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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
Who's on first?
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.
You might be interested then in The Physics of Hockey by Alain Hache. I bought it last year and found it interesting. he covers the basics from skating and stopping, to slapshots, chechs and saves. I think he even covered some of the thermo for making an ice rink.
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
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.
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.
> 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
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.
Is it just me, or are irrelevant links to IMDB the New Slashdot Thing - right up there with Beowulf clusters and insensitive clods?
Or has the GNAA changed its focus from poo coated women to just plain ol' shitty movies?
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
The most interesting physics phenomenon in hockey has got to be the slapshot. Watch one in slow motion, and you'll see the shooter strike the ice with the blade of his stick several inches before the puck. As the motion continues, the stick bends backwards, building up tension that is released on the follow-through. Together with a wrist-roll that keeps the blade in contact with the puck for a longer period of time, you get a tremendous transfer of energy that launches a 100-mph whirling dervish at the net. The most amazing thing is the aim that top snipers achieve while doing all this.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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!
"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.
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.
> 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.
{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.
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.
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.
This is just like what happens every time there's an article about chess - a handful of numbnuts chime in with "chess sucks! Let's talk about GO! It's superior to chess in every way!"
Why do people find it necessary to shit all over anything they don't like? Maybe submitting a story about the physics of hockey would be more constructive.
I was actually just thinking about that topic myself. For a perfect game this is so very true. After all, it is given you are not going to get 27 strike outs so you need your teammates help to prevent the runner getting to first.... As for a regular no hitter, the case don't hold so much because say the shortstop makes a throwing error to first, you're no hitter is still going beause its an error... just you're perfect game went bye bye... regardless, pitching is stil very HARD to do, especially when you have pumped up "kreatine" batters ready to blast anything out of the park coming his way. --coicidence that no one hit 50 homers last year when the steroid scandal started to come up? i think not!
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!
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.
And don't forget the invaluable contribution make by the opposing team. Without their lack of skill, the perfect game would not be possible.
The pitcher gets too much praise for when most of the work is actually done by his teammates.
I'll agree with this in principle, but in this particular game, it didn't really look like the Diamondbacks needed anybody besides the local high school's 8 to secure the perfect game. See the 27 outs if you're skeptical, but I'll summarize:
13 strikeouts
7 routine fly balls (one was basket-caught, of all things)
4 routine ground ball outs
a close out on a leadoff drag bunt
and a couple of decent plays by the shortstop. Nothing a big leaguer would take any credit for.
So in this case, while you certainly needed a AA-level first baseman and maybe a AAA-level shortstop, I don't think there was much else going on.
But if you're arguing that you needed warm bodies in the outfield and a third baseman to stand there and do nothing, I guess everybody did contribute.
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 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.
It's a joke. Laugh.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
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.
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 :)
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?
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
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.
Of course, if you're ozzie smith you just reach behind your body in mid dive with your bare hand and grab the ball on a weird hop, land, bounce up, and throw the guy out. Still the greatest thing I've ever seen in baseball.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
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.
It's because there are so many different numbers to compare, and that these numbers compare very well from generation to generation. You have BA, ERA, OBS, OPS, RBI, Wins, Saves, WHIP, Home Runs, etc. You can also use these individual statistics to predict victories for a team. It's harder to do such a statistical anaylisis on the other sports. Plus, baseball has such a long season and has been around for so long most of the statistical oddities have been worked out.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
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.