Baseball Myths Revealed
Discovery Channel's Mythbusters aired a baseball myth special this week, taking on the following topics:
* Do corked bats hit a ball further than regular bats?
* Does storing balls in a humidor really decrease their distance of travel?
* Is sliding into a base faster than stopping on the base?
* Is there such thing as a rising fastball?
* Is it possible to hit the cover off a ball?
The show is definitely worth checking out, even though it is abundantly clear that nobody on the show knows much about baseball. They imported Rodger Clemens to help them out. One of most interesting sequences shows the difference in path of a Clemens fastball, curveball and slider to the plate.
***Spoiler Alert***
Myth test results are listed in the comment of this post!
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posted by ryan at
11:52 AM
2 Comments:
Here are the test results - but you should see the show to all the details behind each test:
* Corked bats do not hit the ball as far as regular bats.
* The humidor reduces the distance a ball travels.
* Sliding into a base is faster than stopping on it.
* There's no such thing as a rising fastball - it's an optical illusion.
* They had to get a baseball traveling over 400mph to get the cover to rip off.
Interestingly, as part of the humidor test, the Mythbusters also dried out number of balls. The result is exactly as you'd expect - these balls travel further than regular baseballs. Perhaps the Padres should look into this method to counteract Petco Park :)
August 11, 2007 12:23 PM
At this point this offense should be allowed to hit golf balls...another frustrating day at the plate for the Pads is in the works...2 out of 3 will have to work...Peavy, Peavy, Peavy
August 11, 2007 3:15 PM
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