Screaming pitcher
 

No, this has nothing to do with velocity. :)

The pitcher screamed/screeched on each pitch after releasing it. The pitcher and coach said it was nothing more than a normal exhale, like other pitchers grunt as part of their effort. This pitcher's "sounds" did not occur until the ball was more than half-way to the plate and the batting team complained that it was a deliberate distraction.
The umpires warned the pitcher not to make the sounds after the ball was half-way to the plate or they would consider it UC. The pitcher eventually was ejected for this.

What are your opinions of the batters' complaints, umpires' judgement, rules basis, etc. for this sitch?
Would you respond differently under various rule sets?

The umpires let an offensive team's complaints affect what the pitcher could legally do, and then resulted in the pitcher being ejected? What opinion could we possible have?

I'm not sure of the math, but a pitch from pitcher's hand to glove in 40' takes
about 0.6 seconds. And we, as umpires, utilize the difference between the speed of light (sight) versus the speed of sound in making calls from 10 feet away on force plays. Yet, you want us to believe that this umpire, while required (and supposedly) to be in position to call pitch location is judging where a pitch is (more than halfway) when he first hears a grunt or yell or scream released simultaneous with the physical effort of releasing the pitch (and taking into account the time lapse in hearing the sound).

Under every set of rules that I umpire, this was bad officiating, poor judgment, and unfair and unreasonable to the victim (legal pitcher).

Just for clarification not justification, the half-way was judged by the BU not PU and three of us watching from behind the 1st base dugout agreed with the timing. In fact, my first reaction was that the sound might be too late to be distracting, with the ball just about to the plate before we heard it, 200 feet away.

Assume a 60mph pitch at 40'...

Time=Distance/Speed ==>
(40')/(60mph) ==>
(40/60)*(1mile/5280')*(3600sec/1hr)

= 0.455 seconds

There, now you're sure of the math. :D

I remember a pitching instructor who taught his pitchers to say "HIT - THIS" on each pitch.

Thanks, I was just too lazy to think it through. But, I can do a ratio for the next calculation.

Assuming a lower level pitcher, 0.546 seconds at 50mph. And neither calculation takes into account 1) the actual release point in front of the pitching plate, and 2) the most likely location of the batter in front of the 40' point (at the back point of home plate).

My point is that the ball is in the air roughly 0.4 to 0.5 seconds, and the batter's reaction time necessary to decide to swing is perhaps half of that. Distracted by the sound; BULLCRAP!! If they even notice the sound in live time while deciding to swing, they couldn't possibly hit the ball to begin with.

The only distraction that occurred, IMO, is that the umpires lost sight of the reality, and (offensive team and umpires) distracted that pitcher out of the game. Maybe even distracted that defensive team out of competing.

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??

I am too lazy to do any further math on this, but if I got dredge up a notebook from college (I'm so old we actually used scrolls, but still...) I have a formula to help determine this.

Without any Googling I know that Speed of sound at sea level is 761 mph (Because I remember EVERYTHING), while speed of light is about 670 MILLION miles per hour.

If we are concerned about pitchers grunting when the ball is halfway to the plate, well, you do the math.

What's the pitcher supposed to do? Grunt when she gets the ball back fromthe catcher so it doesn't disconcert the batter? ::::sigh::::

You really are anal about this, aren't you? :D

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."

Tom,

Using the range of 50mph to 60mph, can I also safely assume that, if the pitcher screams at the halfway point (0.20 to 0.25 seconds after actual release, and 0.20 to 0.25 seconds from ball to plate), and that the umpire (and batter) hear it (0.035 seconds later), that it is now already too late for it to be a distraction to the batter (since the ball will be in the catcher's mitt in 0.165 to 0.215 seconds)??

I screamed a scream in games gone by
I thought the batter would be missing
But when the scream finally arrived
The other coach, he started pissing

Now the speed of sound is fast
But the speed of light is faster
And so my pitches, they got creamed
Regardless of the scream I screamed.

Apologies to the creators of Les Mis, and to everyone who has had to read this. :o

Boy, does my head hurt! Interesting - but it still made my head hurt.


I agree with Steve that this umpire was using poor judgement. IMHO, he also allowed himself to be manipulated by the offensive coach.

Agreed, but Steve kept pushing on the math / physics angle.

Certainly, the umpire did not need the OC to tell him before he would take note of the scream. If it was not a violation before the complaint, it was not a violation after.

Skewed information. What pitcher actually releases the ball from directly above the pitcher's plate? More like 35'-36', so the time is actually shorter than believed.

Actually, the batter would hear it 0.025 seconds later or at about 16' 10" from the plate.

As to your question about being too late to be a distraction... don't know - it may be too late for a swing to begin to actually hit the ball, but that does not mean it is too late to be a distraction. Might depend on the age level.