Baseball Pitch Research Paper

Why do Certain Pitches in Baseball Curve? Scientifically, it seems humanly impossible to hit a 95 mile-per-hour straight fastball, but we see the professionals do it all the time! Your brain only has 125 milliseconds to decide whether or not to swing at the pitch, let alone making healthy contact with the ball (Griesmer). And remember, it is not always a straight fastball shooting out of the pitcher’s hand. Sometimes pitchers hurl in an off-speed pitch with movement to throw the hitters off their own balance. Yes, movement as in, certain rotations on the baseball decide whether it will drop down, slide to the right or left, or just float right up into the strike-zone, all still traveling faster than you would drive down the freeway. The physics behind different pitches is astounding! To narrow this down to two drastically different pitches, the four-seam fastball and the curve ball will be magnified. They are merely impossible to hit due to their velocity, movement, and the change in velocity when thrown back to back. Now, the science within a four seam fastball; the brain seriously has an eighth of a second to decide whether or
Mentioned before, the four-seam fastball may actually appear to rise, but it really just goes in a laser-like straight line because of the near perfect backspin. Whereas, the curve ball curves downward and sometimes to the right for a right-handed pitcher, or left for a left-handed pitcher. Depending on how much back spin for a fastball, or top spin for a curve ball, is sacrificed into the baseball, that will increase or decrease how much break will be on the pitch. Another reason why baseball is one of the toughest sports to succeed in is: “The hardest thing to do in baseball is to hit a round ball with a round bat, squarely.” -Ted