I just read through the Metafilter thread, and there is some speculation that it might be a viral commercial for Patxi’s pizza. I’m not sure about that, but I did actually look up that place after I watched the commercial, out of curiosity.
There is video inconsistency with that pizza, as the Metafilter thread points out. Other than the fact that you’d think it’d be slopped to shit after being thrown up in the air and landing on the ground, when the pizza is thrown, it’s logo-side up. When it hits the ground, it flips, and the hole is on the viewer’s left. The camera pans left to catch reactions, and then when it pans back, the hole is on the right side and the box is logo-side up.
Doesn’t prove anything, but something to consider as to the motive of the viral video. (And, of course, it’s plastered over their Facebook and it’s on their website. Of course, that’d be expected even if you didn’t set it up.)
I’ve played a lot of organized baseball in my life, never made it to the majors though.
To me, it’s not the speed of the thrown ball that seems unrealistic, it’s the ability to hit a moving target like shown in the video. I guess what they are NOT showing is that he took dozens of takes to hit the objects.
Having been nailed a number of times by pitchers with major league arms, I know that even a relatively easy looking delivery, if done right, can generate a lot of speed. As another poster upthread mentioned, getting hit with a baseball going 90 mph hurts like hell. The “threadcount” bruises would be there for weeks. Even if Cain wasn’t generating full arm speed, I could see those pitches as being 80 mph +, which could go through the props they were using.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned that might not be obvious to someone who has read the thread but not watched the video, is that the objects in question aren’t being held in place but rather have been tossed into the air. They’re moving targets.
The feats appear almost unbelievably, superhumanly amazing to me. But–it’s Mythbusters! I don’t know what it means to say it’s not an “official mythbusters event” but it’s Kari (sp?) and one of the other guys talking to the camera, announcing the event, and running the show. I’d be amazed if the two of them thought it would be kosher to participate in any faked such event while being so prominent as cast members on Mythbusters. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were contractually obligated not to do so, in fact.
And of course the coke bottle would explode like that. It’s full of carbonated soda and an immense force has just shaken up that soda quite a bit… My friends and I, back in high school, used to toss coke cans in the air and hit them with a spike as they came down.* They exploded.
Whilst the bottle and pizza box are obviously fake, the watermelon is plausible, particularly as the ball doesn’t just pass through the object unaffected (unlike the other ones), but comes down with it.
I reckon I could ping an object that size, if I’d practised as much as a professional sportsperson.
Cain has millions and millions of reasons not to spend a lot of time out there on a cool day practising a mode of throwing that he never usually does, would be really unusual for him and put strain on his arm.
Wow - no one’s even mentioned that Cain isn’t throwing off of a mound in the video. You know - that thing that accounts for a huge portion of a pitcher’s velocity? No - there is absolutely no way that you can fire a perfectly round hole through two layers of cardboard and an inch-thick pizza. Go down to the batting cages and ask the attendant to crank it up to 80 mph (because there is no way that Cain is getting the ball up faster than that throwing flat-footed, not on a mound, and not in a windup), and see if you can duplicate it. Hell - just use an empty pizza box if you like. Bring a wet one as well. Not going to happen.
I think what someone suggested in the comments of the youtube video sounds very plausible. The thrower is not actually throwing the ball and there is a pitching machine off camera. It makes sense with how it’s shot as you are not clearly seeing their throwing arm when they throw. Every throw has their throwing arm just out of shot. Maybe they are even using an air cannon of some sort.
That would of course still take some pretty good timing to get the shot off and hit a moving target. The Mythbusters have certainly had a bit of experience though with precision timing devices so I am sure they could do it if they wanted to.
I hadn’t thought of this when I posted the thread, but it makes a lot of sense. It’s not hard at all to throw stuff through wet cardboard, so he’s pretty much throwing through a pizza, which I think is possible.
However, I am still suspicious of the video, especially the ease of which the pinata breaks cleanly in two.
Cite? In my quick few moments of google-fu, I find references that the pitchers ability to push off the rubber is important to generate arm speed, but no support that the mound itself does. I’m being a little nit-picky here perhaps. If you question his arm-speed because he has no pitching rubber to push off, I can see some validity there, but not having the mound (really just an elevated surface) doesn’t seem a factor to me.
Anecdotal case in point, I was not a catcher, but I did sometimes warm up with the pitchers in college. One guy in particular would leave me with a sore glove hand after throwing in the outfield grass. No pitching rubber, no mound. Maybe I should have been smart enough to grab a catchers mitt instead of my first baseman’s glove.
Uh, yeah. You typically don’t find pitching rubbers anywhere other than at the top of a pitching mound, where they’re securely fastened. Anyway, there are a number of kinesthetic factors into ball velocity, all of which require the length of the throwing motion to take effect. In the video, Cain would be eliminating what looks to be about 2/3rds of his throwing motion, since he’s releasing the ball to be thrown 45 degrees into the air. Take a look at Cain’s pitching motion. He has a high leg kick and a long stride. None of that is evidenced in the OP’s video. Also, here’s an article on pitching mechanics and velocity - and it actually uses Matt Cain as an example
I’d be willing to bet a few other things as well:
You can’t throw a “deep dish” pizza 20 feet up in the air that easily, nor have it land intact, being struck by a baseball (at an angle) or not.
You can’t hit a filled pinata with a ball at any speed and have it break cleanly in half.
On the other hand, you can see the person who threw the box is running towards the box, crouching down as though to pick it up, then the camera moves and he is off camera, then the pizza box comes back into camera a few seconds later. So, unfortuately, even this isn’t a slam dunk–the thrower’s movements seem to suggest he picked it up, then put it back down again, possibly at the behest of the director saying something in his ear like “no you idiot you weren’t supposed to pick it up!”
I don’t disagree with much of what you say here. I too doubt the validity of the overall video, its just not the lack of a pitching mound that makes it questionable to me. In other words, I doubt that gravity is a factor on the velocity of a ball thrown from the elevated mound to home plate.
