Speed of softball pitch
 

In some leagues, they play ASA rules with a mat and not a strike zone. I know ASA book was written with strike zone in mind, but mat ball fits in with it fairly well. For those of you that never heard of mat ball, it is an approximate 24 inch wide by 40 inch long mat that is put down to cover the plate with the front of the mat concentric with the front of the plate, and the center of the plate centered laterally with the center of the mat. And if the ball has the correct arc, 6 ft to 10 ft, and it hits the mat, it is a strike. The issue is related to the speed of the ball. Under R6CG, the umpire has discretion to call a pitch being too fast. The book also says under R6CH it has to have a perceptible arc and attain the height of 6 ft to 10 ft. By definition, an arc is something shaped like a curve. Therefore, an object that travels approximately 50 ft, is released from approximately 3 ft above ground surface (abgs), attains the height of 6 ft abgs, drops down to 0 ft abgs to hit an area that is 24 inch by 40 inch, by definition, has followed an arc. That is objectively indisputable. By the laws of physics, an object that is to travel a distance of approximately 50 ft to 53.33 ft and is to approximately follow an arc path from 3ft abgs, to 6 ft abgs to 0 ft abgs and hit that 2 ft by 3.33 ft area, it has to travel within a narrow range of speed. Any speed above or below that required range will result in the object hitting the ground either prior to or after the required distance. Now the only factors that can be variables that could affect this mechanical law of motion is wind speed and ball rotation (i.e. spin on the ball). First with regard to spin, at the speed the object is travelling, and the amount of spin that can be attained by the human hand, the amount the object will vary from that calculated path is negligible (i.e. a machine could put an amount of spin on the ball without changing the velocity of the ball and cause a significant variance from the calculated path from a human hand thrown ball). With regard to wind, more wind will require more speed to achieve that same path and less wind accordingly will require less speed.
So the issue is, if a ball is pitched under the scenario described above, released by the human hand from 3 ft abgs attains a height of 6 ft abgs, descends to hit the mat at a distance between 50 and 53.33 ft, is it possible for that pitch to have traveled too fast for slowpitch softball pitched under ASA requirements? Note, I did not ask is it possible for an umpire who has total discretion to call it too fast, I am asking about a pitch that has met all the specified requirements of a pitch by ASA, is it possible that the ball was pitched too fast. If the answer is yes, please elaborate on how that conclusion is reached. I will disregard an answer that says by ASA rule, it is totally up to ump to make that judgment.

I put on a demonstration of slowpitch pitch heights a few years ago to show new/stubborn umpires what legal pitches actually look like. 10' was easy....but the 6' pitch proved something like you're saying. It ain't physically possible that we observed for a pitch to touch the 6' height and be too fast. It simply has to be a certain speed or it won't hit the mat. You slow the speed you miss in front, you speed up and it misses long. We didn't have anything to measure the actual speed but it surely wasn't too fast to catch batters off guard.

Now if you are calling a zone, the pitch can be faster because the ball has to pass thru a zone irrespective of where it lands.....it can land 4 feet long and still be a strike. I can see where "speed" can be an issue....not from a hitting standpoint though.

I'm with you, the excessive speed thing in ASA doesn't make a lot of sense....at least to me.

Simple motion physics... With a Y distance of 6', and an X distance of 53', there is one and only one velocity that will complete that equation. Nothing faster is possible, except on a planet with a greater gravitational pull.

If I could remember the equation itself, I could rattle off that velocity number in a heartbeat, but it's been a while :)

speed of a pitch
 

Linknblue. That is interesting because I did the exact same thing, I built a rig that was 6 ft to 10 ft with PVC and then experimented with it to see how high those pitches really are. I proved that it was nearly impossible to throw a pitch lower than 6 ft and have it hit the mat without it being an extremely high velocity. I was an umpire at the time so in addition to using it for my own education, I wanted to show umpires of our league who had a tendency to call 6 to 7 ft pitches illegal. I have since gone back to playing and it is the same umpires minus me. They still are terrible at allowing 6 ft to 7 ft pitches without calling them illegal. It is because other pitches who have not perfected the pitch height like I have never pitch at the lower limits, so the umpires call them illegal because it is not the norm. It frustrates me to no end since I am now a pitcher who practices both ends of the strike zone, high and low and have become proficient at it by hours of practice. Furthermore, on the backstop there is a horizontal bar that is 6 ft high. I am 6 ft 2. When I release the ball and am trying to pitch to the lower limit, I watch the ball and if I can see the bar under the ball, I know for a fact it is at least 6 ft high. I called an umpire out to the mound before the game when I was practice pitching and asked him to just watch and see what I see, i.e. if you can see the bar under the ball, it has to be over 6 ft. This umpire proceeded to tell me, that it does not matter about the height even if it hits above 6 ft, because I will call it illegal because it is too fast which is my prerogative to call. How can you even argue with someone who has that kind of logic?

Ship your guys here, id love to have them. Our guys here wont enforce the 6 ft minimum. Balls that barely reach the waist are called legal an alarming amount of time. The mat is the most evil device ever to be instituted. The only time they are to be used is if you have to pull clueless people out of the stands to umpire.

JMK, I happen to be an engineer myself and am well versed in the mechanics of motion, its equations and curves as determined by the forces applied, and as you say, it is not just an opinion, it is an exact science that can not possibly be argued against. But it comes down to the universal response " don't confuse the issue with facts, it is a judgment call I am empowered to make, and you cant argue against it".

I cant possibly know how accurate your guys are at determining the lower limit (6 ft). What I can tell you is, that from a batters perspective, when you have a 6 ft pitch, about 97 out of a 100 batters will complain that pitch is too low. And those 3 out of a hundred who say no it is not too low are probably pitchers who have put in the time to determine how high a 6 ft pitch actually is. When I was practice pitching, I took two string lines on either side of the plate and ran them from the 6 ft height at pitchers rubber and tied it to the backstop so the lines when very taught were close to 6 ft between plate and rubber (plus or minus an inch) and demonstrated it to many guys and they were astounded at how low a pitch really was that was just above the string.

With regard to mat versus strike zone, be careful what you ask for. If you have guys that are bad calling mat ball when all you leave to judgment by the ump is one dimension (the vertical dimension i.e. height) and you put them calling strike zone where they have to make a judgment in 3 dimensions (vertical, horizontal and depth) then you are going to have a nightmare. That is the good thing about mat ball, it gives the batter much more ability to determine what is going to be called a strike because in the one area of judgment, the batter is told verbally by the ump if it is illegal, while the pitch is in flight, and the other two dimensions are cut and dry as it is either going to hit the mat or it isn't.
I am the first to admit umpires are human and subject to mistake just like everybody else and their judgment is not always going to be right (remember I was an ump too and know that as well as anybody) but when you have umpires that get paid to do their job, and they don't make the effort to try and improve their ability to judge by practice, and continue to make the same mistakes over and over, then they are deserving of criticism.
To some umpires, at least the ones I have experienced, their attitude is "my word is the law, even if I am not so good at interpreting the law and if you don't like my interpretation of the law", they will yell "QUIT RESISTING" as they beat you into submission.

We get a lot of guys that play USSSA and ASA and when they pitch ASA, they'll try to get away with a lot of low pitches if you dont enforce the limit.

Enforcing the limit is all I ask for, but when you have umpires consistently calling a 6 to 7.5 ft pitch illegal, that to me is incompetence. Like I say a mistake in judgment here and there on a 6 to perhaps 6.33 ft pitch is going to happen, and no human can be faulted for that.

I will admit, that as a slow pitch hitter in my approximate first 35 years of playing slow pitch, I too would believe a 6 ft to 6.5 ft pitch was too low. But after becoming an umpire an umpire 4 years ago (taking a year off of playing), and a pitcher in the last year, and studying in the field the actual height of a 6 to 6.5 ft pitch, I have had a rude awakening that pitches that are pitched at near the 6 ft limit have to be at or above it unless it is pitched at and obviously excessive speed. You will note when I say first 35 years of playing, that I started playing at approximately 20 years old, so you can do the math to figure out my age.

The mat. The local leagues back in CNY wanted it, because they thought it would make more constant ball/strike calls by mostly incompetent local umpires. I hated it. It was at its worst in the women's league where there were some pitchers who had trouble hitting the mat! Batters would come up, look at four balls miss the mat and trot down to 1st base thinking they had done some great feat of softball. I felt like asking them why did they bother bringing a bat with them. I wonder if they got rid of the mat after I moved down here.

It really isnt that hard to judge a pitch making the 6ft limit, especially when most male pitchers are going to be around 6 ft tall on average. Ive been umpiring, not necessarily a sanctiomed umpire those first years since before I could legally drive. Helps thst my dad was a former U-trip state tournament official.

I am in frustrated agreement with Prekowski's assessment of how a lot of umpires call good low pitches illegal. I too play and umpire.

It was a real eye opener to see the 6' pitch with a measuring device. Several of us tried to pitch at exactly the 6' height and found pitch speed is definitely ciritical to executing this pitch using the mat as a "zone".

It's really funny with players. They will complain about every 6 footer being too low but they'll not complain about the 12 and 13' pitches that consistently are not called. I find the higher pitches harder to hit than the lower pitches....but if you want to hit the lower pitches you have to be ready for one....higher pitches give you some decision time on whether to swing or not.

I haven't called many games with a real "zone" in slowpitch but when I did I enjoyed it more that a "mat zone" assignment. Like FP, you have to stay in the game.

It all comes down to a "physical" demonstration and a consistent UIC/Assignor to make sure his/her umpires call heights correctly.

When I umpire, I think it is pretty simple for me to judge the six foot limit. I am 5-9. My eye are usually about 5-0 when I get into a set position. I better be looking up seeing the ball come in on a pitch. If I am not having to look up, the pitch is too low.

I personally have more trouble with the 10 foot (or in our league 12 foot still) rather than the 6 foot.

Non sequitur -- I don't play any more, but this is why I hated playing matball. I cannot pitch the high floater at (formerly) 12 or 10 feet. I can pitch to contact (which is what slowpitch is all about) and throw belt high strikes at 6-8 feet. A low pitch is necessarily "faster" in its horizontal vector of motion than a high pitch. Simple physics. As a result, I walked a lot of batters on three good pitches because they bounced "too deep". I also hated that the ball bouncing on the plate was a strike. Rule 7-5-B, people!!! (I am not playing Senior SP) Sigh...

BOO MATBALL. LONG LIVE THE SP STRIKE ZONE AS DEFINED IN THE BOOK.

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Any ball that lands on the plate around here is a ball. Or was when I played adult tee ball.

All this sounds like a lot of conjecture for nada. It's slo pitch, hit the fricking ball over the fence and go have a beer.