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Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve
Just for the sake of argument, would anyone wish to follow this up with a calculation of the speed of sound traveling that distance, to determine the time delay? Or, the time delay for the base umpire from his A position, or from the 3 standing behind the fence?
I suspect my point is made without the math, but now we are judging if the sound was made at a point either more or less than within 0.2 seconds from release?? And think this has something to do with softball??
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You really are anal about this, aren't you?
Well, to settle the issue, we need to know what the temperature is and the humidity, since the speed of sound through the atmosphere depends on both.
Let's assume we are playing a game in west Texas (dry air); Let's assume the parents are seated some 30 feet from the foul line and the umpire in A is standing ~15 feet from 1B. This puts the parents at about 50' and the umpire at about 45' from the pitcher's plate. No, I am not going to do the geometry to get a more precise measure. Let's assume an afternoon game, temp ~100 degrees F.
The time for the pitcher's scream to reach the umpire is 0.037 seconds. The time for the pitcher's scream to reach the parents is 0.043 seconds. The ball will have travelled 3' 5" from the time the pitcher actually screamed before the umpire heard the scream, and 3' 10" for the parents, or less than 1/10 of the distance from the pitcher's plate to home.
You can safely assume, therefore, that the umpire can judge the position of the ball (to his eye) at the time of the scream (to his ear) within a general resolution of "more than half way."