Swing and Miss: The Impossibility of Baseball

Ah… Spring. I, like many of you, love the spring for a host of reasons. Spring brings to mind the flowers in bloom, the warming temperatures that bring us out of our caves to bask in the sunshine, and with it, the numerous outdoor activities many of us enjoy. March Madness, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, begins a frenetic cacophony of sporting events including the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs for hockey, the looming NBA Playoffs, and my personal favorite, baseball season.

Every spring I am reminded of the wonderful art of hitting a spherical ball with a cylindrical bat in the sport of baseball. Ted Williams, one of the sport’s historically best hitters and the last person to hit over .400 average in a single season (Batting Average, 1941), once said that batting is the hardest thing to do in all of sport. Many have studied the science of batting in order to improve their success in a sport where failing to hit the ball safely two-thirds of the time (.333 batting average) for an entire career would virtually guarantee a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. In The Physics of Baseball, Yale physicist Robert Adair helps break down the science of hitting in America’s Pastime.

First things first: Baseball is a failure sport. As I mentioned, successful hitters fail two-thirds of the time and more. The last person to come close to batting .400 average (two-fifths success rate) in a single season was Tony Gwynn in 1994 (.394 average) and within the last decade the best single season average was Ichiro Suzuki (.372 average). Keep in mind that these statistics wouldn’t count if the player didn’t have AT LEAST 503 plate appearances (plate appearances are the number of times the batter comes to home plate to try to hit the baseball). That’s a whole lot of FAIL but, like your pick-up game at the bar, success comes with multiple attempts.

Okay. Now that we understand the failure of it, let’s look at the layout of the pitcher (that guy throwing the ball), the batter (the guy with the bat trying to hit the ball), the distance of the pitcher’s mound (where the ball is thrown) to home plate (where the batter waits to swing), the ball and bat size, and the fair territory where the ball must be struck to have a chance of success.

The baseball is 3 inches in diameter and weighs 5-5.25 ounces. The bat, which can vary wildly, has a 2.25 inch maximum diameter, a maximum length of 42 inches, and averages about 32 ounces. An average pitcher can throw a straight pitch, called a fastball, at an underwhelming 90 miles per hour (the best in the game can hit 95mph or greater) and because of the way the ball is held in the hand, all thrown balls will have some spin. The pitcher will throw the ball from the pitcher’s mound 60 feet and 6 inches to home plate where the batter is waiting to strike the ball as it crosses the plate. The ball must be struck into the fair territory that extends from a 90 degree angle from the home plate. The batter must strike the 90mph spinning ball within 1/8 inch of the ball’s dead center with his cylindrical bat in order to hit the ball into fair territory. Missing the ball by anything more will cause the ball to fly into the other 270 degrees of foul territory and the at-bat will either not count or fail (called out).

Okay… now for some more fun with physics

A 90mph fastball can travel 60 feet 6 inches in 400 milliseconds. If the batter fails to hit the ball within 7 milliseconds at the precise 1/8 inch spot of dead center, the ball will be struck foul. That’s a small margin for error (insert reference to your pick-up game HERE). In order for the swing to occur, the batter must make some judgments first. It takes about 100 milliseconds for the human eye to send a signal to the brain that says, “pitched ball coming.” Then the brain processes the image to gauge the location and speed of the pitch – approximately 75 milliseconds. At this point the batter must decide whether to let the pitch go or start the swing – 25 milliseconds – and, if swinging, which swing pattern to use (up, down, in, out) – 25 milliseconds. The 90mph pitch has now been thrown to the plate and has traveled for 225 milliseconds. The signal from the batters brain to the muscles in the legs arrives in 15 milliseconds to start the forward stride all within a 25 milliseconds window to strike the ball.

The ball has now been in flight for 250 milliseconds. The swing of the bat takes a total of 150 milliseconds to meet the ball at the precise moment in order to bat the ball fair. At the first 50 milliseconds of beginning the swing, the batter can still stop the bat, halting the swing motion and checking the swing (a check swing is when the bat is never carried through the strike zone where the ball is thrown). By 100 milliseconds of the swing, the 2 pound bat reaches a speed of at least 80mph, generating a maximum of 9 horsepower, and is at the point of no return – the bat is traveling too fast to be stopped.

If all of this symphony of physics and athleticism is carried out to perfection, the ball is struck real, REAL hard. Any misjudgment in swing pattern, location, speed, and pitch selection or any failure to generate the swing speed, accuracy, or balance will result in failure.

The verdict?

It is humanly impossible to hit a baseball. Stick to something you’re better at, Skip.

By Edward Burns

Edward Burns has worked in wireless retail sales for nine years, including seven years in management.  He left wireless to get his English degree at U.C. Berkeley, but still loves to keep up with the happenings of wireless equipment.  He is a gadget freak, builds his own computers, and is an early adopter of new technologies.