Probably stupid baseball hypothetical...

[Case Closed]

Yesterday I was discussing sports with some buddies while watching baseball. I asked around if anything ever thought it would be possible for a pitcher to throw in the area of 105-110 miles per hour with good accuracy. We thought it would be possible for some freak to come along and do it. But we were kinda drunk so I was wondering what the great minds at 2p2 thought of such a silly hypothetical.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

why wouldn't it be possible?

I would think that with ever increasing strength training, we haven't come close to the peak pitcher velocity

[kyleb]

Sure, it's possible, I guess. Bob Feller was probably the hardest thrower in all of baseball, but without radar guns of today, it's impossible to tell. Nolan Ryan could throw 102-103 mph (reportedly verifiable readings, unlike many numbers today thought to be the result of juiced speed guns), and with knowledge of nutrition and physical fitness always improving (along with technology and medicine), it seems possible to hit 105-110 within our lifetimes.

[PokerFink]

How hard would a fastball have to be to be more or less unhittable without movement and only average location (ie some pitches on the corners but some catch a lot of the plate).

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
How hard would a fastball have to be to be more or less unhittable without movement and only average location (ie some pitches on the corners but some catch a lot of the plate).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a pretty good physics question, actually. I would assume that it would have to be fairly high, considering if all you saw as a batter was a 105 mph fastball on the plate, you could do pretty well.

I'm a random 23 year old guy that can easily destroy 90 mph batting practice fastballs in the cages, so I have no real idea from an anecdotal standpoint on how fast it would have to be.

[Jiggymike]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How hard would a fastball have to be to be more or less unhittable without movement and only average location (ie some pitches on the corners but some catch a lot of the plate).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a pretty good physics question, actually. I would assume that it would have to be fairly high, considering if all you saw as a batter was a 105 mph fastball on the plate, you could do pretty well.

I'm a random 23 year old guy that can easily destroy 90 mph batting practice fastballs in the cages, so I have no real idea from an anecdotal standpoint on how fast it would have to be.

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90 mph? No friging way if you are a "random" guy, did you at least play HS baseball or something of that sort? Or at least you are a very good athlete, I don't even know where you are hitting at batting cages that go 90mph (pretty sure most public ones top out at 75).

He's probably out of the league now but I'm pretty sure Billy Koch used to hit over 105 on the radar gun and he was an effective closer for a couple of years. Not sure what the upper bounds of arm strength are, though.

[NT!]

if you knew for sure that all you were seeing was fastballs, i think good fastball hitters could mash 105 with regularity. but if that guy had anything resembling a good off-speed pitch he would make people look positively retarded.

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
90 mph? No friging way if you are a "random" guy, did you at least play HS baseball or something of that sort? Or at least you are a very good athlete, I don't even know where you are hitting at batting cages that go 90mph (pretty sure most public ones top out at 75).

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Well, I'm not a "random" guy off the street, no. I played ball in HS and college and currently play in a few amateur leagues, but my point is that I am not a special case.

[mo42nyy]

koch and his family got osme weird disease where bugs or some weird [censored] are coming out of pores in their body

[legend42]

Look up a guy named Syd Finch. I'm pretty sure he used to be able to do it.