Pitches dropping off the table....

Popular Mechanics? isnt that a publication for mechanics ?

I guess also that they never faced Sandy Koufax

Curve balls do drop suddenly.. A combination of ball rotation and gravity. You can actually hear a great curve ball spin and are a strike at thye front of the plate and hit the ground right behind the plate.

TR,

You are probably correct. They most likely never faced Sandy Koufax, but most likely nobody else on this board has either.

Does this make all of us unqualified to talk about hitting a curveball?

Bluetick Hound:
Read "The Physics of Baseball" by Robert K. Adair. You should like Adair, Bluetick. He is the Sterling Professor of Physics at Yale.

A direct quote from Adair's book:
"Does the ball "break" as it nears the plate? Yes."



Seems like George Strait sang a song about Blue.

"Am I Blue? Yes, I'm Blue.
I'm clueless on baseball & physics too..."

Honestly, I dont care what you say. When someone throws me a good 12-6 curve it's clearly dropping off the table.

FO, you can stick a fork in ole' Blue. He's done, too.

quote:

A direct quote from Adair's book:
"Does the ball it nears the plate? Yes."

What's funny is, you don't means..... ...

Here's curve.......

Do any of you fellas remember a few years back when BlueDog and his "supporters" (mostly the same folks with different ids - all emanating from a lunatic bb site) talked about "not seeing what you see."

The good old days - "You arent really seeing what you are seeing"

A troll jamboree baby!!!

luv


What I am saying is if they had faced Koufax they might change their tune

I saw Koufax his entire career and curveball was one of the best I ever saw


What really bugs me is "scientists" who probably never played the game try to explain it

quote:

Originally posted by BlueDog:
Game, I see your old lady let you on the computer early tonight.......Must be payday.....

Nah - Big Ole Mama is with the younger guy at a tournament.

I am just petting the dog (Blue), and listening to the older guy on radio "not seeing what he sees" - or "seeing what he think he sees" - or "seeing what he thought he saw but didnt really see it."

The old Bluetick hound just keeps barking. You have already unquestionably demonstrated the need to learn physics. I truly wish that you would. Then perhaps it would be possible to hold a worthwhile discussion. Until then, there is no use in further wasting bandwidth.


In the words of Elvis:
"You ain't nothing but a hound dawg.
Crying all the time.
You ain't nothin but a hound dawg.
Crying all the time.
You ain't never caught a rabbit..."

TR,

I definetely agree with you on the late break of a curveball. I have played and watched many games and believe it happens. The point of my post wasn't to argue that.

Yoda,


Nice to see you came back from the swamp.....

I see you spent your whole day on the net ....so now its a game of who can cut & paste better huh ?

"The secret to understanding a curveball is the speed of the air moving past the ball's surface. As the ball spins, its top surface moves in the same direction in which the air moves. At the bottom of the ball, the ball's surface and the air move in opposite directions. So the velocity of the air relative to that of the ball's surface is larger on the bottom of the ball.

What difference does that make? The higher velocity difference puts more stress on the air flowing around the bottom of the ball. That stress makes air flowing around the ball "break away" from the ball's surface sooner. Conversely, the air at the top of the spinning ball, subject to less stress due to the lower velocity difference, can "hang onto" the ball's surface longer before breaking away.

As a result, the air flowing over the top of the ball leaves it in a direction pointed a little bit downward rather than straight back. As Newton discovered almost three hundred years ago, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, as the spinning ball throws the air down, the air pushes the ball up in response. A ball thrown with backspin will therefore get a little bit of lift.

A major league curveball can veer as much as 171/2 inches from a straight line by the time it crosses the plate. Over the course of a pitch, the deflection from a straight line increases with distance from the pitcher. So curveballs do most of their curving in the last quarter of their trip. Considering that it takes less time for the ball to travel those last 15 feet (about 1/6 of a second) than it takes for the batter to swing the bat (about 1/5 of a second), hitters must begin their swings before the ball has started to show much curve. No wonder curveballs are so hard to hit.

One important difference between a fastball, a curveball, a slider, and a screwball is the direction in which the ball spins. (Other important factors are the speed of the pitch and rate of spin.) Generally speaking, a ball thrown with a spin will curve in the same direction that the front of the ball (home plate side, when pitched) turns. If the ball is spinning from top to bottom (topspin), it will tend to nosedive into the dirt. If it's spinning from left to right, the pitch will break toward third base. The faster the rate of spin, the more the ball's path curves.
"



Now do you begin to understand that a ball does have late movement ?????

Or once again, would you like to stand up and be a man and tell us all what you have ever done as far playing this game. Your ignorance on every subject you attenpt to discuss is truely mind boggling.

lol....POPULAR MECHANICS.....that good...

Maybe the same article showed you how make a lamp out of your bat!...ops...only baseball people would actually have a bat.

Yoda,

You should really take this act on the road, you could make serious money playing little comedy clubs across the country

NHFundamentals has the physics right. The phenomenon he describes was called,in my physics text anyway, dipole moment. I previously explained the phenomenon to Bluedog in a prior thread about rising fastballs. You can find that thread by searching this site for "dipole moment".

Of course, Bluedog didn't listen then, isn't listening now, just persists in his ignorance, arrogance and condescension.

Sorry Blue, Popular Mechanics is not a recognized authority on physics. Try Scientific American.

By the way, doesn't the new pitch tracking camera and software empirically prove how a ball moves? The job of the theorist is to develop an explanation for what is observed as a practical matter to be true. If your theory doesn't explain what is empirically observed, your theory is ****. To say reality is wrong because it doesn't match your theory is ignorant, arrogant and marks you as a moron.

Well Yoda,

Heading out on vacation early in the morn...So...Please do not spend all your time in the next few days running google & yahoo searches to try to back up what you dont understand. Looks like it took you about 2 weeks to find a couple of URLs.....hell, my kid could do better than that when he was in 3rd grade.


I am STILL waiting for you to give us any insight into where you teach and who you teach all this sewerage to. Anyone who really wanted to be open and honest with people would have done that a long time ago.


I have recieved from dozens of PM from members here telling me all about you. Im just not good at following their advice to just ignore you......lol.

Yoda,

AS USUAL....YOUR WRONG AGAIN......

http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/curve.html

Yoda,

In case you missed it in all your google and Ask Jeeves "Research"....

The net has copies and crosslinks all over it.


By the way, how is that lamp coming along ?

Yoda,

WRONG AGAIN....

Already explained it to you once, BD. Not inclined to waste any more time on you. I was talking to the other folks here.

Insult away, couldn't care less.

YOda,

I have a SIMPLE assaignment for you. EVEN you can get this right.


Go to a baseball field where a a real game is going on, stand by the fence so you are perpendicular (thats 90 degrees) to the line on which the pitcher is throwing to the catcher and do nothing but watch the pitches. Heck, take a video camera with you so you can report back here and we can all see what you will see.

Think you can handle it?

(by the way, the 90 degrees is an angle, not a temperature)

Yoda,

I quite sure i have seen more than you, but that is ok. your forgiven.

STILL waiting on your answer for who you are and who you have taught. It is amazing you can troll the net for info, make up lies about what others post, and still not have the b_alls to stand up and tell anyone who you are.

but then again, thats the force huh?

Oh by the way, i do have to say thank to you, my next door neighbor owes me a case of beer. And he is here laughing his butt off and how foolish you are.

Remember....90 degree angle.....

Yoda,

Seriously, you have to be the dumbest person I have ever come across in over 40 yrs of baseball.

By the way, can you even tell us your age, or do you have to go look on the net for that too.

Blah,blah,blah,blah,blah.

LOL

BlueDog, why don't you just get in the box? If you did I'm pretty sure you'd believe that a fastball can rise and a curveball can drop. If a curvball appeared to drop, but really didn't then why would anyone swing over it?

Hi everybody. Everyone having fun. Great criticisms, one-liners, and ad hominem arguments. Quoting theoritical physic's professors that have never swung at a curve ball is contributing to the wealth of knowledge already out there that will greatly assist the young hitters on this site to ....... umhhh ...... to ....errrrrrrrr ........ what exactly are we trying to do here again? OH YEAH. I temporarily forgot. Lost my mind or something. This is the HITTING forum. I remember now. Yeah. The hitting forum. OK. Now I understand. So now we are going to discuss actually hitting a curve ball and the guessing or pre-pitch adjustment or in-flight adjustment we all think the hitter needs to make or not make to hit the curve ball that is or is not an illusion, right? I mean that is what we are here for or am I greatly mistaken?

OK. I am sitting down now with my finger on the "print" button. Everyone with at least three posts on this thread, tell us mere mortals how all this relates to hitting or, more appropriately for the topic starter, recognizing and not swinging at the elusive curve ball "dropping off the table." And thanks in advance for your input.

TW344

That was the other thread.

Fastballs cannot rise unless thrown from a submarine slot.

Curve balls do break late.

The foxtrack stuff you see on TV can answer all this definitively. The ball is digitized by different camera angles. The speed and exact location can be measured at any point once it's pixels on a screen.

Got a question...anyone commenting ever put on the "tools of ignorance" for more than BP? I have been catching (still do) since I was 9..granted didnt see much stuff young but as I have grown older (did a stint in A ball) I can honestly say...the 12-6 seems more a function of loss of velocity, gravity and some physics...needless to say..if you start your swing in the middle of the plate and the ball "droops" even a few inches its a miss or a best a foul...what amazes me is the true slurve...breaking at a 45 across the zone. I sit behind the dish two nights a week and I still enjoy watching a good "dime sized" white spot move across and out of zone....amazing, at least from where I sit.

quote:

Originally posted by baseballpapa:
Fastballs cannot rise unless thrown from a submarine slot.

Curve balls do break late.

The foxtrack stuff you see on TV can answer all this definitively. The ball is digitized by different camera angles. The speed and exact location can be measured at any point once it's pixels on a screen.

G, yep. And you touch on an important point, as did someone earlier as well. Perception is what counts in deception.

GShew, bless you and here's a tissue. Thank you for putting on the tools, as an old catcher I highly respect the duties of the true field generals of baseball. Please refer to your gear as the "tools of excellence". You deserve the reference.
As for Doggie, please rent the movie "Good Will Hunting" this weekend. When you realize the similarities between you and Matt Damon's character, go ahead and change your handle to Will Hunting.
You have often preached some solid hitting theory here, but you are slowly revealing yourself to be just that, a theorist, who will continue to study and learn and desire how to do it better. Problem is, there is no replacement for experience, and all the theories you are preaching here have been created and rehashed by the experienced crowd, not the theorist.
Enjoy the flic, Will.

Doggie,

Physics aside - the only thing that matters is what the ball does after you smack the hell out of it.

LOL

BlueDog, fastball's may not rise, I'll give you that one. But curveballs do drop. Maybe you should try to hit one to find out for yourself.

nd

I am not sure the Doggie has even been in the batters box unless it was a softball game

Brilliant analysis.

LOL

Like eating air bubbles for dinner.

doesnt you last post contradict your view on "focus"?

quote:

Originally posted by BlueDog:
"......a fastball can rise and a curveball can drop."

Amazing what some people will believe and, actually, do believe......

nd943, first of all, fastballs do not rise...

Second of all, you missed my point on curveballs.....You seem to have no comprehension of what I am saying....

Do you have any test results of how much or how little a pitched baseball drops? How high are the seams and how fast is the backspin? The only tests that anyone has shown me are that a ball going 90 mph for 55 feet drops so much. When I asked about the amount backspin and height of the seams, I did not recieve an answer.The seam height varies from company to comany and I would bet that the amount of times the ball rotates will vary from pitcher to pitcher. I know that I can take a 1 Iron and hit a Titleist Pro V and I can make it go out about 80 yards with a little rise and then it will rise even more due to the dimple pattern, backspin and velocity and will reach a high point and then start down and land about 220 yds away.

DoggieBoy

I figured you would say that-- you are really an inspiration for all young players as how to be a "sham" in cyberspace-- I still say you have never been on a baseball field--prove me otherwise--give some substance to the slop you spew