I was watching the Mets the other day and saw Orlando Hernandez strike out a batter with a 53 mph “fast” ball. It got me to wondering.
People talk about the upper speed limit of throwing a pitch (just over 100 mph), but I was thinking about a lower limit. Let’s leave out Eephus pitches, folly floaters or anything with an unusual arcing trajectory. No bouncing in the dirt, either.
How slow can someone pitch a baseball for a strike?
(Knuckleballs are allowed, if that makes a difference.)
That’s a question for GQ.
Essentially, assume
A ball is launched from 8 feet in the air. (mound + player + arm)
It’s launched from 60’ away (probably a little closer)
It has to be about 18" in the air at the “end” of it’s journey (the height of a player’s knees).
For a ball park figure, start with a horizontal launch in a vacuum. Then, start worrying about resistance, spin, the optimal angle above horizontal for throwing the slowest possible pitch. It’s a difficult question.
This is one case in which that phrase means “a precise figure.”
Daniel
If you drop a ball from 8 feet high, it reaches the 18-inch level after 0.637 seconds.
D (in feet) = 16 * T (in seconds) squared
The pitcher, then, has to make the ball travel 60 feet (more or less–from the release point to the front of the plate) during that 0.637 seconds. This requires a forward speed of 94 feet per second or 64 miles per hour.
I take it, then, that El Duque had to put a little arc on his ball to throw a 53-mph strike.
Just for accuracies sake, a pitcher has his back foot on the picher’s plate (60’6"), and is pretty well extended when he releases the ball, and his arm is in front of his body. The true distance is closer to 54-55 feet from the release point.
I was a bit early, but the angle on this picture shows the extension a bit better. And yeah, the pitcher usually releases the ball when their back foot in clearly in front of the rubber.
Granted, it’s only a computer game, but the High Heat series tried to make things as realistic as possible. I seem to recall some of the knuckleball pitches clocking in at the mid 30-MPH range.
Tim Wakefield (the only knuckler I’ve seen pitch) throws between 55 and 65 IIRC. I think he has a 70+ MPH fastball. 
Wasn’t there a pitcher who made a PSA about not driving faster than his fastball (55 mph)?
I remember hearing about some early player who used a high arcing pitch that entered the strike zone from above instead of the front. It had terrible accuracy, but was also damn hard to hit.
Are you thinking of the Eephus Pitch mentioned earlier? Satchel Paige also had a few “named” pitches like that.
Ideal speed between 60-63 mph.
No, he didn’t. At least, no more than on any other pitch. He also tends to pitch with a low release point – sidearm more than overhand.
That’s true. He the closest I can think of to a submarine pitcher in the majors, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one or two out there I can’t think of or don’t know of.
Byunh Hyun Kim, Mike Myers, and Corey Bradford. For a bonus funky delivery, check out Pat Neshek.
Hell, there’s even Bert Blyleven.
That might be it. I’m not a big baseball fan, it’s just one of those random factoids I picked up somewhere.
See, this is why you should take up cricket, in which you can have inswingers, outswingers, reverse swing, off-cutters, leg-cutters, long-hops, full tosses, bouncers, yorkers, off-breaks, leg-breaks, googlies, chinamen, top-spinners, flippers, zooters, sliders and doosras. And I’ve probably left something out.
Also, the speed range can be anything from about ~50mph for a slow bowler to nearly 100mph for a fast one.
I’ll see your inswingers, outswingers, reverse swing, off-cutters, leg-cutters, long-hops, full tosses, bouncers, yorkers, off-breaks, leg-breaks, googlies, chinamen, top-spinners, flippers, zooters, sliders and doosras and raise you a heater, a splitter, Uncle Charley, a Circle Change, a two-seamer, a four-seamer, a gyro-ball, a slider, a curve, a knuckler, a bender, a hook, chin music, bean ball, fat pitch, corker, screw-ball, spit-ball, a riser, and a deuce.
Not bad, but we have first slip, second slip, third slip, fourth slip, fly slip, third man, deep third man, gully, point, silly point, cover point, extra cover, short extra cover, deep extra cover, mid-off, silly mid-off, deep mid-off, long-off, long-on, deep mid-on, silly mid-on, wid-wicket, deep mid-wicket (or “cow corner”), short square-leg, square-leg, deep square-leg, leg-slip, leg-gully, short fine-leg, fine-leg and deep fine-leg.
tosses another chip on the stack
(Could’ve mentioned “Bosies” and “wrong’uns” earlier but they’re just an alternative name for the googly. I guess a Bosie is the only delivery named after a unique individual.)
There had to be a slight arc on it, even if it wasn’t visible. Gravity will drop a 53 mph pitch eight feet during the seven-tenths of a second it takes to reach the plate.
