Take me out to M-5 Industries
So last night Mythbusters was all about baseball. It was hella awesome.
First of all, they had Roger Frickin Clemens on the show to pitch some balls at them. Their "myth" for him to help with was some flimsy excuse of examining whether curve balls really curve or whatever, I mean come on, sports scientists have been studying slo-mo of pitches since there WAS slo-mo and yes we know how they work blah blah blah ball rotation stitches aerodynamics backspincakes.
Whatever. It was ROGER CLEMENS. He's a fan, he wanted to be on the show, so they thought up some stuff to play with while he was there. And they did have some pretty cool graphics so you could see the difference in the pitches. They also demonstrated that the rising fastball does not exist.
The actual myths they studied were more interesting.
1. Does corking a bat mean more power? This, to me, never made any sense. Yeah, a corked bat is lighter so you can swing it faster, but lighter also means less hitting power, right? That's, like, inertia. Force equals mass times acceleration. Does the increase in acceleration compensate for the decrease in mass? I always wondered. Well, they discovered that it doesn't. They used a bat-swinging rig and a ball-throwing cannon to remove all variables except corked or uncorked, and were able to see that with a corked bat, the hit ball left the bat at fully half the speed that it did an uncorked bat. Myth busted.
2. Does keeping balls in a humidor mean fewer homers? Apparently the stadium in Denver has the highest percentage of home runs...until they started keeping their balls in a humidor, and saw the number of homers drop dramatically. This also seemed plausible...a damp, moist ball would have less bounce and less efficient force transfer, right? You betcha. Again, using a rig that removed the human variable, dry balls went a full 15% farther than damp balls. That percentage drop in ball flight means as much as 60 feet in a major-league stadium. Guess what? Starting this season, the humidor thing is a league rule. Myth confirmed.
3. Is sliding into a base really faster? For a base you can't overrun, is it really faster to slide than it is to run and stop? Yep, it sure is, and they were even able to measure the distance with inexperienced runner/sliders like the Mythbusting team. Myth confirmed.
4. Can a batter hit the ball hard enough to knock off the hide? Nope. Using the same ball cannon, they had to accelerate the ball to about 400 mph before the hide flew off. The fastest pitch ever recorded was 103 mph. No way, Jose.
I never get tired of busting myths, man.
First of all, they had Roger Frickin Clemens on the show to pitch some balls at them. Their "myth" for him to help with was some flimsy excuse of examining whether curve balls really curve or whatever, I mean come on, sports scientists have been studying slo-mo of pitches since there WAS slo-mo and yes we know how they work blah blah blah ball rotation stitches aerodynamics backspincakes.
Whatever. It was ROGER CLEMENS. He's a fan, he wanted to be on the show, so they thought up some stuff to play with while he was there. And they did have some pretty cool graphics so you could see the difference in the pitches. They also demonstrated that the rising fastball does not exist.
The actual myths they studied were more interesting.
1. Does corking a bat mean more power? This, to me, never made any sense. Yeah, a corked bat is lighter so you can swing it faster, but lighter also means less hitting power, right? That's, like, inertia. Force equals mass times acceleration. Does the increase in acceleration compensate for the decrease in mass? I always wondered. Well, they discovered that it doesn't. They used a bat-swinging rig and a ball-throwing cannon to remove all variables except corked or uncorked, and were able to see that with a corked bat, the hit ball left the bat at fully half the speed that it did an uncorked bat. Myth busted.
2. Does keeping balls in a humidor mean fewer homers? Apparently the stadium in Denver has the highest percentage of home runs...until they started keeping their balls in a humidor, and saw the number of homers drop dramatically. This also seemed plausible...a damp, moist ball would have less bounce and less efficient force transfer, right? You betcha. Again, using a rig that removed the human variable, dry balls went a full 15% farther than damp balls. That percentage drop in ball flight means as much as 60 feet in a major-league stadium. Guess what? Starting this season, the humidor thing is a league rule. Myth confirmed.
3. Is sliding into a base really faster? For a base you can't overrun, is it really faster to slide than it is to run and stop? Yep, it sure is, and they were even able to measure the distance with inexperienced runner/sliders like the Mythbusting team. Myth confirmed.
4. Can a batter hit the ball hard enough to knock off the hide? Nope. Using the same ball cannon, they had to accelerate the ball to about 400 mph before the hide flew off. The fastest pitch ever recorded was 103 mph. No way, Jose.
I never get tired of busting myths, man.