Speed of the Game

 To the average person the game of baseball seems slow. But what appears to be is not always the case. On average it takes less than a half a second for a baseball to reach home plate after the pitcher releases the ball. That is the amount of the time that the batter has to make the decision as to swing or not to swing. The average person's reaction time is three quarters of a second, making the ability to react to a pitch an elite and difficult trait for players. In our league, the average fastball is between eighty-three and eighty-five miles per hour. In upper level leagues like Major League Baseball, a players fastball can reach as high as one-hundred miles per hour.

With that being said, a game appearing to be slow is really just fast plays happening over short periods of time. The difficulty is heightened as players are hitting a round ball with a round bat. Thinking with the science of physics, in a half second of reaction time players are told to hit a round ball with a round bat "square". Going back to my previous blog when I spoke on how elite players only succeed thirty percent of the time, it is because of all of these different complications. Do you think you could pickup baseball and play well with no practice? Did you previously think the game was much easier? Did any of this aid in changing your mind?

How to Calculate Fastball Reaction Time (sportsrec.com)

Here is a video on the science behind hitting a major league fastball:

The Science Of Hitting A Major League Fastball - YouTube

How-Baseball-Players-See-a-Fastball-In-copy-image-2.jpg (730×775) (netdna-ssl.com)

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