Thursday, April 24, 2014
Science of Pine Tar
“With the cold weather, the ball feels very slick and it’s hard for the pitcher to get a good grip,” says Alan Nathan, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Illinois. “So it’s hard for a pitcher to get a good grip on the ball to snap off a ball with a good amount of spin on it, regardless if it’s a breaking pitch or a fastball with movement. Spin results in movement, so creating friction between the fingers and the surface of the ball, the seams or the white part of the ball, is very important.”
“Taken to an extreme, putting a foreign substance like pine tar on the ball can do more,” Nathan says. “It can affect the trajectory. It can give the ball unexpected movement. I doubt that is what was going on, but a real glob of pine tar could make the ball move a lot. But that would be hard for a pitcher to get away with. In the hands of a reasonably skilled pitcher, a lot can be done when the ball is loaded up.”
“There can also be an advantage when a pitcher uses a lubricant,” Nathan says, “to make the ball more slippery. Lubricant helps a pitcher take spin off the ball. The reduced spin on the ball, like a well-thrown split-finger fastball, makes it drop more. The backspin on a pitch keeps it in the air longer. So putting lubricant on the ball can reduce spin.”
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 150 pages 1 2 3 > Last ›Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date
FORUM TOPICS
Jul 12 15:22 MarcelsApr 16 14:31 Pitch Count Estimators
Mar 12 16:30 Appendix to THE BOOK - THE GORY DETAILS
Jan 29 09:41 NFL Overtime Idea
Jan 22 14:48 Weighting Years for NFL Player Projections
Jan 21 09:18 positional runs in pythagenpat
Oct 20 15:57 DRS: FG vs. BB-Ref
Apr 12 09:43 What if baseball was like survivor? You are eliminated ...
Nov 24 09:57 Win Attribution to offense, pitching, and fielding at the game level (prototype method)
Jul 13 10:20 How to watch great past games without spoilers