as "perfect" by MLB, it was slightly more reliant on the Braves hitting the ball directly at the defense, while Sheets' near-perfection was betrayed by a couple of lucky hits.
So the subject of this comment is misleading. Sheets was actually more dominant, but he won't be remembered in the record books for his more dominant performance because the ball managed to find holes in the Brewers' defense. Then again, Sheets walked a batter, so no perfection for him!
Either way, this is not good for team looking for it's 13th consecutive division title (not counting the unfinished 1994 season). Over two days, they managed three hits in 56 at-bats (58 total times at the plate). Ouch!
Great one! There's likely 50 or so good Yogi quotes too.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Sorry, but you obviously haven't watched much cricket over there
Having been exposed to both cricket and baseball, I can tell you without doubt that cricket has the most mind-boggling number of statistics that you can imagine.
From the New York Times:
4 /s ports/20040404_PITCH_GRAPHIC.html
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2004/04/0
evanchik.net
I love the Adair book except that he got the slider wrong. A slider is thrown like a football -- it should have a tight spiral the axis of rotation of which is down and away from batters (assuming righty on righty). Hitters are told to look for a "red dot" (seen at the near end of the rotational axis) in order to spot an incoming slider.
Does this annoy anyone else, or is it just me?
68.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Listening to Vin Scully explain his first physics lesson learned in the Brooklyn Dodgers' Stadium. This lesson was conveyed to him after the young Mr. Scully asked the person next to him why the bat struck the ball before the sound of the crack was heard. I believe he said that his age at the time was 8.
Or do like Bill Buckner -- foul off 27 pitches in a row (or whatever ridiculous number it was back in the '86 Series) til you make the poor exasperated pitcher give you the one you want :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Discussion of baseball physics would be incomplete without a serious treatment of modeling team performance through (useful) statistics. Bill James (literally) wrote the book on the subject.
Thats from the book (which, bizarrely, I have on my desk because I bought it on Ebay three days ago)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
There's quite a bit of those "the physics of X" articles here.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Seriously, if you slag the moderators off it triggers a kind of herd defence instinct and every little ponce with inexplicably obtained mod points will pile on you, particularly if they've modded something OT which was a joke that went over their flat empty heads.
ask Harvey Haddix, who pitched a perfect 12 innings, only to lose in #13.