Rising fastball
 

Watching the Yankees–Blue Jays game this afternoon.

Yankee announcer Michael Kay just informed the viewing audience that some people think a fastball cannot rise, but "that last fastball definitely went up."

Just thought you all ought to know.

Well, if an announcer said it, it must be so.

Kind of like the "Dream Ticket", you know, Jay Bilas and Billy Packer.

Miracles (and defying the laws of physics) happen every day!

As an longtime poster on this board:

Good God, please lock this thread NOW...before it gets out of hand.

Oh come on law, there are plenty of new folks such as myself that haven't experienced the rising fastball wars. :o

What was his pregame drink?

Put Gottlieb in for Bilas, and you've got a nightmare ticket.

Actually Welpe, we can help the newbies along with a medley of recent threads! Perhaps it was a rising fastball that hit PU in the mask, but because of the batter's backswing the issue now becomes how many bases. I guess we need instant replay to figure it out.
None of which would have happened if PU had pleated pants.

There's a great book entitled The Physics of Baseball written by physicist and baseball enthusiast, Robert K. Adair Ph.D. that, among other interesting issues, addresses the "rising" fastball. A baseball pitcher cannot make it rise. On the other hand, a softball pitcher can mostly due to the delivery technique and the short distance between the rubber and plate.

There was a great baseball article in Popular Mechanics, of all places, many years ago that gave a very technical explanation of the physics of various pitches.

To quote from the article:
The laws of aerodynamics tell us that for a baseball to physically rise (that is, curve upward) as it approaches the batter, the Magnus force would have to be greater than the weight of the ball, and the rate of spin required to generate this much force is far beyond the ability of any pitcher. Thus, the rising fastball is an optical illusion. The baseball simply falls less than the batter expects it to.

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

Well, that should settle it.

Troublemaker. ;)

JM

Day game or night game?

He-he.................it's been a while since we discussed velocity vectors on the forum. This should be fun!


Tim.

Ibid. Damn Jesuits!

JM

Mr. Bernoulli................paging Mr. Bernoulli.............


Tim.