Evolution of pitcher's velocity
Larry Gene Gariepy Jr.
it
might be interesting in its own right.
Do we have any accurate data on pitching velocities from baseball's
early days?
If physicists could measure the speed of light in the 1800s, I would
think that
they could measure pitch velocities. But perhaps not many physicists
were into
baseball...
As far as what I remember from my lifetime, there seems to be no
apparent
improvement in pitch velocity in the past 15 years. This suggests to me
that perhaps we have reached a practical upper limit. While the time
for
the fastest mile has dropped, and the long jump record has been broken,
athletic development in pitching (as far as pure speed is concerned)
seems to have leveled off. If this wild hypothesis is true, then it
might
be interesting to know _when_ it leveled off. Was it in 1900? 1920?
1960? As usual, I'm diving into an area where I have no knowledge
whatsoever,
so any thoughts are welcome.
Thanks,
Larry
JEarls21
<gar...@cs.dartmouth.edu> writes:
Larry,
A lot of FAQ and DejaNews on this, but two aspects of the the Feller story
might be relevant.
1- In an pre-game exhibition in 1946 in Washington, Feller was timed by a very
accurate device (used for measuring the speed of shells during the war) in a
pre-game exhibition at 98.6 mph, and the device was set up at home plate.
2- The generally agreed loss of MPH from the pitcher's hand to the plate (and
thus the variance in the speed of "guns" -- where are they aimed?) from "The
Physics of Baseball" and other sources is 7-10 mph.
If the hypothetical gun gets the ball halfway to homeplate, then, we have
Feller at around 102-103 mph. Some pitchers have cracked 100 since the advent
of the gun ( I can think of Ryan and Nen), but very few.
Feller is the first pitcher to go over a strikeout an inning, but he only did
it his first couple of seasons. Hitting styles may have contributed to this
fact.
I personally see no reason to believe that Walter Johnson did not throw at
least as hard. I have never read an account that argues that Grove (or any
other 20's or 30's pitcher) was *clearly* faster than Johnson at his fastest.
(The "coasting" argument is irrelevant to Larry's question) I have never read
arguments that there was any kind of an athletic leap forward in THIS
particular skill.
Of course, down the road, we may have a pitching version of Mark McGwire -- a
starting pitcher who strikes out as many as Rob Dibble, except he does it for
7-9 innings and makes all the other fastball pitchers in history, from Johnson
to Feller to to McDowell to Koufax to Clemens to Randy Johnson, drop down to a
tier below.
I don't think we've seen it yet, though. I'm going with your "leveled off"
argument.
Joe Earls
"The greater the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."
My father's favorite.
DougP001
(JEarls21) writes:
>
>1- In an pre-game exhibition in 1946 in Washington, Feller was timed by a
>very
>accurate device (used for measuring the speed of shells during the war) in a
>pre-game exhibition at 98.6 mph, and the device was set up at home plate.
>
>2- The generally agreed loss of MPH from the pitcher's hand to the plate (and
>thus the variance in the speed of "guns" -- where are they aimed?) from "The
>Physics of Baseball" and other sources is 7-10 mph.
>
>If the hypothetical gun gets the ball halfway to homeplate, then, we have
>Feller at around 102-103 mph. Some pitchers have cracked 100 since the advent
>of the gun ( I can think of Ryan and Nen), but very few.
>
>Feller is the first pitcher to go over a strikeout an inning, but he only did
>it his first couple of seasons. Hitting styles may have contributed to this
>fact.
>
>I personally see no reason to believe that Walter Johnson did not throw at
>least as hard.
I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
The December 1912 *Baseball Magazine* reports on a test to measure
the speed of Johnson's fastball. He was electrically timed at 122 feet
per second, or 83 MPH. Nap Rucker, himself an above-average pitcher,
was timed at 113 FPS. Since the electrical timing measured the speed
of the ball between a fixed point in front of the mound and the plate, it
may slightly understate Johnson's velocity due to the slowing-down effect
you note, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that Johnson's fastball broke 90.
Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
Johnson be any different?
Doug Pappas
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
>I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
>his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
>anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
With all due respect, then, Doug, how did he throw HARDER than all the pitchers
1900-1925 who threw with "traditional" motions? How did he throw so much harder
than anyone that only Vance, Grove, and then Feller (and the occasional Van
Lingle Mungo) were considers his rivals for "fastest pitcher of all time" by
the hitters who faced them both, so that he then becomes the "fastest pitcher
ever" until Feller, at least 1936-1939?
I can't make a convincing syllogism of the following, can you?
Premise: Johnson had an unusual motion, even though other players of his time
had traditional motions
Premise: Other people had traditional motions, as our fastest pitchers do
Premise: Our fastest pitchers have traditional motions.
Therefore: ? Johnson could not throw the ball very fast?
I disagree strongly. I think Johnson's motion deserves to be STUDIED, not
dismissed.
a- Johnson's motion (including what are reputed to be his strikingly long
arms) may have created a more "whip-like" delivery, one that somehow increased
the speed of his hand (and thus the ball, obviously) without an overemphasis on
leg drive or back-bending. Ted Williams's SWING is surprising upright: why not
the ideal, whip-like pitching motion?
b- A current pitching school advertisement running consistently in
McWeekly is about the use/misuse of the back foot. (I don't have an issue
around -- it's run by a former big leaguer, and his son is now in the 90's and
was drafted )
c- As in martial arts, opposing batters describe the tremendous EASE with
which Johnson threw -- and the shocking velocity of the pitch that arrived. (
Cobb knew from the first pitch that Johnson was the fastest pitcher he had ever
seen, according to the Burns video.)
d- Some martial arts teach a pulling AWAY from the non-punching side of the
body to create more velocity/power in the punching hand. Even now, In batting,
power is often created by stepping lightly onto the front foot, but using the
back leg and hips for torque.
Dismissing Johnson's velocity on the basis of old films of his motion is like
dismissing Ruth's power on the basis of his extra weight. It's pure imagery,
and it does injustice to the continuum of baseball history.
I have no doubt that modern players are better overall, but where is the
sudden "ledge" that old-timers fall off so they become 80 mph fastballers and
"incapable of starring in the modern game?" Sometime before Mantle? before
Williams? before DiMaggio.
If the Feller snippage is restored (I know you did it for brevity, but it makes
my point) that someone has to say that
a- The Feller test, and the U.S. Army device, was inaccurate
b- Or, Bob Feller was only a few MPH's behind Nolan Ryan from 1946 -to - 1996,
but that Feller somehow threw 10-15 miles an hour faster than the fastest
pitchers from just twenty years earlier (1916-1926) i.e Walter Johnson
*** **From earlier post, regarding the accuracy of the
Feller measurement, quoted in a recent book about players returning from the
war.
1- In an pre-game exhibition in 1946 in Washington, Feller was timed by a very
accurate device (used for measuring the speed of shells during the war) in a
pre-game exhibition at 98.6 mph, and the device was set up at home plate.
2- The generally agreed loss of MPH from the pitcher's hand to the plate (and
thus the variance in the speed of "guns" -- where are they aimed?) from "The
Physics of Baseball" and other sources is 7-10 mph.
If the hypothetical gun gets the ball halfway to homeplate, then, we have
Feller at around 102-103 mph. Some pitchers have cracked 100 since the advent
of the gun ( I can think of Ryan and Nen), but very few.
Feller is the first pitcher to go over a strikeout an inning, but he only did
it his first couple of seasons. Hitting styles may have contributed to this
fact. ****** previous post snippage restored.
>The December 1912 *Baseball Magazine* reports on a test to measure
>the speed of Johnson's fastball. He was electrically timed at 122 feet
>per second, or 83 MPH. Nap Rucker, himself an above-average pitcher,
>was timed at 113 FPS. Since the electrical timing measured the speed
>of the ball between a fixed point in front of the mound and the plate, it
>may slightly understate Johnson's velocity due to the slowing-down effect
>you note, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that Johnson's fastball broke 90.
This may be true, though I would question the accuracy of any device from 1912,
when we know a major league gun gives a reading that might vary as much as 10
mph, depending on what brand of gun it is, and where it is pointed. I am much
more inclined to trust the Army device on Feller in 1946.
>
>Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
>records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
>javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
>measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
>Johnson be any different?
Doug, you know this is the "ultra-modernist" argument, and the analogy doesn't
NECESSARILY (in the logical sense) apply to baseball, because analogies never
do. This is certainly one of our mini- FAQ's, I think. To hypothetically
answer your question, though:
-There is simply the historical/sociological argument about baseball's
prominence as a sport, and penetration into our culture, much, much earlier
than any other sport.
a- Because many, many more men have been trying to throw a baseball as hard as
they can for much longer than there have been a relatively few people
participating in track? (One wonders how many men in America, tucked away in
urban and rural America,. were as fast as our Olympic athletes in 1912, who
might have been culled from a very few colleges? Actually, doesn't 1912 make
the point -- Jim Thorpe won the decathalon and pentathalon that year by having
enough natural talent to annihilate the ( possibly very rarified?)
competition.
b- Because track creates mental thresholds, improved conditions, and other
factors very specific to track?
c- Because Walter Johnson was 6'1 200, about as big and strong as Feller,
Seaver, Gibson, or anyone else
d- Because throwing a ball very fast may be a natural gift, irrelevant to size
(see Pedro Martinez or Ron Guidry) [Yes, c and d contradict, but take your
pick -- one of them applies to Johnson.)
IMO, Johnson could throw about as fast as Feller, and Feller about as fast as
Clemens or anyone in the high 90's, if not Ryan, just as I believe Ruth's bat
speed was equal to anyone's, including Mantle's, with the possible exception of
McGwire.
McGwire just hits them SO much farther than anyone....but that's another post.
Tom Austin
>
> In article <199807211351...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, doug...@aol.com
> (DougP001) writes:
>
> >I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
> >his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
> >anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
>
> With all due respect, then, Doug, how did he throw HARDER than all the pitchers
> 1900-1925 who threw with "traditional" motions? How did he throw so much harder
> than anyone that only Vance, Grove, and then Feller (and the occasional Van
> Lingle Mungo) were considers his rivals for "fastest pitcher of all time" by
> the hitters who faced them both, so that he then becomes the "fastest pitcher
> ever" until Feller, at least 1936-1939?
Bill James' Historical Abstract discusses Johnson's motion at some
length, and takes roughly the same position as Doug (and I would call
this the orthodox view, that Johnson wasn't throwing that hard). James
also discusses Lefty Grove's mechanics at length, and (paraphrasing)
says that Grove was the first pitcher with truly modern pitching
mechanics. James called him "ahead of his time", I think. So it may be
that more pitchers of Johnson's time threw with "easy" (or at least
"primitive") motions like WJ did.
>
> I can't make a convincing syllogism of the following, can you?
>
> Premise: Johnson had an unusual motion, even though other players of his time
> had traditional motions
> Premise: Other people had traditional motions, as our fastest pitchers do
> Premise: Our fastest pitchers have traditional motions.
>
> Therefore: ? Johnson could not throw the ball very fast?
>
> I disagree strongly. I think Johnson's motion deserves to be STUDIED, not
> dismissed.
This is a radical premise, and a fascinating one.
>
> a- Johnson's motion (including what are reputed to be his strikingly long
> arms) may have created a more "whip-like" delivery, one that somehow increased
> the speed of his hand (and thus the ball, obviously) without an overemphasis on
> leg drive or back-bending. Ted Williams's SWING is surprising upright: why not
> the ideal, whip-like pitching motion?
> b- A current pitching school advertisement running consistently in
> McWeekly is about the use/misuse of the back foot. (I don't have an issue
> around -- it's run by a former big leaguer, and his son is now in the 90's and
> was drafted )
I've seen that ad a lot, too. It advocates letting the hip swing PULL
the foot off the rubber, rather than "Pushing off" the rubber.
> c- As in martial arts, opposing batters describe the tremendous EASE with
> which Johnson threw -- and the shocking velocity of the pitch that arrived. (
> Cobb knew from the first pitch that Johnson was the fastest pitcher he had ever
> seen, according to the Burns video.)
> d- Some martial arts teach a pulling AWAY from the non-punching side of the
> body to create more velocity/power in the punching hand. Even now, In batting,
> power is often created by stepping lightly onto the front foot, but using the
> back leg and hips for torque.
The martial arts angle is intriguing, developing superior speed/force
through relaxation. point d) describes the Ted Williams "hip rotation"
hitting style pretty well.
to condense the above, your premise implies that the conventional modern
pitching motion is (may be) sub-optimal, at least for a pitcher of
Johnson's body type (lanky, really long arms, big hands.). If this is
true, there must be, in organized baseball somewhere, a long-armed,
lanky, big-handed guy who is throwing 90+ using a conventional motion.
Again if your premise is true, this phee-nom could be taught the Johnson
motion by some horse-hided Mr. Miyagi and emerge throwing 110 mph
bullets out of an easy, whip-like motion.
Steve Dalkowski, anyone?
Jocularity aside, this is a great, thought-provoking post, Joe. I
certainly hope it provokes some stimulating discussion.
>
> Joe Earls
>
> "The greater the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."
> My father's favorite.
one of my favorites, too.
Tom Austin
Ivan Weiss
> I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
> his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
> anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
We're supposed to believe *that?*
> The December 1912 *Baseball Magazine* reports on a test to measure
> the speed of Johnson's fastball. He was electrically timed at 122 feet
> per second, or 83 MPH. Nap Rucker, himself an above-average pitcher,
> was timed at 113 FPS. Since the electrical timing measured the speed
> of the ball between a fixed point in front of the mound and the plate, it
> may slightly understate Johnson's velocity due to the slowing-down effect
> you note, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that Johnson's fastball broke 90.
Why? How do we know what kind of equipment was timing his fastball, or how
accurate it was?
> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
> Johnson be any different?
Different set of standards altogether. Proves nothing. What you say may be
correct, but there's no way to know at this point, and certainly not from
the evidence you provide.
Ivan Weiss "Then dropping a barbell, he points to the sky
Vashon WA and says the sun's not yellow, it's chicken."
-- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues"
Rob McLean
JEarls21 wrote:
> 1- In an pre-game exhibition in 1946 in Washington, Feller was timed by a very
> accurate device (used for measuring the speed of shells during the war) in a
> pre-game exhibition at 98.6 mph, and the device was set up at home plate.
>
> 2- The generally agreed loss of MPH from the pitcher's hand to the plate (and
> thus the variance in the speed of "guns" -- where are they aimed?) from "The
> Physics of Baseball" and other sources is 7-10 mph.
>
> If the hypothetical gun gets the ball halfway to homeplate, then, we have
> Feller at around 102-103 mph. Some pitchers have cracked 100 since the advent
> of the gun ( I can think of Ryan and Nen), but very few.
>
> Feller is the first pitcher to go over a strikeout an inning, but he only did
> it his first couple of seasons. Hitting styles may have contributed to this
> fact.
>
> I personally see no reason to believe that Walter Johnson did not throw at
> least as hard. I have never read an account that argues that Grove (or any
> other 20's or 30's pitcher) was *clearly* faster than Johnson at his fastest.
> (The "coasting" argument is irrelevant to Larry's question) I have never read
> arguments that there was any kind of an athletic leap forward in THIS
> particular skill.
>
> Of course, down the road, we may have a pitching version of Mark McGwire -- a
> starting pitcher who strikes out as many as Rob Dibble, except he does it for
> 7-9 innings and makes all the other fastball pitchers in history, from Johnson
> to Feller to to McDowell to Koufax to Clemens to Randy Johnson, drop down to a
> tier below.
>
> I don't think we've seen it yet, though. I'm going with your "leveled off"
> argument.
Where's Sidd Finch when you really need him? ;)
--RMc
DougP001
(JEarls21) writes:
>
>>I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
>>his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
>>anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
>
>With all due respect, then, Doug, how did he throw HARDER than all the
>pitchers
>1900-1925 who threw with "traditional" motions?
Because nobody in that era pushed off with their legs to get the kind of
drive modern power pitchers rely on, and Johnson's physique (tall, wiith
long arms) allowed him to pitch harder than others who relied entirely
on their upper body for speed.
I also suspect that his motion may have made Johnson's pitches look
faster than they really were. Slinging the ball hard from an uncommon
angle would put the batters at an extra disadvantage. Among modern
pitchers, Sid Fernandez benefited from this effect. From watching the
batters flail at his pitches, you'd think he was throwing 97 MPH, but
the radar gun revealed his fastball as only slightly better than average.
>I can't make a convincing syllogism of the following, can you?
>Premise: Johnson had an unusual motion, even though other players of his
time
>had traditional motions
>Premise: Other people had traditional motions, as our fastest pitchers do
>Premise: Our fastest pitchers have traditional motions.
Your second premise is incorrect. Our fastest pitchers derive most of
their power from their legs, not their arms. Nobody in Johnson's era
threw with the leg drive of a Tom Seaver or Roger Clemens.
>Dismissing Johnson's velocity on the basis of old films of his motion is like
>dismissing Ruth's power on the basis of his extra weight. It's pure imagery,
>and it does injustice to the continuum of baseball history.
Old films AND electrical timing which clocked his fastball at 83 MPH.
That's hardly "pure imagery." And "the continuum of baseball history"
is no different from "the continuum of track and field history." Jim Thorpe
and Jesse Owens were phenomenal athletes, *relative to their
contemporaries*, but anyone who claimed that Owens could outrun or
outjump Carl Lewis would be laughed out of the room. Why? Because
in track and field, accomplishments are measured against objective
time and distance standards, and we KNOW Lewis ran faster and jumped
further than Owens.
In baseball, a player's accomplishments are judged by his ability to
dominate one's peers. If Johnson threw 83 at a time when everyone else
threw 75, he'd evoke the same awe as if he threw 103 when everyone else
threw 95.
Why is it so hard for you to believe that Walter Johnson didn't throw as
fast as modern pitchers? By EVERY OTHER MEASURE OF ATHLETIC
PROWESS, today's top athletes run faster, jump higher and threw farther
than ever before. In 1912 the Olympic discus champ threw the discus 148'3".
The winning throw in 1996 was 227'8". The 1912 javelin champ threw the
javelin 198' 11-1'4"; the 1984 champ (last Olympics before the javelin itself
was modified) hurled it 284'8". But because "baseball is special," fastball
pitching was immune to this evolution?
>a- Because many, many more men have been trying to throw a baseball as hard
>as they can for much longer than there have been a relatively few people
>participating in track? (One wonders how many men in America, tucked away in
>urban and rural America,. were as fast as our Olympic athletes in 1912, who
>might have been culled from a very few colleges? Actually, doesn't 1912 make
>the point -- Jim Thorpe won the decathalon and pentathalon that year by having
>enough natural talent to annihilate the ( possibly very rarified?)
>competition.
Yes -- it makes *my* point. Thorpe is remembered because he was so
much better *than his peers*. So is Johnson. That doesn't mean that
Thorpe's times in his events would be "world class" by today's standards --
or that Johnson's fastball would be, either.
Doug Pappas
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
>Our fastest pitchers derive most of>their power from their legs, not their
arms. Nobody in Johnson's era threw with the leg drive of a Tom Seaver or
Roger Clemens.
Really? First, I've never read about any pitcher, or pitching coach,
"discovering" leg drive as a key to velocity. Dean didn't drive off his leg?
Vance didn't? Feller didn't? Johnson's motion may be unusual, but where you get
the idea (or, any sort of proof) that pitchers 1900 -- 1946 literally didn't
KNOW how to throw hard? (i.e fast) That certainly puzzles me. I would say
again that Johnson's motion, like Ruth's or Williams's swing, deserves to be
studied.
It is a documented fact that 52 years ago, Feller threw a ball that arrived at
home plate at 98.6 miles an hour.* (See documentation at end of post: I found
the book title.) On most radar guns used today, which catch the ball in
midflight, that means a 102- 105 MPH fastball. Only Ryan and Nen have cracked
100 MPH, to my knowledge.
JE>>Dismissing Johnson's velocity on the basis of old films of his motion is
>like dismissing Ruth's power on the basis of his extra weight. It's pure
imagery,
>and it does injustice to the continuum of baseball history.
DP:Old films AND electrical timing which clocked his fastball at 83 MPH. That's
hardly "pure imagery."
No, it's using imagery from films of his motion, and adding it to a test that
you have some but not complete faith in, one which seems like the weakest piece
of evidence in the discussion, (and one that seems to contradict both
testimonial evidence about Johnson and Feller). I don't have a description of
that device -- do you? I have one of the Feller device: see below. And, as
someone else asked, although someone could measure the speed of light in the
1800's, that doesn't mean the particular test run on Johnson's fastball was
accurate enough for this discussion. Adair's book tells the fastball loses 7-10
mph coming to the plate. Radar guns today differ by as much as 5-7 mph. And no
one has yet stated how accurate the Johnson test may have been. Suppose with
all these factors, the Johnson MPH margin of error is 10-20 mph?
Last, it ignores my strongest point, in asking you to find, and then to
explain, why we should assume a sudden INCREASE in the ability level of
American males to throw the ball as fast as they can, going from Walter
Johnson 1907-1927 to Bob Feller 1936- 1946, a period of about 20 years, where
the evidence shows little advance in the "upper limit" that Larry asked about
from Feller (1948) to Ryan (1969- 1995) in fifty years, (not just 20) and no
improvement in the "upper limit" since Ryan himself peaked sometimes before
1998, obviously.
DP: And "the continuum of baseball history"
>is no different from "the continuum of track and field history."
I disagree, completely. It is utterly different.
The "track and field analogy" is flawed because it IS an analogy, for one,
Doug, and it breaks down even AS an analogy, when looked at closely.
>Why is it so hard for you to believe that Walter Johnson didn't throw as
>fast as modern pitchers? By EVERY OTHER MEASURE OF ATHLETIC
>PROWESS, today's top athletes run faster, jump higher and threw farther
>than ever before. "
At different rates, in different sports. Even within your example, track and
field, this week's Sports Illustrated says that every major distance record,
from 3000 meters to 10000 meters, has been destroyed, broken and re-broken a
total of 22 times in the last four years.
Does that mean, by analogy, that baseball players are MUCH better than they
were in the last four years? That is, of course, ridiculous -- but by analogy,
it is not ridiculous at all.
Or, "athletic prowess" did not take a significant leap forward (no pun
intended) from Bob Beamon's jump in 1968 until recently, and therefore baseball
players of 1968 were as nearly as good as modern players, but no one before was
as good?
Or does it mean that because track and field times were generally slower in the
60's, and even slower in the 50's, that Mays and Mantle and Aaron, for example,
would not be stars in the modern game? Has there been some mysterious
development in baseball from, say 1965 to now, but one we can't trace, because
we have no clock for it? However, we will assume that such an improvement
happened, because it happened in track and field?
If we use the "Track and field" analogy, we have to apply it with chronological
accuracy, don't we? Unfortunately, that leads us to preposterous conclusions:
the 400 meter record has been broken countless times since 1969, so Willie
McCovey and Reggie Jackson couldn't play in the "modern game?
All of these "analogies" suggest that it is pretty weak logic to apply (and
especially to HOLD) the "continuum of track and field times" to the
"continuum of baseball."
Finally, In discussions of sports where the " evolution" of the "athletic
ability" of the "modern athlete" is supposedly proven (as if the race itself
was somehow improving on its own in some mysterious way), sports where this
improvement is supposedly demonstrated "objectively" (i.e timed), (track and
field, swimming) , the "evolution" of technique WITHIN THOSE SPORTS -- the
greater population support of athletes focusing on those non-traditional sports
(in ever-expanding collegiate and Olympic programs) , the change in conditions
(the cinder track, the starting block) , the existence of psychological
thresholds, etc. are conveniently omitted.
What is asserted and assumed is a blind leap of "athletic progress". Often, the
assertion is by analogy, and often, by false analogies.
>DP: t. Thorpe is remembered because he was so much better *than his peers*.
So is Johnson. That doesn't mean that Thorpe's times in his events would be
"world class" by today's standards --
>or that Johnson's fastball would be, either.
>DP: But because "baseball is special," fastball pitching was immune to this
evolution?
Yes, pretty much, though not completely. ( I think modern baseball players
are better overall, that Ruth could not hit .342 in today's game. I think there
is less of an ability gap, though, from Ruth to McGwire than from, say, Mikan
to Jabbar, even though 60 years separate the former and only 25 years separate
the latter. Evolution rates are different in different sports..)
The answer to wWhy "baseball is special" is all over DejaNews, belongs as a
FAQ, but pretty much comes down to these arguments, which I import from a
recent post and edit.
The essence is that each sport has its own evolution, and baseball's is FAR
slower than others, and that track and field (for one) is far FASTER, and is
thus not at all helpful in a baseball argument.
Three underlying arguments in favor of old-time baseball players (as opposed
to athletes in other sports, especially those measured "objectively" by a
clock) are below:
1- Baseball seemed helped by strength and conditioning, but skills seem more a
matter of vision, skill, practice, and talents somewhat specific to the game.
It is hard to find an rsbb'er who will say that Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or
Ted Williams, Bob Feller, (or, for some reason, the modernist's favorite
whipping boy, Babe Ruth, an athlete so gifted he could be superlative while
carrying an extra 20 pounds in his 30's) would not flourish in today's game.
Though we have evidentally found one in Doug: I'd be curious, then, Doug, to
explain to me WHICH star would be lost in today's game, and why.
2-The second argument is historical. Baseball, if it has "matured", seems to
have gotten off to a much earlier start than almost any other sport, and if
there is a slope to the line of improvement, it is very flat, compared to
basketball, for example. (One cannot imagine the 50's set-shot, hook shot
Celtics not being anhilated by the 70's Knicks or the 90's Bulls, but it is
more possible to ask how the 60's Yanks, then the 50's Yanks, 40's Yanks, then
even the 30's Yanks, would have done against the modern teams.
I think it is harder to persuade the baseball fan that the answer would be a
foregone conclusion, or an annhiliation. Further, even if he was a true
modernist and felt even the '60 Yanks would be crushed, he would have to
point to a drop-off point of skill in the historical evolution of the game.
Except for the entrance of Jackie Robinson, each evolution (slider, bullpens,)
has been gradual: even Ruth's swinging for the fences belonged pretty much to
him and Gehrig until the late 20's.
Again, I think the continuum of baseball gives the ultra- modernists the most
trouble. I'll admit to an incremental dropoff, but it is one so slow that it
DOES NOT SEEM TO AFFECT OVERLAPPING CAREERS. ( Mantle overlaps Williams who
overlaps Gehrig who overlaps Ruth...) The points above get factored in, but
when someone posts as Doug does about the assumed "superiority of the modern
athlete" , there is an assumption, usually about Ruth, his era, or the deadball
era, that the fall-off is obvious....and maybe over 60 years, it is, in some
general way.
But if it is a continuum, one has to respect its gradual nature. Feller may
have been faster than Johnson, but do we believe because we have Jim Thorpe's
Olympic times, and grainy films of Johnson warming up, that Johnson really
threw at 83 MPH and his peers, therefore, in their high 70's? Williams may have
been a better hitter than Ruth, but Ruth "couldn't hit in the modern game"
where Williams "was the first great modern hitter?"
That doesn't explain the continuum, nor does it respect it: it simply makes
pre-judgements about baseball before World War II, often crushing 1900-1935
into one phrase "old-time."
Or, it must explain how some radical fall-off occured. It has to explain how
Williams and Feller were "modern players" but Ruth and Johnson were not. Seems
to me, though, that no one can find that drop off..
3- The final argument is cultural.
It argues that for many decades, (though this requires further study)
baseball was very effcient in finding talent, and that it may have pushed every
great (white) player it could find towards the major leagues. The argument goes
that the play went deeper into the population, and it had virtually no
competition from a- other sports
b- other recreations
Johnson was found by a professional scout in Idaho. Did any other sport have
paid professionals searching for talent in 1905? How many professional sports
even EXISTED in 1905?
If Walter Johnson had one of the two most prized athletic skills in a country
of 50 million males (the other being the ability to hit a ball), and from
1907-1925 he was pretty much without question asserted to be the fastest
pitcher in the country, do you really expect us to believe he did not even have
a big-league fastball for 1998, Doug?
I see no reason to believe the 1916 Johnson was not nearly as fast as the 1946
Feller, the 1966 McDowell or Koufax, or the 1986 Clemens. I may admit to some
barely perceptible ( a few MPH) progress, but it still seems clearf the
"fastest of all time " group were almost as fast as Nolan Ryan. Nothing about
the continuum of baseball or the development of the game itself would suggest
otherwise to me, if one sticks to talking about baseball.
Like McGwire, I think Ryan was some kind of phenomenon. If Larry's rhetorical
question is answered with a tentative "Yes, we may have seen close to the final
evolution of how fast someone can throw", which is the answer I am giving, we
won't see a pitcher with Ryan's consistent velocity for some time to come. (We
waited this long for McGwire to reframe our ideas of what was possible in power
hitting.)
When and if this flamethrower arrives, he will be in the low 100's
consistently, and play McGwire to Ryan's Ruth. .He will create a second tier
of fastballers below the two of them, with the pitchers' names listed above --
Johnson, Feller, Grove, Koufax, McDowell r, Clemens -- on that tier.
I may be wrong, and radar readings in the 100's may be common in the decades to
come. Even if that is true, the EXPLANATION for why it might be true can't stop
at "modern athletes are better." If those readings ARE there, we will need to
know how and why pitchers added 5-10 MPH when the best conditioned athletes of
the 80's and 90's (Roger Clemens, etc) couldn't get above 100.
Either way, the Ryan example points to the 100+ years of a baseball continuum.
Analogies from other sports aren't very persuasive to me in a baseball
argument, because the chronology of baseball is very specific to baseball.
Joe Earls
* Footnote* Source for Feller Miles per hour Stat: "When the Boys Came Back"
by Fredrick Turner (Holt) relates the story of measuring Feller's fastball.
Contrary to what is sometimes heard, the instrument used to measure
Feller's fastball on August 20, 1946, was not flimsy, low tech, or (insert
derogatory adjective here.) It was an Army photographic device designed to
measure the velocity of shells, "accurate to within .0001 second" p 187.
Feller threw five pitches: the last hit the side of the machine and broke
it. Feller's second pitch was clocked at 98.6 MPH when it crossed home
plate, where the device was. "Subsequent calculations show that when
leaving his hand the ball was traveling at 107 MPH." (This fits with the
earlier post quoting Adair's "Physics of Baseball", that the pitch loses
about 10 MPH getting to homeplate.
Given the above post then, in modern terms, Feller would be at 107 on the
"fast gun", 98.6 on the the slow gun, and about 104 on the composite gun.
That's as fast or faster than anyone, even Ryan's recorded 102 (I don't
know what gun measured that) or other pitchers mentioned.
Patrick G. Matthews
[cuts before and after]
&And "the continuum of baseball history" is no different
&from "the continuum of track and field history." Jim
&Thorpe and Jesse Owens were phenomenal athletes,
&*relative to their contemporaries*, but anyone who
&claimed that Owens could outrun or outjump Carl Lewis
&would be laughed out of the room. Why? Because in
&track and field, accomplishments are measured against
&objective time and distance standards, and we KNOW
&Lewis ran faster and jumped further than Owens.
It depends. If your hypothetical person said this:
"If we could snatch Jesse Owens out of 1936 and Carl
Lewis out of 1984, each using the same sort of equipment
they used for their Olympic triumphs in those years and
using the same training methods, Owens would whip Lewis"
then yes, your person should be laughed out of the room.
But what if s/he said this instead:
"If Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens had been contemporaries,
and had access to whatever was state-of-the-art for the
time in terms of training regimens, equipment, facilities,
nutrition, sports medicine, etc., I believe Owens would
have ran faster and/or jumped further than Lewis"
then your person would be guilty of making a statement
that cannot be proven right or wrong, but the statement
itself would not be absurd.
Pat
DougP001
(Patrick G. Matthews) writes:
Right. But the statement at issue is "Walter Johnson threw just as
fast as modern fastballers," not "With access to modern training, etc.,
Walter Johnson would've thrown at least as fast as today's fireballers."
I have no problem with the second, but with all due respect to Joe
Earls, the first is absurd.
Doug Pappas
DougP001
(JEarls21) writes:
>>Our fastest pitchers derive most of>their power from their legs, not their
>arms. Nobody in Johnson's era threw with the leg drive of a Tom Seaver or
>Roger Clemens.
>
>Really? First, I've never read about any pitcher, or pitching coach,
>"discovering" leg drive as a key to velocity. Dean didn't drive off his leg?
>Vance didn't? Feller didn't? Johnson's motion may be unusual, but where you
>get
>the idea (or, any sort of proof) that pitchers 1900 -- 1946 literally didn't
>KNOW how to throw hard?
They knew how to *throw* hard. They didn't know how to use their lower
body to maximize their velocity. I've spent as many hours with old microfilm
and game accounts as anyone on this newsgroup, and have NEVER seen
photos or discussions of a pre-WWII pitcher with grass stains on his
knee from pushing off so hard, a la Seaver or Clemens.
JE>>Dismissing Johnson's velocity on the basis of old films of his motion is
>like dismissing Ruth's power on the basis of his extra weight. It's pure
imagery,
>and it does injustice to the continuum of baseball history.
>>DP:Old films AND electrical timing which clocked his fastball at 83 MPH.
That's
>>hardly "pure imagery."
>No, it's using imagery from films of his motion, and adding it to a test
that
>you have some but not complete faith in, one which seems like the weakest
piece
>of evidence in the discussion, (and one that seems to contradict both
>testimonial evidence about Johnson and Feller). I don't have a description of
>that device -- do you?
Yes. Johnson threw a ball through two sets of fine wires located a
measured distance apart. The electrical impulses created at each impact
were recorded, and the time between impacts noted. Distance/time =
velocity. (I transcribed the discussion from Baseball Magazine the last
time this issue arose on here, a couple of years ago. Look it up on
DejaNews if you want.) Not to mention that "the imagery," as you put
it, clearly shows that however fast Johnson may have thrown, his
pitching motion was less efficient than that of modern power pitchers at
maximizing his velocity.
>that doesn't mean the particular test run on Johnson's fastball was
>accurate enough for this discussion. Adair's book tells the fastball loses
7-10
>mph coming to the plate. Radar guns today differ by as much as 5-7 mph. And
no
>one has yet stated how accurate the Johnson test may have been. Suppose with
>all these factors, the Johnson MPH margin of error is 10-20 mph?
Why stop there, Joe? Maybe it was 50 MPH, and Johnson really threw
133 MPH that day. Maybe the error went the other way, and Johnson
really threw *slower* than 83 MPH. We're not talking about radar guns
or other methods of estimating the speed of a projectile from a distance
-- we're talking about electrically measuring the time the projectile actually
took to pass from Point A to Point B.
>Last, it ignores my strongest point, in asking you to find, and then to
>explain, why we should assume a sudden INCREASE in the ability level of
>American males to throw the ball as fast as they can
Because such an increase is consistent with the known data about every
other aspect of human athletic performance.
> going from Walter
>Johnson 1907-1927 to Bob Feller 1936- 1946, a period of about 20 years,
where
>the evidence shows little advance in the "upper limit" that Larry asked about
>from Feller (1948) to Ryan (1969- 1995) in fifty years, (not just 20) and no
>improvement in the "upper limit" since Ryan himself peaked sometimes before
>1998, obviously.
The time between Johnson's test and Feller's was 34 years, not 20,
and several pitchers have been clocked on radar guns as throwing faster
than Ryan. Sometimes the record is broken by a small margin, sometimes
(a la Beamon) by a lot, but the direction remains the same, and the number
of competitors who can outperform the old marks continues to rise. There
are NO running or throwing events in which someone who ran or threw a
1912-record time or distance would be remotely competitive in 1998.
>Finally, In discussions of sports where the " evolution" of the "athletic
>ability" of the "modern athlete" is supposedly proven (as if the race itself
>was somehow improving on its own in some mysterious way), sports where this
>improvement is supposedly demonstrated "objectively" (i.e timed), (track and
>field, swimming) , the "evolution" of technique WITHIN THOSE SPORTS -- the
>greater population support of athletes focusing on those non-traditional
sports
>(in ever-expanding collegiate and Olympic programs) , the change in conditions
>(the cinder track, the starting block) , the existence of psychological
>thresholds, etc. are conveniently omitted.
All of which APPLIES EQUALLY TO BASEBALL. Today's pitchers
are much better nourished, better conditioned, healthier, better
trained and better equipped than Walter Johnson. They travel under
better conditions, and aren't worked as hard. As Patrick Matthews
noted, perhaps Walter Johnson would have been as fast as any modern
pitcher if he had the benefit of modern equipment, training, etc. But
he didn't -- which is one more argument to believe that he wasn't as fast.
>Three underlying arguments in favor of old-time baseball players (as opposed
>to athletes in other sports, especially those measured "objectively" by a
>clock) are below:
>1- Baseball seemed helped by strength and conditioning, but skills seem more a
>matter of vision, skill, practice, and talents somewhat specific to the game.
>It is hard to find an rsbb'er who will say that Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or
>Ted Williams, Bob Feller, (or, for some reason, the modernist's favorite
>whipping boy, Babe Ruth, an athlete so gifted he could be superlative while
>carrying an extra 20 pounds in his 30's) would not flourish in today's game.
>
>Though we have evidentally found one in Doug: I'd be curious, then, Doug, to
>explain to me WHICH star would be lost in today's game, and why.
Stop putting words in my mouth, Joe. I expected better of you. I've never
said anything of the sort. What I have said, and continue to say, is that
in 1996, a pitcher who threw *as fast as Walter Johnson did in 1912* would
not be considered to have "a major league fastball." If Walter Johnson
himself were reincarnated with the same physical attributes, the Walter
Johnson of 1996 would benefit from all the same improvements in training,
diet, coaching, etc. as everyone else, and would throw faster than the
1912 Walter Johnson actually did.
>2-The second argument is historical. Baseball, if it has "matured", seems to
>have gotten off to a much earlier start than almost any other sport, and if
>there is a slope to the line of improvement, it is very flat, compared to
>basketball, for example.
But there IS a slope, which is the whole point. The variance among today's
players is far less than it was in Johnson's era, even though there are
twice as many men on major league rosters.
>But if it is a continuum, one has to respect its gradual nature. Feller may
>have been faster than Johnson, but do we believe because we have Jim Thorpe's
>Olympic times, and grainy films of Johnson warming up, that Johnson really
>threw at 83 MPH and his peers, therefore, in their high 70's?
When we have grainy films of Johnson which show him using a motion
which is clearly less efficient than that used by today's fastballers, *and*
test results measuring his fastball at 83 MPH and Nap Rucker's at 78 MPH,
we believe he threw roughly 83 MPH unless we're so in love with romantic
images of the past that we ignore or rationalize away the evidence.
>3- The final argument is cultural.
> It argues that for many decades, (though this requires further study)
>baseball was very effcient in finding talent, and that it may have pushed
every
>great (white) player it could find towards the major leagues.
Assuming for argument's sake that it may have, young men of that era
were shorter, thinner, sicker, and less well nourished than their modern
counterparts.
>If Walter Johnson had one of the two most prized athletic skills in a country
>of 50 million males (the other being the ability to hit a ball), and from
>1907-1925 he was pretty much without question asserted to be the fastest
>pitcher in the country, do you really expect us to believe he did not even
have
>a big-league fastball for 1998, Doug?
I don't really care what you choose to believe, Joe.
Doug Pappas
JEarls21
<Tom_A...@optilink.dsccc.com> writes:
>Bill James' Historical Abstract discusses Johnson's motion at some
>length, and takes roughly the same position as Doug (and I would call
>this the orthodox view, that Johnson wasn't throwing that hard). James
>also discusses Lefty Grove's mechanics at length, and (paraphrasing)
>says that Grove was the first pitcher with truly modern pitching
>mechanics. James called him "ahead of his time", I think. So it may be
>that more pitchers of Johnson's time threw with "easy" (or at least
>"primitive") motions like WJ did.
What I found in the Historical Abstract (under Grove.. I couldn' t find much
under Johnson) ) was James points out that Grove did not have the benefit of
coasting, (or "pitching in a pinch" to use the Mathewson phrase) as deadball
pitchers admittedly did, because the gopher ball was not an omnipresent danger
for Mathewson or Wood or Johnson. How hard Johnson or Wood COULD throw, when
"in a pinch", is the question being asked here, though.
That seems to NOT be the same topic as positing that Lefty Grove invented
modern pitching mechanics. Deadballer Rube Waddell had 5 seasons where he
posted SO/!P totals more impressive than Grove's best, 20's NL star
(contemporary with Grove) Dazzy Vance had 3, the younger Feller put up 5 in
the 30's and 40's Fellow deadballer Joe Wood and Johnson himself each had two
seasons where they got beyond Grove's best SO/IP.
Admittedly, hitters struck out less in the 20's that at any other time in
baseball, including the deadball era, and Grove led the league in strikeouts
his first 7 years, including his rookie season in 1925. Grove also finished
either 1, 2, or 3 in SO/IP in the same period.
However, Johnson handed the strikeout crown to Grove, having led the league in
8 times from 1910-1919, then --- this is the noteworthy section -- in 1921,
1923, and 1924, when Johnson was in his mid to late 30's. James names Johnson
"hardest throwing pitcher" both in the 00's and the 1910"s, and he was still
throwing very hard when he was 37 years old.
In 1925, when a 25 year old Grove is leading the league with 5.30 strikeouts
per game, a 38 year old Johnson is SECOND at 4.24.
That doesn't sound like 83 MPH to me. Not very much at all.
It also absolutely does NOT look like evidence for a sudden arrival of a
superior *style* of pitching, one that might be paralled by Ruth's uppercut
swing or some jump forward in technique. It looks instead like one great
pitcher taking over for another to dominate the American League, and their
careers barely overlapping.
One thing James says about Grove is that both Charlie Gehringer and Joe Cronin,
who faced them both felt Grove threw much HARDER than Feller -- which then puts
the title (if only for a moment) of "Fastest Pitcher of all time whose
initials are not NR" possibly as far back as the mid 1920's, to Lefty Grove.
Grove may not be "the man", but if Feller is at 98.6, given the contimuum
above, it gets harder and harder to believe Johnson in the low 80's at his
FASTEST.
The other thing I read about Grove is what he himself said: that he pitched his
whole career" using the small of {his} back." I don't know what that means--
it seems a hint about his own technique, but not a revealing one.
I have no arguments with James's position that Grove was the best pitcher of
all time, in the context James uses. I just can't see saying that his arrival,
in 1925, brought on "the modern pitcher", (looking backwards at Johnson), nor
can I assume a natural progression, as ultra-modernists would, that suggests
Grove (or Johnson or Feller ) would get pounded today. ( I use
"ultra-modernist" only for writers/fans who would be completely dismissive of
earlier era athletes, usually proportional to the athletes distance from the
current day..)
JE from before: I think Johnson's motion deserves to be STUDIED, not
dismissed.
>
TA">This is a radical premise, and a fascinating one.
JE: before -- Johnson's motion (including what are reputed to be his
strikingly long
>> arms) may have created a more "whip-like" delivery, one that somehow
>increased the speed of his hand (and thus the ball, obviously) without an
>overemphasis on leg drive or back-bending. Ted Williams's SWING is surprising
upright: why
>not the ideal, whip-like pitching motion?
I would add only that the wrists and hands seem to be continually undervalued
(despite how often they are wriiten about!)
in most fields of athletic endeavor. (Oh, to relearn my jumper or my Little
League swing again...all shoulders and elbows and loopers to right.)
"This game is played from the elbows to the wrists." Chipper Jones, on last
night's ESPN post-Ruth special. From Henry Aaron
to Ernie Banks to Pedro Martinez and Ron Guidry, what explanation can be made
for their power/velocity
except timing, and the bat/hand speed of the wrists?
Perhaps Johnson, like Koufax, had unusually large hands, and remarkably strong
wrists, and used them to peak efficiency.
How does one teach that?
TA: >to condense the above, your premise implies that the conventional modern
>pitching motion is (may be) sub-optimal, at least for a pitcher of
>Johnson's body type (lanky, really long arms, big hands.). If this is
>true, there must be, in organized baseball somewhere, a long-armed,
>lanky, big-handed guy who is throwing 90+ using a conventional motion.
>Again if your premise is true, this phee-nom could be taught the Johnson
>motion by some horse-hided Mr. Miyagi and emerge throwing 110 mph
>bullets out of an easy, whip-like motion.
>
>Steve Dalkowski, anyone?
>
Or, as someone said before, Sidd Finch ;-) But Dalkowski is sure hard to
explain, because people who saw HIM ( 5'11) said
unequivocally that he threw harder than anyone, ever.
And I certainly know that extra tension, sometimes called "overthrowing", will
decrease velocity. So the reverse may be true. Certainly, EVERYTHING we know
about martial arts emphasizes relaxation as the key to power and strength.
I think a lot of athletes in team sports have known this athletic secret for a
long time: (Ben Hogan, Ruth, Williams, Bill Russell, Koufax (and the Norm
Sherry story, many basketball players). There is much literature on it, though
it is scattered from sport to sport, and maybe only useful to athletes already
talented enough to make use of it to go to another level. ( No amount of Zen is
going to have me setting up for Tom Gordon.)
It just doesn't seem at all ridiculous to me that the best athletes have always
had a piece of it,. and that our oldest national game had not already produced
players who had mastered its essential skills by 1910 or 1925.
Joe Earls
David Andrew Leonardo Marasco
JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> wrote:
<snip>
>That seems to NOT be the same topic as positing that Lefty Grove invented
>modern pitching mechanics. Deadballer Rube Waddell had 5 seasons where he
>posted SO/!P totals more impressive than Grove's best, 20's NL star
>(contemporary with Grove) Dazzy Vance had 3, the younger Feller put up 5 in
>the 30's and 40's Fellow deadballer Joe Wood and Johnson himself each had two
>seasons where they got beyond Grove's best SO/IP.
>
>Admittedly, hitters struck out less in the 20's that at any other time in
>baseball, including the deadball era, and Grove led the league in strikeouts
>his first 7 years, including his rookie season in 1925. Grove also finished
>either 1, 2, or 3 in SO/IP in the same period.
>
>However, Johnson handed the strikeout crown to Grove, having led the league in
>8 times from 1910-1919, then --- this is the noteworthy section -- in 1921,
>1923, and 1924, when Johnson was in his mid to late 30's. James names Johnson
>"hardest throwing pitcher" both in the 00's and the 1910"s, and he was still
>throwing very hard when he was 37 years old.
>
> In 1925, when a 25 year old Grove is leading the league with 5.30 strikeouts
>per game, a 38 year old Johnson is SECOND at 4.24.
>
>That doesn't sound like 83 MPH to me. Not very much at all.
I ran across this a week or so ago while fooling around in the mircofilm
I put it aside figuring it would pop up on r.s.b, but I didn't think it
would happen so soon...
From the Chicago Defender, June 1, 1913
"Walter Johnson, the great pitcher of the Washington team, will not
attempt to make a strike-out record this season. Johnson believes
that the strain on his arm is too great and will endeavor to save the
member as much as it is possible to do so."
Perhaps WJ's pitching motion was one he found to maximize innings, not
velocity.
David Marasco mar...@nwu.edu http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~dmarasco
"An object at rest cannot be stopped." - The Tick
Joseph S Sherman
Leonardo Marasco) wrote:
>In article <199807222009...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> wrote:
><snip>
>
>>That seems to NOT be the same topic as positing that Lefty Grove invented
>>modern pitching mechanics. Deadballer Rube Waddell had 5 seasons where he
>>posted SO/!P totals more impressive than Grove's best, 20's NL star
>>(contemporary with Grove) Dazzy Vance had 3, the younger Feller put up 5 in
>>the 30's and 40's Fellow deadballer Joe Wood and Johnson himself each had two
>>seasons where they got beyond Grove's best SO/IP.
>>
>>Admittedly, hitters struck out less in the 20's that at any other time in
>>baseball, including the deadball era, and Grove led the league in strikeouts
>>his first 7 years, including his rookie season in 1925. Grove also finished
>>either 1, 2, or 3 in SO/IP in the same period.
>>
>>However, Johnson handed the strikeout crown to Grove, having led the league in
>>8 times from 1910-1919, then --- this is the noteworthy section -- in 1921,
>>1923, and 1924, when Johnson was in his mid to late 30's. James names Johnson
>>"hardest throwing pitcher" both in the 00's and the 1910"s, and he was still
>>throwing very hard when he was 37 years old.
>>
>> In 1925, when a 25 year old Grove is leading the league with 5.30 strikeouts
>>per game, a 38 year old Johnson is SECOND at 4.24.
>>
>>That doesn't sound like 83 MPH to me. Not very much at all.
>
>I ran across this a week or so ago while fooling around in the mircofilm
>I put it aside figuring it would pop up on r.s.b, but I didn't think it
>would happen so soon...
>
>From the Chicago Defender, June 1, 1913
>"Walter Johnson, the great pitcher of the Washington team, will not
>attempt to make a strike-out record this season. Johnson believes
>that the strain on his arm is too great and will endeavor to save the
>member as much as it is possible to do so."
>
>Perhaps WJ's pitching motion was one he found to maximize innings, not
>velocity.
>
All I can say is Wow! Imagine someone so good that he can
set the strike-out record for sure _if he wants to_. But he chooses
not to in order to save his arm- and my guess is he pitched just as
(or nearly as) effectively as if he went for the strike-out record.
>David Marasco mar...@nwu.edu http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~dmarasco
>"An object at rest cannot be stopped." - The Tick
Joseph Sherman
UCLA Dept of Sociology
jshe...@ucla.edu
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
>Right. But the statement at issue is "Walter Johnson threw just as
>fast as modern fastballers," not "With access to modern training, etc.,
>Walter Johnson would've thrown at least as fast as today's fireballers."
>I have no problem with the second, but with all due respect to Joe
>Earls, the first is absurd.
For the sake of argument, I choose not to accept Patrick's compromise about IF
Johnson had
the training, etc. What I suggest here, and on the rest of this thread, is
that given the history
of baseball, not of "other athletic endeavors" is that Johnson probably threw
nearly as hard as Feller, and that 52 years ago, Feller pretty nearly threw as
hard as anyone can today.
That's throws baseball's timetable into a completely different frame of
reference from the generic one ultra-modernist would impose on "all athletic
endeavors".
>Because such an increase is consistent with the known data about every
>other aspect of human athletic performance.
Which, as you know, Doug, my other posts render pretty moot in regards to
baseball, and "every other aspect of athletic performance" seems like
rhetorical overkill. Wilt Chamberlain could not play in today's NBA? Mickey
Mantle would have trouble in today's major leagues?
>The time between Johnson's test and Feller's was 34 years, not 20,
Except that Feller came up and recorded SO/IP's over 1:1 in 1936, so one might
assume he was throwing at least as hard in 1936. And Johnson was leading the
league in strikeouts as late as 1924, a mere 12 years from Feller's entry.
Whatever time you want to put on this "generation", you want us to accept that
15 MPH got added to the best fastball for no specific reason besides some vague
sense of progress cited above, and the test you cite below? The Johnson test I
can't refute, but find it irreconcilable to my arguments and so must weigh it
as troubling but not persuasive evidence. Your longer "arguments" about the
"progress of athletic performance" are simply reasoning from the very general
to the very particular, oft-repeated here and in other writings, and are thus
unconvincing.
>Finally, In discussions of sports where the " evolution" of the "athletic
>ability" of the "modern athlete" is supposedly proven (as if the race itself
>was somehow improving on its own in some mysterious way), sports where this
>improvement is supposedly demonstrated "objectively" (i.e timed), (track and
>field, swimming) , the "evolution" of technique WITHIN THOSE SPORTS -- the
>greater population support of athletes focusing on those non-traditional
sports (in ever-expanding collegiate and Olympic programs) , the change in
conditions
>(the cinder track, the starting block) , the existence of psychological
>thresholds, etc. are conveniently omitted.
All of which APPLIES EQUALLY TO BASEBALL.
Again, no. Baseball skills, especially this one, may be different.
You continue to assume this analogy is convincing, but avoid the point that
the skill of throwing a ball fast may not be perfectably comparable, nor even a
good analogy, to running the 100 meter dash., for the number of reasons I've
cited: more people have ALWAYS done it, they started doing it earlier in our
history, there was more reward for it, it may be a skill that one does not
improve markedly with training, and the best at it (say, Bob Feller) were doing
it as well as 52-60 years ago as they do now.
That's makes it rather different than college track or shooting a basketball.
> Today's pitchers are much better nourished, better conditioned, healthier,
better
>trained and better equipped than Walter Johnson.
True. Except- better than Walter Johnson's GENERATION, or better than Walter
Johnson
himself? Did every member of the pitching class of 1998 receive some specific
training or
instruction that increased his velocity before the age of 19, NONE of which
Johnson received?
> They travel under better conditions, and aren't worked as hard. As Patrick
Matthews
>noted, perhaps Walter Johnson would have been as fast as any modern
>pitcher if he had the benefit of modern equipment, training, etc. But
>he didn't -- which is one more argument to believe that he wasn't as fast.
But Feller didn't either -- unless Iowa corn and throwing every night with Dad
is sufficient training -- and he was certainly NEARLY as fast, in 1946 (as
measured) as players are 50 years later.
If one will dismiss Walter Johnson, mustn't does one do the same with Feller?
But neither the test figure, or the logic, or the chronology, is with you
when you try to dismiss Feller.
And if one can't dismiss Feller, what does it do with the "natural improvement"
continuum of athletic skill you seek to impose on baseball from other
"objective" sports?
And if one cannot dismiss Feller, how does one so easily dismiss Johnson, by
as much as 15 MPH?
None of those conclusions make any sense to me.
>Three underlying arguments in favor of old-time baseball players (as opposed
>to athletes in other sports, especially those measured "objectively" by a
>clock) are below:
>1- Baseball seemed helped by strength and conditioning, but skills seem more a
>matter of vision, skill, practice, and talents somewhat specific to the game.
>It is hard to find an rsbb'er who will say that Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or
>Ted Williams, Bob Feller, (or, for some reason, the modernist's favorite
>whipping boy, Babe Ruth, an athlete so gifted he could be superlative while
>carrying an extra 20 pounds in his 30's) would not flourish in today's game.
>
>Though we have evidentally found one in Doug: I'd be curious, then, Doug, to
>explain to me WHICH star would be lost in today's game, and why.
>Stop putting words in my mouth, Joe. I expected better of you.
Sorry to have been unclear: i know that you, and most rsbb'ers, would say that
given modern advantages, most of the stars could adjust and do well in today's
game. My position is more radical. I really want to know what player, what
moment in history, marks for you the demarcation line where, WITHOUT MODERN
ADVANTAGES, he would be lost in the modern game.
> I've never said anything of the sort. What I have said, and continue to say,
is that
>in 1996, a pitcher who threw *as fast as Walter Johnson did in 1912* would
>not be considered to have "a major league fastball."
Well, the point of my question was to get your answer to the "drop off"
question exactly. The answer is, then, Walter Johnson? Feller would be all
right in today's game? Dizzy Dean? Lefty Grove? So the drop off point is around
1925?
If you can show me the films you've watched to point to this change, we would
be glad to be enlightened.
>2-The second argument is historical. Baseball, if it has "matured", seems to
>have gotten off to a much earlier start than almost any other sport, and if
>there is a slope to the line of improvement, it is very flat, compared to
>basketball, for example.
But there IS a slope, which is the whole point. The variance among today's
players is far less than it was in Johnson's era, even though there are
twice as many men on major league rosters.
The variance accounts for the gaudy stats of the greats. It does NOT prove
that certain greats were not equally as talented as greats of today. That's my
distinction.
JE>But if it is a continuum, one has to respect its gradual nature.
>When we have grainy films of Johnson which show him using a motion
>which is clearly less efficient than that used by today's fastballers, *and*
>test results measuring his fastball at 83 MPH and Nap Rucker's at 78 MPH,
>we believe he threw roughly 83 MPH unless we're so in love with romantic
>images of the past that we ignore or rationalize away the evidence.
Seems to me I've gone to great lengths to convince you, and other people, that
my belief that Johnson's speed is not ....of the vaguely insulting quality you
imply, and the one ultra-modernist often resort to when their bias in favor of
the contemporary player is questioned.
I'm not rationalizing the Johnson test, either. I am suggesting that as a
single piece of evidence that Johnson really could only max out at 83, I am not
persuaded by it. . It certainly is a piece of evidence I can't refute, but most
of the rest of your argument is the same ultra-modernism I've heard before.
I have the Feller test that is much more persuasive to me (in 1946, 98.6,
accurate to within .0001 seconds, at home plate, where speed is the slowest)
and a resultant chronology of baseball skill
development that radically skews your hypotheses about baseball drawn from
other sports.
I have arguments that baseball is different from other sports.
JE>3- The final argument is cultural.
> It argues that for many decades, (though this requires further study)
>baseball was very effcient in finding talent, and that it may have pushed
every great (white) player it could find towards the major leagues.
>Assuming for argument's sake that it may have, young men of that era
>were shorter, thinner, sicker, and less well nourished than their modern
>counterparts.
Except Johnson himself was 6'1, 200, Doug.
Again, his INFERIOR COMPETITION explains to both of us gaudy stats, but DOES
NOT ELIMINATE, FOR ME, THE POSSIBILITY OF a 95 MPH fastball, erroneously
measured once.
Whereas you seem certain that such a possibilty was "absurd." Your hard
evidence is one test. Your other arguments, in my opinion, are generalities
and analogies that don't apply to baseball specifically.
Joe Earls
Ivan Weiss
> >>I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw off
> >>his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no way
> >>anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power pitcher.
> >
> >With all due respect, then, Doug, how did he throw HARDER than all the
> >pitchers
> >1900-1925 who threw with "traditional" motions?
>
> Because nobody in that era pushed off with their legs to get the kind of
> drive modern power pitchers rely on, and Johnson's physique (tall, wiith
> long arms) allowed him to pitch harder than others who relied entirely
> on their upper body for speed.
Doug, I have to ask how you can make this statement with any authority? I
mean, were you there or something? How do you back up this statement?
> Why is it so hard for you to believe that Walter Johnson didn't throw as
> fast as modern pitchers? By EVERY OTHER MEASURE OF ATHLETIC
> PROWESS, today's top athletes run faster, jump higher and threw farther
> than ever before. In 1912 the Olympic discus champ threw the discus 148'3".
> The winning throw in 1996 was 227'8". The 1912 javelin champ threw the
> javelin 198' 11-1'4"; the 1984 champ (last Olympics before the javelin itself
> was modified) hurled it 284'8". But because "baseball is special," fastball
> pitching was immune to this evolution?
Fallacious logic at its highest. "Every other measure" is not *this*
measure. You may be correct, but you have not substantiated your
assertions with the "evidence" you have provided.
Ivan Weiss
> Right. But the statement at issue is "Walter Johnson threw just as
> fast as modern fastballers," not "With access to modern training, etc.,
> Walter Johnson would've thrown at least as fast as today's fireballers."
> I have no problem with the second, but with all due respect to Joe
> Earls, the first is absurd.
Doug,
I will defend to the death your right to your opinion, but I'm
still waiting for you to support it one whole lot better than you have
done so far.
Ron Johnson
DougP001 <doug...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>The December 1912 *Baseball Magazine* reports on a test to measure
>the speed of Johnson's fastball. He was electrically timed at 122 feet
>per second, or 83 MPH. Nap Rucker, himself an above-average pitcher,
>was timed at 113 FPS.
Rucker was indeed an above average pitcher. He was also a
left-handed knuckleballer. Often cited as the inventor
of the knuckleball. (Though in all probability he was simply
the first to achieve a lot of success with it.)
He was like Tom Candiotti at the start of his career. Threw a lot
more than just a knuckler.
The point here being that he's an odd choice for this experiment.
And it's interesting that Johnson only comes out 8% faster than
Rucker.
--
RNJ
DougP001
(JEarls21) writes:
>
>For the sake of argument, I choose not to accept Patrick's compromise about
>IF
>Johnson had
> the training, etc. What I suggest here, and on the rest of this thread, is
>that given the history
> of baseball, not of "other athletic endeavors" is that Johnson probably
>threw
>nearly as hard as Feller, and that 52 years ago, Feller pretty nearly threw
>as
>hard as anyone can today.
The only reported measurements of both pitchers suggest that Feller threw
15 MPH faster than Johnson. Johnson's delivery was far less efficient
than Feller's. Hell, notwithstanding the Johnson mythology, he almost
certainly wasn't even the fastest pitcher of the dead-ball era: Rube Waddell
struck out 1.7 more batters per nine innings over his career, and Waddell
would never have paced himself the way David Marasco cites Johnson as
doing.
The rest of your argument amounts to "baseball is different from all other
sports because Bob Feller once threw as hard as modern fastballers do."
Sorry, I'm not convinced.
> You continue to assume this analogy is convincing, but avoid the point that
>the skill of throwing a ball fast may not be perfectably comparable, nor even
a
>good analogy, to running the 100 meter dash., for the number of reasons I've
>cited: more people have ALWAYS done it, they started doing it earlier in our
>history, there was more reward for it, it may be a skill that one does not
>improve markedly with training, and the best at it (say, Bob Feller) were
doing
>it as well as 52-60 years ago as they do now.
People have "always" tried to run as fast as they can, *and* to throw
projectiles as hard as they can. Sprinting predates baseball, even in
America, and the world's best sprinters have been drawn from a far larger
talent pool than the best baseball pitchers. And if you believe that the
speed at which one can throw a baseball can't be improved with training,
you might want to check the development of young pitching prospects.
>> Today's pitchers are much better nourished, better conditioned, healthier,
>>better trained and better equipped than Walter Johnson.
>True. Except- better than Walter Johnson's GENERATION, or better than Walter
>Johnson himself? Did every member of the pitching class of 1998 receive some
>specific training or instruction that increased his velocity before the age
of 19, >NONE of which Johnson received?
Yes, every pitcher who has entered the major leagues in recent years has
received far more training and instruction than Johnson ever did.
>My position is more radical. I really want to know what player, what
>moment in history, marks for you the demarcation line where, WITHOUT MODERN
>ADVANTAGES, he would be lost in the modern game.
This a ridiculous rhetorical question. It's like saying "if driving 40 MPH is
safe, and driving 100 MPH is reckless, identify the exact speed at which
the driver crosses the boundary into recklessness." The issue here is
the speed of Walter Johnson's fastball, not Joe Earls' crusade against
"the ultra-modernists."
>>But there IS a slope, which is the whole point. The variance among today's
>>players is far less than it was in Johnson's era, even though there are twice
as >>many men on major league rosters.
>The variance accounts for the gaudy stats of the greats. It does NOT prove
>that certain greats were not equally as talented as greats of today. That's
my
>distinction.
But if Walter Johnson threw as hard as today's fastballers, but faced
competition weaker than those today's pitchers face, he'd be expected
to dominate the strikeout stats the way Babe Ruth dominated power stats.
He didn't. Only twice in Johnson's 21-year career (1910, 1912) did he strike
out 0.5 batters/game more than anyone else in the league. During those
same years, there were *seven* seasons when someone else finished that
far ahead of the AL pack: Rube Waddell (1907, 1908), Dutch Leonard (1914),
Eric Erickson (1919), Guy Morton (1922) and Lefty Grove (1925, 1926).
Feller had four straight seasons of such dominance just before World War II.
In the NL, Dazzy Vance did it every year from 1922-28, while from 1900-08,
Waddell had six seasons when he struck out one full batter/game more than
anyone else in his league.
>>Assuming for argument's sake that it may have, young men of that era
>>were shorter, thinner, sicker, and less well nourished than their modern
>>counterparts.
>Except Johnson himself was 6'1, 200, Doug.
Basically the same size as Tom Seaver, who didn't throw 95 MPH despite
far more efficient mechanics, and three inches/15 lbs.smaller than Roger
Clemens, whose delivery was also more efficient than Johnson's.
Doug Pappas
DougP001
Weiss <iv...@blaze.accessone.com> writes:
>> Because nobody in that era pushed off with their legs to get the kind of
>> drive modern power pitchers rely on, and Johnson's physique (tall, wiith
>> long arms) allowed him to pitch harder than others who relied entirely
>> on their upper body for speed.
>
>Doug, I have to ask how you can make this statement with any authority? I
>mean, were you there or something? How do you back up this statement?
I have spent literally hundreds of hours reviewing microfilm accounts of
baseball in the first decades of the century without seeing *any* references
to power pitchers throwing in the "modern" style. Do you have any
evidence that they did?
By the way, the discussion of the Baseball Magazine test in Henry Thomas's
biography of Walter Johnson (his grandfather) also mentions that in June
1933 the fastballs of Van Lingle Mungo and Lefty Gomez were tested at
West Point. Mungo's fastest throw registered 113 feet per second (77
MPH); Gomez's, 111 FPS (76 MPH). Johnson was significantly faster
than these above-average pitchers of the next generation.
>> Why is it so hard for you to believe that Walter Johnson didn't throw as
>> fast as modern pitchers? By EVERY OTHER MEASURE OF ATHLETIC
>> PROWESS, today's top athletes run faster, jump higher and threw farther
>> than ever before. In 1912 the Olympic discus champ threw the discus 148'3".
>> The winning throw in 1996 was 227'8". The 1912 javelin champ threw the
>> javelin 198' 11-1'4"; the 1984 champ (last Olympics before the javelin
itself
>> was modified) hurled it 284'8". But because "baseball is special," fastball
>> pitching was immune to this evolution?
>Fallacious logic at its highest.
I'm honored, Ivan.
>"Every other measure" is not *this*
>measure. You may be correct, but you have not substantiated your
>assertions with the "evidence" you have provided.
I've backed my assertions with (1) the results of the Baseball Magazine
speed test; (2) conclusions drawn from Johnson's motion (the description
of which no one has disputed); (3) evidence from other "throwing" sports
which involve similar muscle groups, but for which an athlete's prowess
is measured on an absolute rather than a relative scale; and (4) generally
accepted data about advances in health, equipment, training, coaching,
etc. from Johnson's era to the present. I'm still waiting for you to say
something more persuasive than "I don't accept it."
If we didn't have hard data for how fast Jesse Owens ran and how far he
jumped, modern fans reading about his exploits would believe that he must
have been faster than Carl Lewis. But because we KNOW how fast he ran,
we know that even though Owens was the best sprinter and long jumper of
his era, Lewis ran faster and jumped farther. So why is it so hard to believe
that even if Walter Johnson was the fastest pitcher of his era, that doesn't
imply that his fastball would rank among the elite in OUR era?
Doug Pappas
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
>The rest of your argument amounts to "baseball is different from all other
>sports because Bob Feller once threw as hard as modern fastballers do."
>Sorry, I'm not convinced.
My use of Feller is to refute your bias that the improvements of sports
skills throughout this
century is so consistent, so dramatic, and so convincing that it is a foregone
conclusion in
all sports.
You are "not convinced" because it goes directly against your bias. Feller
throwing 100 MPH ruins your theory that the modern athlete is unquestionably
superior, or at least supports mine that not ALL of the most skilled players
who ever played are playing today.
And, you've chosen to ignore my other athletic, historical, and social ways
that baseball might really be different.
>People have "always" tried to run as fast as they can, *and* to throw
>projectiles as hard as they can. Sprinting predates baseball, even in
>America, and the world's best sprinters have been drawn from a far larger
>talent pool than the best baseball pitchers.
I doubt that is true in the United States in 1900-1936. One did not have to be
a collegian to
get scouted and drafted in baseball: track and field was (and probably to some
degree still is)
an elite sport, at least in terms of the "population argument."
>Yes, every pitcher who has entered the major leagues in recent years has
>received far more training and instruction than Johnson ever did.
Uncontestable. But did this training add much to their velocity on their
fastball?
>>My position is more radical. I really want to know what player, what
>>moment in history, marks for you the demarcation line where, WITHOUT MODERN
>>ADVANTAGES, he would be lost in the modern game.
>
>This a ridiculous rhetorical question. It's like saying "if driving 40 MPH
>is safe, and driving 100 MPH is reckless, identify the exact speed at which
>the driver crosses the boundary into recklessness." The issue here is
>the speed of Walter Johnson's fastball, not Joe Earls' crusade against
>"the ultra-modernists."
If you think you are being attacked, this might look like a holy war to you, I
guess.
But my question is perfectly straightforward, not rhetorical, though you
snipped out the possible multiple choice answers.
Johnson was the hardest throwing pitcher of his era, by all testimonial
evidence. Your K's/ IP stats, etc. worked to disprove the idea that he was --
but if he was not, then was Waddell or Grove or Vance much faster than
Johnson's measured 83 mph? That puts them into a nearly modern class of
velocity, still a full 75 years too early for the modernist continuum.
Or, if Johnson was not, how did Johnson's reputation last so long, into Grove's
career and into Feller's?
If Johnson WAS the fastest, then Waddell, Grove, and Vance were all slower
than 83 MPH, and Feller suddenly arrives and adds 15 MPH to that, and people in
Feller's era still can't decide if Johnson or Feller was the fastest of all
time? That doesn't make sense, either.
If we go back to the original question, momentarily admit that the Johnson 83
MPH figure is accurate and eliminate him as a possible pitcher in 1998, , then
I would still ask you: Could Grove have pitched successfully in 1998? Vance?
Feller? Roberts? Spahn? Koufax? Gibson? Palmer?
If you wanted to focus on Johnson, then you should have stuck to Johnson in
your original arguments, without making the sweeping "ultra-modernist"
generalizations you did about athletic skill.
You leapt in with the "continuum of athletics" arguments against Johnson. Your
use of this element invited me to enter in with my thesis that the baseball
continuum is actually different than in other sports. That is how Feller (and
most of the rest of the material in this thread) entered the argument. In
addition, I raised the the possibility that Johnson's motion may have been
MORE efficient than you give it credit for. Some people expressed interest in
that possibility.
Now, if you want to cut the argument off at Johnson at this point in the
thread, and admit that some players immediately after him (Feller, Vance, et
al) did in fact throw as efficiently and with as much velocity as modern
pitchers, then do that.
If you choose to say Johnson couldn't cut it but Vance or Feller could, then
you will have to re-structure your "continuum of sports skills" argument so
that it slopes radically differently for different sports, and admit that track
and field, due to its very high slope, is a terrible comparison to use with
baseball.
And, you need to explain why you chose the late 20's or the early 30's as the
sudden slope upwards for pitching skill.
If you choose to say neither Johnson, Vance, or Feller could make it in 1998
(despite very hard evidence that Feller could throw over 100 mph, when one
measures the ball in midflight, as radar guns do), then in my opinion you need
to explain:
a- why they could not succeed in 1998 (Or, why they were *really* still
throwing in the mid 80's??)
And, I think you also need to hypothesize for us:
b- at what point does a pitcher become "modern" enough to be effective in
1998?
You can win on Johnson, perhaps, or you can win on the others by saying the
progress of baseball skills, --for example, the progress in hitting -- is so
incremental as to be nearly imperceptible (as in Ruth to Williams to Mantle to
Frank Thomas), but I don't think you can win a baseball argument with a bias
against "old time" athletes, "proven" with "objective" data from other sports.
This is what I identify as "ultra-modernist" thinking, and I don't think it
works in any sport with much accuracy, and it is the LEAST useful in baseball,
the oldest and most gradually improved sport we have.
Napoleon said the logical outcome of defensive warfare is surrender. Nice
quote, I guess, but in this miniaturized context, I would say that the logical
conclusion of ultra-modernist thinking is that ALL players playing today are
better than ALL players who played in the past, even the most recent past. Even
not taken to that absurdity (despite it being perfectly good logic),
ultra-modernism (using track times, basketball skills, etc.) would say the
stars of 1969 (say Jackson, McCovey, and Seaver) would suffer A LOT if brought
forward to 1998. (It's 29 years, isn't it?) I am not prepared to say,
as a baseball fan, that Reggie, Stretch, and Tom Terrific would find the game
THAT much more difficult in 1998 than in 1969. Is anyone else prepared to
argue the weakness of the 1969 game versus 1998?
Admittedly, I would not speak with the same confidence about going back another
29 years. I think many players of 1940 might have real trouble -- that's my
intutive sense, and my rhetorical sense. I certainly think some players would
do just fine, EVEN WITHOUT MODERN ADJUSTMENTS OR ADVANTAGES , just on the
basis of talent, as do many rsbb'ers: Feller, Williams, DiMaggio, etc.
Other rsbb'ers would take the route Pat Mathews suggested...the "IF they could
have the advantages", ** but I just don't see the necessity for that leap of
imagination.** It's been the national pastime for a long time, and the best
athletes have almost always played it. If many of the very best were playing it
20 years ago, or 40 (Mays, or Mantle), I don't see why a few of them weren't
playing it 60 years ago (Williams and Feller) or even 80 ( Johnson or Ruth).
Given that we assume a gradual increase in the skill of the AVERAGE player, the
fact that the further back one goes, the more extreme the stats become, (the
400 wins, the .406 average) seems to suggest an upper limit on talent, broken
through by only the most remarkable players: Williams averaging .344 in the
modern era, McGwire suddenly hitting homers at a now 4 year historic rate, and
Ruth's entire career, and, yes, Johnson's career.
Anyway, all of this seems to make more baseball sense then comparing track and
field times from 1912, 1936, 1948, 1968, or 1976, and positing that baseball
players have progressed at the same rate track men have, and therefore,
"oldtimers" talents are worth praising only in comparison to their own "era."
I know some ultra-modernists are devoted fans, but I think the line of logic
that I describe above is not only faulty, but an insult to players of the past,
and runs the danger of spreading among non-fans because it is so easy to pass
on as an unexamined bias. I think it looks very convincing on the surface,
until people look at it on a sport by sport, case by case basis, and find that
different sports have different slopes. And baseball has the lowest, longest
slope of all.
This is the "ultra-modern" paragraph from Doug's first post: this is the bias I
oppose.
> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
> Johnson be any different?
The generalization that modern athletes are better overall is so unspecific
that it is virtually useless, and possibly harmful to fan and non-fan alike.
In the case of baseball, I think it leads to strikingly inaccurate conclusions.
I argue against the bias because when it is applied to baseball, like most
biases, it yields more falsehoods than truths. Concerning the talents of
old-time players vs. modern players, as with most complex questions, the
answers are mixed and the evidence mounts and is sifted on each side.
I think Walter Johnson (and all old-time players) deserve more than a faulty
syllogism, especially from baseball fans -- of which I know Doug is one, and I
another.
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
>
>By the way, the discussion of the Baseball Magazine test in Henry Thomas's
>biography of Walter Johnson (his grandfather) also mentions that in June
>1933 the fastballs of Van Lingle Mungo and Lefty Gomez were tested at
>West Point. Mungo's fastest throw registered 113 feet per second (77
>MPH); Gomez's, 111 FPS (76 MPH). Johnson was significantly faster
>than these above-average pitchers of the next generation.
Mungo and Gomez were WELL above average, Doug. Mungo is occasionally named as
one of "testimonial" "hardest throwers of all time. And so, Feller's 98.6
becomes really a remarkable leap forward, doesn't it? As demonstrated by his
equally striking leap forward in strikeouts per IP.
>>"Every other measure" is not *this*
>>measure. You may be correct, but you have not substantiated your
>>assertions with the "evidence" you have provided.
>
>I've backed my assertions with (1) the results of the Baseball Magazine
>speed test;
Interesting data, for sure. Whether it is as accurate as the 1912 test, or the
1946 test on Feller, or
a modern radar gun, is debatable, but it certainly is interesting. One can
therefore gather where
Johnson got the reputation as being the fastest pitcher of all time, if his
"record" was still not being
surpassed in 1933, if it was "set" in 1912.
(2) conclusions drawn from Johnson's motion (the description
>of which no one has disputed);
I suggested it might be more efficient, not less, than you might credit him
with.
(3) evidence from other "throwing" sports
>which involve similar muscle groups, but for which an athlete's prowess
>is measured on an absolute rather than a relative scale;
Except these are sports where there is a limited population participation,
rapid advances in technique, the "threshold" factor, radical improvement in
conditions -- all of which don't apply to baseball nearly as well, in my
opinion, Doug.
Finally, as I say in my longer post, (already sent) at what point do these
"athletic advances" stop applying to baseball as effectively as they do to
track and field? If you want to analogize from 1912, then what about 1968 or
1976 or even 1980? When does the parallel progression stop, in baseball terms?
Roger Moore
> I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw
off
> his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no
way
> anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power
pitcher.
I don't know about that. For one thing, every clip of Johnson's
pitching that I've seen has been of him warming up, rather than
throwing in an actual game, so I'm not sure if his motion wouldn't have
been a bit different. For another thing, one of the most common
comments about Johnson's motion was how deceptive it was; it didn't
look as if he could possibly throw the ball as fast as he did. Most
importantly, people who watched both Johnson and Feller pitch,
including players who batted against both of them, rated their speed as
being similar. That might very well mean that Johnson was a bit
slower, although most of the people who made such comparisons felt that
he was a bit faster, but it seems tough to accept that he was 10-15 mph
slower.
> The December 1912 *Baseball Magazine* reports on a test to measure
> the speed of Johnson's fastball. He was electrically timed at 122
feet
> per second, or 83 MPH. Nap Rucker, himself an above-average pitcher,
> was timed at 113 FPS. Since the electrical timing measured the speed
> of the ball between a fixed point in front of the mound and the
plate, it
> may slightly understate Johnson's velocity due to the slowing-down
effect
> you note, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that Johnson's fastball broke 90.
I don't know about this, either. A number of factors suggest that the
test substantially underestimated his speed. He was wearing street
clothes and street shoes rather than a uniform and spikes, which can't
have helped his speed any. The target was a tube full of wires set at
shoulder height, which forced him to adjust his delivery somewhat to
get the pitch into the measuring apparatus. Most importantly, he
wasn't throwing off a mound, which is well known to boost speed by
something like 7 mph over throwing from a flat surface. I can easily
believe that the combination of factors cost him 10-15 mph over what he
would have registered using a radar gun.
--
Roger Moore r...@alumni.caltech.edu
Master of Meaningless Trivia http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~raj/
(626) 585-0144
"They are a great band, these armored knights of bat and ball...
While baseball remains our national game, our national tasest will
be higher and our national ideals on a finer foundation."
Calvin Coolidge
Ben Flieger
JEarls21 wrote in message
>Mungo and Gomez were WELL above average, Doug. Mungo is occasionally
named as
>one of "testimonial" "hardest throwers of all time. And so, Feller's
98.6
>becomes really a remarkable leap forward, doesn't it? As demonstrated
by his
>equally striking leap forward in strikeouts per IP.
Feller was a freak, pure and simple. Without baseball, could've made
his living throwing rocks very hard at the circus. Ryan was also a
freak.
>>I've backed my assertions with (1) the results of the Baseball
Magazine
>>speed test;
>
>Interesting data, for sure. Whether it is as accurate as the 1912
test, or the
>1946 test on Feller, or
>a modern radar gun, is debatable, but it certainly is interesting.
One can
>therefore gather where
>Johnson got the reputation as being the fastest pitcher of all time,
if his
>"record" was still not being
>surpassed in 1933, if it was "set" in 1912.
>
> (2) conclusions drawn from Johnson's motion (the description
>>of which no one has disputed);
>
>I suggested it might be more efficient, not less, than you might
credit him
>with.
No, you offered information about karate or something. As you are so
wont to point out, baseball is different.
I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion, but Joe's Johnson
argument makes Weisberg's Ty Cobb SB argument seem well-thought out
and logical. James had data that backed up some of his claims, you
have testimonials that is in direct conflict with actual evidence.
Your argument essentially is: "We must ignore the empirical
evidence(the 1912 test) because otherwise it contradicts me. People
thought Johnson was fast, people thought Feller was fast. Therefore
Johnson threw as hard as Feller."
People also though Joe Carter was a productive player and that the
1998 Baltimore Orioles had a good team. Testimonials are worth
nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been,
Ben Flieger
Joseph S Sherman wrote in message <35b665bc...@news.ucla.edu>...
> All I can say is Wow! Imagine someone so good that he can
>set the strike-out record for sure _if he wants to_. But he chooses
>not to in order to save his arm- and my guess is he pitched just as
>(or nearly as) effectively as if he went for the strike-out record.
Ty Cobb sure was a good player.
Roger Moore
> dmar...@merle.acns.nwu.edu (David Andrew Leonardo Marasco) wrote:
> >From the Chicago Defender, June 1, 1913
> >"Walter Johnson, the great pitcher of the Washington team, will not
> >attempt to make a strike-out record this season. Johnson believes
> >that the strain on his arm is too great and will endeavor to save
the
> >member as much as it is possible to do so."
> >
> >Perhaps WJ's pitching motion was one he found to maximize innings,
not
> >velocity.
> >
>
> All I can say is Wow! Imagine someone so good that he can
> set the strike-out record for sure _if he wants to_. But he chooses
> not to in order to save his arm- and my guess is he pitched just as
> (or nearly as) effectively as if he went for the strike-out record.
Given that his 1913 season has to recieve strong consideration as the
greatest single season ever, that seems pretty likely. He might well
have been able to set the modern record for K's in a season (Waddel set
it with 349) given that he had thrown 313 in 1910 and 303 in 1912. It
seems likely that he really did make a deliberate change in his
pitching style at that point, since he never got within 60 K's of his
1912 total for the rest of his career. He still managed to lead the AL
10 more times, though, so he must have been doing something pretty damn
impressive to get all those K's.
David Marc Nieporent
Joseph S Sherman <jshe...@ucla.edu> claimed:
[...]
>>From the Chicago Defender, June 1, 1913
>>"Walter Johnson, the great pitcher of the Washington team, will not
>>attempt to make a strike-out record this season. Johnson believes
>>that the strain on his arm is too great and will endeavor to save the
>>member as much as it is possible to do so."
>>Perhaps WJ's pitching motion was one he found to maximize innings, not
>>velocity.
> All I can say is Wow! Imagine someone so good that he can
>set the strike-out record for sure _if he wants to_.
Ty Cobb?
>But he chooses
>not to in order to save his arm- and my guess is he pitched just as
>(or nearly as) effectively as if he went for the strike-out record.
--
David M. Nieporent "Mr. Simpson, don't you worry. I
niep...@alumni.princeton.edu watched Matlock in a bar last night.
2L - St. John's School of Law The sound wasn't on, but I think I
Roberto Petagine Appreciation Society got the gist of it." -- L. Hutz
mike...@my-dejanews.com
> Whatever time you want to put on this "generation", you want us to accept
> that 15 MPH got added to the best fastball for no specific reason besides
some
> vague sense of progress cited above, and the test you cite below? The Johnson
> test I can't refute, but find it irreconcilable to my arguments and so must
> weigh it as troubling but not persuasive evidence.
What this amounts to is that you're not willing to accept the Johnson test
*because it doesn't agree with your beliefs*. When the evidence doesn't fit
your theory you need to find a new theory, not new evidence. Why should the
Feller test be reliable and the Johnson one wildly off? Certainly it's hard
to reconcile the two but unless you can find reasonable grounds to impeach
one test both sides of the argument must do so.
A Nap Rucker test of 78 MPH was mentioned previously in the thread. Anybody
have any details?
> Sorry to have been unclear: i know that you, and most rsbb'ers, would say
that
> given modern advantages, most of the stars could adjust and do well in
today's
> game. My position is more radical. I really want to know what player, what
> moment in history, marks for you the demarcation line where, WITHOUT MODERN
> ADVANTAGES, he would be lost in the modern game.
> Well, the point of my question was to get your answer to the "drop off"
> question exactly. The answer is, then, Walter Johnson? Feller would be all
> right in today's game? Dizzy Dean? Lefty Grove? So the drop off point is
> around 1925?
There wouldn't be a sharp line, right? We're talking about a very slow change
building up over a century. Style of play would matter too. Umpires seem to
call a very tight strike zone currently. Maybe pitchers from the past who had
good control would adapt easily but ones who had control problems couldn't
survive at all.
Has anybody considered bat weights? Everybody agrees bats have gotten lighter
and lighter. Yet the ball will travel further when hit with a heavy bat (at
least according to The Physics of Baseball). Doesn't that suggest modern
players need quicker swings?
What about mound heights? I know they were lowered after '68. I've heard the
rule wasn't even really enforced before that. Unfortunately I don't know how
much of an advantage that would be.
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
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mike...@my-dejanews.com
> >From the Chicago Defender, June 1, 1913
> >"Walter Johnson, the great pitcher of the Washington team, will not
> >attempt to make a strike-out record this season. Johnson believes
> >that the strain on his arm is too great and will endeavor to save the
> >member as much as it is possible to do so."
> >
> >Perhaps WJ's pitching motion was one he found to maximize innings, not
> >velocity.
> >
>
> All I can say is Wow! Imagine someone so good that he can
> not to in order to save his arm- and my guess is he pitched just as
> (or nearly as) effectively as if he went for the strike-out record.
Well, trying for a strikeout isn't always the best thing for a pitcher to do.
Greg Maddux being a case in point.
mike...@my-dejanews.com
I have a serious problem with your argument. The first is that, while you may
be able to argue against any single reason for change in athletic ability, I
haven't seen you offer a reason why baseball *shouldn't* have changed. What
forces could have held play exactly steady for a full century? Why would
nutrition and weight training have *absolutely no* effect? Why would hitting
and pitching coaches have learned *no new techniques* at all?
JEarls21
writes:
Ben,
No thanks at all for failing to read an entire thread closely, or for your
insulting and transparent tone.
Your evident failure to read the hardest data on the thread, the Feller test,
discredits you -- as if your tone itself would not.
I leave your misunderstanding and attempted "re-stating" of my position at the
end of the post. For your edification (if you actually care about this thread),
I'll restate at least the part of my argument which you are having trouble
with.
1- Feller threw over 100 MPH in 1946* (see data below),
A new book "When the Boys Came Back" by Fredrick Turner (Holt) relates
the story of measuring Feller's fastball more accurately
Contrary to what is sometimes heard, the instrument used to measure
Feller's fastball on August 20, 1946, was not flimsy, low tech, or (insert
derogatory adjective here.) It was an Army photographic device designed to
measure the velocity of shells, "accurate to within .0001 second" p 187.
Feller threw five pitches: the last hit the side of the machine and broke
it. Feller's second pitch was clocked at 98.6 MPH when it crossed home
plate, where the device was. "Subsequent calculations show that when
leaving his hand the ball was traveling at 107 MPH." (This fits with the
earlier post quoting Adair's "Physics of Baseball", that the pitch loses
about 10 MPH getting to homeplate.
Given the above post then, in modern terms, Feller would be at 107 on the
"fast gun", 98.6 on the the slow gun, and about 104 on the composite gun.
That's as fast or faster than anyone, even Ryan's recorded 102 (I don't
know what gun measured that) or other pitchers mentioned.
....end of previous quote
Your only response to this is "Feller was a freak." That's not a very helpful
statement, Ben.
2- On a nearby post, Roger raises the possibility that the Johnson and
Mingo/Gomez tests are
less than accurate and were likely to underrate Johnson's speed.
3- Many people found Feller and Johnson at least comparable, and they were only
separated by as
little as 11 years, or, for the sake of easier rhetoric, call it 20
(Johnson's last excellent year was 1925, at age 38, his last strikeout leading
season was 1924. Feller's rookie year was 1936.) I know that is an awkward
fact. though, like Doug, you could have answered it with attentiveness and
authority.
## Conclusion: At this time, despite the evidence Doug presents about the
tests, I have trouble believing that a full 15- 17 MPH separated Johnson and
Feller, and because the test on Feller is so accurate, I would be inclined to
believe Johnson was closer to 95 MPH than to 80, and certainly closer to 90 MPH
than he was to 80 MPH ##
Your response is:
>People also though Joe Carter was a productive player and that the
>1998 Baltimore Orioles had a good team. Testimonials are worth
>nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been,
Testimonials are worth nothing at all, then? We know they aren't worth very
MUCH, in certain contexts, on rsbb, but they certainly have value in the
American legal system. Or, if we asked 600 major league ballplayers who hit the
longest homers and 597 of them said "Mark McGwire", and I found that list 20
years from now, wouldn't that list be more convincing than a scrap of paper
from a McWeekly "Tale of the Tape", dated 1998? ( We know there is a lot of
dispute about the accuracy of those measurements, too.)
Or, if Doug found a list of people who said "Feller is so much faster than
anyone who has come before, it is not even close", that evidence would be
worth "nothing"? (Actually, that evidence would have a decent amount of weight
-- but it isn't there, is it?) The testimonial evidence that Ruth hit more
LONG homeruns than anyone of his time is worth "nothing"?
Pretty feeble, Ben.
More feeble is your willingness to admit that the 1912 test "may have been
inaccurate". Well, if you are going to jump in on a thread you are having
trouble following, and, especially, if you are going to adopt a condescending
tone, I would at least have some have faith in your evidence, even if Doug
found it for you.
Doug: also used ....." conclusions drawn from Johnson's motion (the description
of which no one has disputed);"
JE: I suggested it might be more efficient, not less, than you might credit him
with.
>>: No, you offered information about karate or something. As you are so wont
to point out, baseball is different.
Another misreading by you, Ben. I suggested to Doug that Johnson's motion
a- doesn't prove for me that he was incapable of throwing extremely fast
b- may be unorthodox enough to be worth studying, not dismissing
>>I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion,
You just did -- unless you want me to ignore such a shallow and overtly
personal post, in which case, you probably should not have posted.
There certainly is something about this "oldtimer", "modernism",
"ultra/modernism" topic that brings out strong emotion quickly (Would that
explain why even though you didn't WANT to get involved in a post about
modernism, you did anyway?) . I really hate being defensive or sarcastic on a
post. I would appreciate being read more carefully next time.
Joe Earls
>>JEarls21 wrote in message
>>. And so, Feller's 98.6becomes really a remarkable leap forward, doesn't it?
As demonstrated
>>by his equally striking leap forward in strikeouts per IP.
BF: >Feller was a freak, pure and simple. Without baseball, could've made
>his living throwing rocks very hard at the circus. Ryan was also a freak.
BF: but Joe's Johnson
>argument makes Weisberg's Ty Cobb SB argument seem well-thought out
>and logical. James had data that backed up some of his claims, you
>have testimonials that is in direct conflict with actual evidence.
>
>Your argument essentially is: "We must ignore the empirical
>evidence(the 1912 test) because otherwise it contradicts me. People
>thought Johnson was fast, people thought Feller was fast. Therefore
>Johnson threw as hard as Feller."
"The greater the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."
My father's favorite.
ddr...@imap1.asu.edu
: I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion, but Joe's Johnson
: argument makes Weisberg's Ty Cobb SB argument seem well-thought out
: and logical. James had data that backed up some of his claims, you
: have testimonials that is in direct conflict with actual evidence.
: Your argument essentially is: "We must ignore the empirical
: evidence(the 1912 test) because otherwise it contradicts me. People
: thought Johnson was fast, people thought Feller was fast. Therefore
: Johnson threw as hard as Feller."
With all due respect, Ben, are you paying any attention at all?
Doug P tells you that he read in a magazine that Johnson was clocked at
83. Is that all it takes for you? Did you even go to DejaNews and read
the details?
Even without knowing anything about it, there are IMO lots of reasons to
be skeptical.
: People also though Joe Carter was a productive player and that the
: 1998 Baltimore Orioles had a good team. Testimonials are worth
: nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been,
Complete crap. Your statement represents irresponsible statheadism run
amok. If you asked 100 people (fans, media, insiders, whatever) whether
Frank Thomas is a better hitter than Mark Lemke, 100 of them would've said
yes. If testimonials were really "worth nothing," you'd expect 50/50. If
you asked those 100 whether the Yankees would finish ahead of the Devil
Rays, 100 would've said yes. That's not useless, it's a *strong*
indication that the Yankees are going to finish ahead of the Devil Rays.
Just because testimonials/opinions can sometimes be wrong (JC, the O's)
does not mean that they are never right. In a case like this one where
the only objective evidence is far from perfect (see Roger Moore's post in
this thread), then you've got no right to get involved in the discussion
if you're not going to consider other kinds of arguments.
This is a really strange thread. Doug P and Joe E are both IMO doing a
great job of backing up their viewpoints, and I'm enjoying the heck out of
it. Meanwhile we've had one person on each side come in and say that one
of the arguments was worthless. For whatever it's worth to Joe and Doug,
I stand in strong disagreement with both Ivan Weiss and Ben Flieger.
Doug
James Weisberg
DougP001 <doug...@aol.com> wrote:
>I have spent literally hundreds of hours reviewing microfilm accounts of
>baseball in the first decades of the century without seeing *any* references
>to power pitchers throwing in the "modern" style. Do you have any
>evidence that they did?
Time to get into this fray with some observations of my own.
Of all Doug's points, the pitching motion argument is the most
relevant to the speed here. Whether it makes a 10-15mph difference
seems a bit extreme though. Doug, I think you should at least
delineate the conditions under which Johnson performed those
tests. This subject has come up before and IIRC, Johnson was
not in uniform, nor was he throwing off a mound. That makes a
absolutely *huge* difference. The drive off the mound with your
legs, is extremely important. You yourself made that point in
discussing the "modern" style.
And speaking of this style, I think some more should be said
on that. If you watch a lot of tape of old-time pitchers, even
some after WWII, you will see a lot of herky-jerky motion, a
long windup, high leg kicks, and a whole manner of juxtapositions
whose aim were more deceptive than focused. All that energy
being applied in different directions doesn't help focus the
energy being directed at delivering a ball to the plate at its
utmost speed. If you picture a guy rocking his body back and
forth at the mound, raising and lowering his hands, and then
in a rush, hurling the ball to the plate, this might not be
the best way to get the ball there the quickest. The reason
is that the legs are not used as effectively. The upper torso
is too far out in front by the time the legs push off the
mound and the arm swings around and delivers the ball. No
one uses that motion anymore. Pitchers today drive off the
mound with their legs and don't waste a lot of motion on
strange contortions and herky-jerky delivery.
However, I don't like comparing throwing a baseball to
other athletic endeavors like running a mile, or throwing a
javelin, or something like that which of course have been
done much better by today's athletes.
My reasoning is pretty simple, and it's an argument I have
made before: arm strength does not equate to arm speed.
Arm *speed* is what speeds the ball to the plate. One
doesn't have to be ultra-strong to throw a baseball fast.
One doesn't have to be a modern athlete to have arm speed.
I highly doubt Nolan Ryan's arm speed was significantly
faster than Walter Johnson's. However, Ryan's mechanics
and his leg strength (used to push off the mound) were
probably much superior to Walter Johnson's. I have a hard time
believing the difference between Johnson and Ryan was as
much as 15mph, but I do think the mechanical differences
and the differences in leg strength (not arm strength) could
account for about 8-10mph.
--
World's Greatest Living Poster
James Weisberg
JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> wrote:
> A new book "When the Boys Came Back" by Fredrick Turner (Holt) relates
> the story of measuring Feller's fastball more accurately
>
> Contrary to what is sometimes heard, the instrument used to measure
> Feller's fastball on August 20, 1946, was not flimsy, low tech, or (insert
> derogatory adjective here.) It was an Army photographic device designed to
> measure the velocity of shells, "accurate to within .0001 second" p 187.
[snip]
Just a short note here. I'm often amused by some people's
skepticism about the accuracy of instruments 50yrs ago. Around
the same time the Army was checking out the speed of Bob Feller's
fastball, the United States was dropping atomic bombs on cities,
working out further details of theories of relativity and the
physics of the atom, and experimenting with jet engine design.
All of these things required some pretty sophisticated and
accurate measuring devices. Finding the speed of a thrown
baseball somewhere in its flight doesn't sound so difficult
compared to some of the other technology being developed. I
have no doubt Bob Fellar was throwing in the upper 90s.
JEarls21
I put in a lot of time on this thread and am leaving for a festival for the
weekend, so I wanted to let people know that I wouldn't be around for a
response if they responded to me, and, rather selfishly, I wanted to import
Roger Moore's information about the test Doug Pappas cites concerning Johnson's
speed as part of what I think is my final post on this topic.
I also wanted to get my final position out from where it was imbedded, in a
rather caustic post to Ben Flieger, into my more objective voice.
First, In a broad but essential sense , (and in a way that took up most of the
material on the post), I don't feel that one can draw convincing conclusions
about baseball abilities from analogies to other sports. Although I believe in
the overall superiority of the modern player and recognize the strongly
emotional nature of this branch of the baseball argument, the particular
thesis that generalizes from other sports is, to my mind, not prudently applied
to baseball. To do so, with the broadest swath, I have called the
"ultra-modern" bias, and have thus argued that * each* sport has its own slope
of development, with baseball's being the longest and slowest.
(Problematically, I think the "objective" (i.e. timed) sports have the HIGHEST
slopes, wheres a sport like basketball, for example, may have risen sharply
much LATER than baseball ( during the late 50's and 60's) and may actually be
near a plateau for the last 15-20 years or so.)
This "ultra-modern" bias was a major part of Doug's original thesis (though not
his only argument) that Johnson couldn't have thrown in the 90 MPH range, so I
addressed it, even though it is a very tangled path and I found myself
repeating ideas from previous threads ("Thomas vs. Ruth", etc.) The
investigation of the *baseball * slope is potentially very fruitful , one that
deserves at least one FAQ, but I merely precis the distinction here between the
"all-sport, ultra-modern" bias and an exclusively baseball-oriented one..
In regard to Johnson specifically, my conclusion is the same as Roger's:
# Conclusion: At this time, despite the evidence Doug presents about the
tests, I have trouble believing that a full 15- 17 MPH separated Johnson and
Feller, and because the test on Feller is so credible, I would be inclined to
believe Johnson was closer to 95 MPH than to 80, and certainly closer to 90
MPH than he was to 80 MPH, or the 83 Doug cites on the test. #
This conclusion is based on three premises.
1- Feller threw 98-105 miles an hour in 1946, and probably did in 1936 when he
came up.
2- The test that measured Johnson at 83 MPH was flawed by several factor.
Roger's
argument that it was flawed is immediately below, imported from his post.
Roger Moore: A number of factors suggest that the
test substantially underestimated his speed. He was wearing street
clothes and street shoes rather than a uniform and spikes, which can't
have helped his speed any. The target was a tube full of wires set at
shoulder height, which forced him to adjust his delivery somewhat to
get the pitch into the measuring apparatus. Most importantly, he
wasn't throwing off a mound, which is well known to boost speed by
something like 7 mph over throwing from a flat surface. I can easily
believe that the combination of factors cost him 10-15 mph over what he
would have registered using a radar gun.
3-Finally, no matter how lightly you take testimonial evidence, there is no
testimonial evidence that anyone has produced saying that Bob Feller in 1936
was 10-15 MPH faster than Walter Johnson (at age 38) in 1925. As I once read
Gary Huckaby write, very small increments of speed are quite noticeable, from
pitcher to pitcher, or even in the batting cage. The two pitchers appeared in
the majors less than 11 seasons apart ( the distance between now and 1987, or
Johnson's last 20 game season 1925 and Feller's rookie year) ) and no one has
yet quoted testimony that could be read as proving or even suggesting that
Feller was unquestionably faster, never mind 10-15 MPH faster.
And that also doesn't credit what velocity Johnson might have lost with age.
Most people would believe, accept, be comfortable with saying Nolan Ryan (or
Feller, or someone else in our future) was 4-7 MPH faster than anyone
previously, but how can anyone believe the figure might be as high as 10-15
MPH? I can' t.
The evidence concerning Feller's test, and a brief but repeated defense of
using "testimonial" evidence in this case both follow, but I put them below
the signature, as each has been posted before. The testimonial argument, in
particular, ask readers to pay close attention to the timeline of the players'
careers, and to ask them to imagine that in 1936, or in 1946, Walter Johnson
had not reached the status of "romanticized legend". In 1936, Johnson had been
out of the game for a shorter time than Tom Seaver has been now, and Johnson
was a better "old" pitcher than Seaver was: their memory had to stretch only as
far as 1924 to find Johnson the best pitcher in the AL. This goes against
the time warp that some people enter when discussing deadball players in
particular, and sometimes older players in general,, and why players whose
careers span into the 20's are especially helpful in holding a clear sense of
baseball's development in place.
Joe Earls
About the Feller test:
>1- Feller threw over 100 MPH in 1946* (see data below),
> A new book "When the Boys Came Back" by Fredrick Turner (Holt) relates
> the story of measuring Feller's fastball more accurately
>
> Contrary to what is sometimes heard, the instrument used to measure
> Feller's fastball on August 20, 1946, was not flimsy, low tech, or
> (insert derogatory adjective here.) It was an Army photographic device
designed
> to measure the velocity of shells, "accurate to within .0001 second" p
187.
>
> Feller threw five pitches: the last hit the side of the machine and
> broke it. Feller's second pitch was clocked at 98.6 MPH when it
crossed home
> plate, where the device was. "Subsequent calculations show that when
> leaving his hand the ball was traveling at 107 MPH." (This fits with
> the earlier post quoting Adair's "Physics of Baseball", that the pitch
loses
> about 10 MPH getting to homeplate.
>
> Given the above post then, in modern terms, Feller would be at 107 on
> the "fast gun", 98.6 on the the slow gun, and about 104 on the composite
gun.
>
> That's as fast or faster than anyone, even Ryan's recorded 102 (I don't
> know what gun measured that) or other pitchers mentioned.
> ....end of previous quote
About "testimonial evidence" in this case:
2- Many people found Feller and Johnson at least comparable, and they were
>only separated by as little as 11 years, or, for the sake of easier rhetoric,
call it 20
>(Johnson's last excellent year was 1925, at age 38, his last strikeout
>leading season was 1924. Feller's rookie year was 1936.)
We know testimonials aren't worth very MUCH, in certain contexts, on rsbb,
but they certainly have some value in the. Or, if we asked 600 major league
ballplayers
who hit the longest homers and 597 of them said "Mark McGwire", and I found
that list 20
>years from now, wouldn't that list be more convincing than a scrap of paper
>from a McWeekly "Tale of the Tape", dated 1998? ( We know there is a lot of
>dispute about the accuracy of those measurements, too.)
>
>Or, if Doug found a list of people who said "Feller is so much faster than
>anyone who has come before, it is not even close", that evidence would be
>worth "nothing"? (Actually, that evidence would have a decent amount of
>weight -- but it isn't there, is it?) The testimonial evidence that Ruth hit
more
>LONG homeruns than anyone of his time is worth "nothing"?
James Weisberg
DougP001 <doug...@aol.com> wrote:
>>2-The second argument is historical. Baseball, if it has "matured", seems to
>>have gotten off to a much earlier start than almost any other sport, and if
>>there is a slope to the line of improvement, it is very flat, compared to
>>basketball, for example.
>
>But there IS a slope, which is the whole point. The variance among today's
>players is far less than it was in Johnson's era, even though there are
>twice as many men on major league rosters.
Just to pick at a point here, but I don't buy that variance
argument. The variance between the top player and the league
average players measured by the PRO+ stat in Total Baseball
seems fairly consistent across the eras. There are no Babe
Ruths, but there are guys consistently scoring in the 180-200
range in adjusted production. In my own study of deadball/
liveball era regulars (not necessarily league average but
guys who had careers with at least 400Abs for 3yrs in the
deadball/liveball era), the differences in offensive totals
were not highly variable from era to era:
Deadball Player Yrs G AB H 2B 3B HR BB SB AVG OBP SLG
186 400abs/3yrs 12.5 1383 5025 1405 211 85 34 449 209 .280 .339 .376
Liveball Player Yrs G AB H 2B 3B HR BB SB AVG OBP SLG
116 400abs/3yrs 15.0 1708 5903 1608 274 46 148 567 163 .272 .336 .410
The SLG difference is there, as to be expected, but
I don't see a great variance from the league's best player
of any particular era to that era's league average; nor do
I see a great variance from the regular player one era
compared to the other. So I remain unconvinced that the
variance between someone like Mark McGwire and Ozzie Guillen
is "far less" than the difference between someone like Ty
Cobb and a Claude Rossman. The restrictive forces of the
deadball era might well prevent that variance in the first
place -- because there just weren't that many bases to be had!
Ty Cobb hit safely at an alarming rate, but he didn't rack
up bases at a greater variance as Mark McGwire does over
league average competition, simply because McGwire collects
a lot of bases at once with his home runs (or he walks at
an alarming pace because no one wants to pitch to him).
No one pitched around Ty Cobb, because no one wanted him
on base where he could do more damage.
Ivan Weiss
> >"Every other measure" is not *this*
> >measure. You may be correct, but you have not substantiated your
> >assertions with the "evidence" you have provided.
>
> of which no one has disputed); (3) evidence from other "throwing" sports
> accepted data about advances in health, equipment, training, coaching,
> etc. from Johnson's era to the present. I'm still waiting for you to say
> something more persuasive than "I don't accept it."
Bless your heart, Doug, but IMO your evidence "may indicate" but does not
"conclude" that your assumptions are correct. In track and field we have
the clock and the tape measure, pretty low-tech measuring tools, pretty
accurate from the turn of the 20th century, no? Measuring the speed of a
fastball is a little more dodgy in the time frame we're dealing with. I'm
reasonably certain we can agree on that (I hope).
Remember, I'm not saying "No, you're wrong." I'm saying "We don't know,
but we can guess." But guessing is not concluding.
> If we didn't have hard data for how fast Jesse Owens ran and how far he
> jumped, modern fans reading about his exploits would believe that he must
> have been faster than Carl Lewis. But because we KNOW how fast he ran,
> we know that even though Owens was the best sprinter and long jumper of
> his era, Lewis ran faster and jumped farther. So why is it so hard to believe
> that even if Walter Johnson was the fastest pitcher of his era, that doesn't
> imply that his fastball would rank among the elite in OUR era?
Right. It doesn't imply that his fastball would be among the fastest in
OUR era. But it doen't imply that it wouldn't be, either.
So I went to the bookshelf and came up with this (Oh no, the A Word!)
anecdote. This is from "Tales From the Dugout" by Mike Shannon (not the
ex-Cardinal, this is SABR's Mike Shannon). It's an interview with Herman
(Flea) Clifton, reserve infielder for the Detroit Tigers, 1934-1937:
(Begin Clifton)
"The first time we played the Cleveland Indians during my rookie year, I
went out to watch the Indians take batting practice. I wanted to see them
hit because they had some people who could swing the bat . . . Hal
Trosky, Earl Averill, Sam Rice, Joe Vosmik.
"Well, I was sitting there in our dugout, and to my surprise these guys
weren't hitting nothing. This big old plowboy was out there pitching, and
the Indians could hardly hit a foul tip off him, in batting practice.
This plowboy was throwing with a nice and easy sidearm motion, but the
ball was just exploding up to the plate.
"Our manager, Mickey Cochrane, and one of his coaches, Cy Perkins, came
into the dugout, so I said to them, 'Who's that plowboy out there
pitching? The Indians can't even hit a foul ball off him.'
"Cochrane looked at Perkins, and Perkins looked at Cochrane, and then
they both laughed. 'You don't know who that is?' asked Cochrane.
" 'No, I don't. That's why I'm asking you,' I said.
" 'That's Walter Johnson,' Cochrane said.
" 'Walter Johnson!' I said. "He's the Cleveland manager; he's got to be
almost 50 years old; and his own pitchers don't throw that fast!'
" 'And I'm damn glad they don't,' said Cochrane."
(end Clifton)
Now I'm not getting into the Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox (or Ty
Cobb) stuff here. But let's assume, for the sake of discussion, and for
the monent only, that Clifton's account is accurate. I get a couple
things from this:
1) The year is 1934. Lefy Grove's best season is behind him, Grove is 34
years old, and if his fastball at this stage of his career is still at
max velocity, at least we may reasonably assume it isn't getting any
faster. Now you have, IIRC, assumed Grove is a quantum leap over Johnson
in velocity. Maybe someone could check Grove 1934 and see if *he* was
blowing the Indians away in games as Clifton *says* Johnson did in BP.
I'm not saying this *proves* anything. I find it interesting in the given
context, is all.
2) Notice Clifton's mention of Johnson's "nice and easy sidearm motion."
No one has disputed your *description* of Johnson's motion, true, only
the causal inference you draw from your observations. Can it be, and can
you state authoritatively to the contrary, that Johnson was,
physiologically and kinesthesiologically (whew!) the 1 in 10,000 who
*could* get maximum leverage and maximum velocity from such a delivery
that *would* give him a 95+ mph fastball?
We have these discussions all the time on rec.sport.boxing. The human
body is capable of things that no reasonable assumption would allow for.
I'm not claiming Johnson *did* have a 95+ fastball. I don't know. Your
assumption may be entirely correct, and for the reasons you state. But
you don't know, either.
--
Ivan Weiss "Then dropping a barbell, he points to the sky
Vashon WA and says the sun's not yellow, it's chicken"
JEarls21
writes:
>The upper torso is too far out in front by the time the legs push off the
>mound and the arm swings around and delivers the ball. No
>one uses that motion anymore. Pitchers today drive off the
>mound with their legs and don't waste a lot of motion on
>strange contortions and herky-jerky delivery.
>
James,
I wonder if
a- this is what the advertisement from the pitching school in McWeekly is
about: that possibly the legs are being used improperly *now.* I know that is
a stretch, and I am not going to bet the farm on this one pitching school, but
it caught my eye
.
b- Even if your overall description of deadball pitchers is right, one thing it
seems NO one ever accused Johnson of was being herky jerky.
Seems "deceptive" and "smooth" or "deceptively smooth" keep coming up
instead.
> However, I don't like comparing throwing a baseball to
>other athletic endeavors like running a mile, or throwing a
>javelin, or something like that which of course have been
>done much better by today's athletes.
> My reasoning is pretty simple, and it's an argument I have
>made before: arm strength does not equate to arm speed.
> Arm *speed* is what speeds the ball to the plate. One
>doesn't have to be ultra-strong to throw a baseball fast.
>One doesn't have to be a modern athlete to have arm speed.
>I highly doubt Nolan Ryan's arm speed was significantly
>faster than Walter Johnson's. However, Ryan's mechanics
>and his leg strength (used to push off the mound) were
>probably much superior to Walter Johnson's. I have a hard time
>believing the difference between Johnson and Ryan was as
>much as 15mph, but I do think the mechanical differences
>and the differences in leg strength (not arm strength) could
>account for about 8-10mph.
Again,
a: I'll take Johnson being 8 MPH slower than Ryan: that puts him at 94 or so
;-)
b: Your hand/ arm speed arguments are backed up by small men who throw very
fast -- Martinez,
Guidry, Tom Hall ( the Minnesota "blade" from the 70's who weighed about
155.)
c: Perhaps my "martial arts" discussion with Johnson was too obscure to follow
or for me to elaborate on well -- it was just to get people to consider the
possibility that Johnson had some secrets about how to throw hard, and that the
manifestation of those secrets was in an ease of delivery and in an undeniably
fast pitch.
For clarity, I also often think of hand/arm speed in pitching as being
comparable to clubhead
speed in golf
.
1- The trick which very few of us know (unless we hit it 270+) has to
do with smoothness,
not strength. We weekend golfers are way too involved with backs,
shoulders, and arms.
There is tremendous "ease" in an effective golf swing, as any
local pro or good golfer
will tell you. Relaxed muscles, a firm grip, a smooth stroke....
2- The effect of an excellent golf swing is somewhat whip-like. Though
baseball BATS are
heavy enough to require significant strength to achieve this
effect, the "whip-like" quality
of throwing a ball very hard may require not much strength at all
per se, but timing,
rhythm, or some innate sense of how to do it.
Perhaps this whip-like quality of throwing hard is so obvious to baseball
people that they don't discuss it, but we know plenty of strong athletes who
throw poorly (including big league players). Someone like Trevor Hoffman, on
the other hand, throws hard enough to be taken seriously as a pitching prosect
after hundreds of good-field, no-hit infielders like himself are cut and are
out of baseball.
Maybe the mechanics (and the intelligence) of pitching can be taught in the
early years, and maybe a very slow development of mechanics over time would
put Ryan and Clemens past Johnson and Feller, as small increases in mechanics
(given equal equipment) might put O'Meara past Hogan.
However, maybe the part that CAN'T be taught -- what Trevor has that Glenn and
Travis did not, 95 MPH heat -- is pretty much of a mystery, and as E.B. White
said about poetry, I shouldn't have brought it up.
Joe Earls
James Weisberg
JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <6p7nk8$p...@tekka.wwa.com>, chad...@news.wwa.com (James Weisberg)
>writes:
>
>>The upper torso is too far out in front by the time the legs push off the
>>mound and the arm swings around and delivers the ball. No
>>one uses that motion anymore. Pitchers today drive off the
>>mound with their legs and don't waste a lot of motion on
>>strange contortions and herky-jerky delivery.
>>
>James,
>
>I wonder if
>a- this is what the advertisement from the pitching school in McWeekly is
>about: that possibly the legs are being used improperly *now.* I know that is
>a stretch, and I am not going to bet the farm on this one pitching school, but
>it caught my eye
I don't know what the next evolution of pitching mechanics
will bring, or even if there is one, but Doug is right in pointing
out that the mechanics of pushing off the rubber with your legs
is much improved now versus Johnson's time. And that difference
has something to do with leg strength. And we can all agree that
athletes today are generally stronger than those deadball players.
>b- Even if your overall description of deadball pitchers is right,one thing it
>seems NO one ever accused Johnson of was being herky jerky.
> Seems "deceptive" and "smooth" or "deceptively smooth" keep coming up
>instead.
Just for the record, I wasn't describing Johnson, but rather
a culmination of pitching motions from that period. They were more
bent on being deceptive than being fast.
However, perhaps another angle someone might wish to consider
is that the baseball itself is more aerodynamic today. For one,
they are constantly using new balls. The gameball of the early
1900s got beat to hell. For two, that ball might have been either
slightly heavier and/or unevenly distributed. As the ball got
battered around, it got deformed. And it was frequent for
players to rub spit into the ball to make it heavier/mushy.
Alexander writes:
"Besides the natural abrasions and discolorations balls
acquired by being knocked and thrown around, pitchers
wreaked their own ingenious havoc. One widely favored
method was to 'load up' the ball with the superabundance
of saliva produced by chewing tobacco, licorice, or
slippery elm. Introduced around 1903, the spit ball
quickly became a standard and perfectly legal part of
many pitchers' repertoires. Others perferred to scuff
the ball against their belt buckles, rub it with an
emery board, or even, in the case of Clark Griffith
with he was pitcher-manager for the Chicago and New
York American Leaguers, pound it against their spikes.
Although deliberate mutilation was supposed to be
illegal, umpires rarely did anything about such assaults
on the horsehide."
These pitchers desired the motion induced on their pitches
from the various mutiliations described. However, none of them
contributed to speeding the ball up; but in fact would affect
the velocity adversely.
>> However, I don't like comparing throwing a baseball to
>>other athletic endeavors like running a mile, or throwing a
>>javelin, or something like that which of course have been
>>done much better by today's athletes.
>> My reasoning is pretty simple, and it's an argument I have
>>made before: arm strength does not equate to arm speed.
>> Arm *speed* is what speeds the ball to the plate. One
>>doesn't have to be ultra-strong to throw a baseball fast.
>>One doesn't have to be a modern athlete to have arm speed.
>>I highly doubt Nolan Ryan's arm speed was significantly
>>faster than Walter Johnson's. However, Ryan's mechanics
>>and his leg strength (used to push off the mound) were
>>probably much superior to Walter Johnson's. I have a hard time
>>believing the difference between Johnson and Ryan was as
>>much as 15mph, but I do think the mechanical differences
>>and the differences in leg strength (not arm strength) could
>>account for about 8-10mph.
>
>Again,
>
>a: I'll take Johnson being 8 MPH slower than Ryan: that puts him at 94 or so
>;-)
Basically, I'm with you. I think Johnson could have topped 90mph,
maybe slightly more than that. I don't think he pitched that hard all
the time, or even neccessarily *most* of the time, but I think he
could bring it up there at that speed if he needed/wanted to.
>b: Your hand/ arm speed arguments are backed up by small men who throw very
>fast -- Martinez,
>> Guidry, Tom Hall ( the Minnesota "blade" from the 70's who weighed about
>155.)
I use myself an as example. In high school I could top out in
the upper 70s, maybe in the low 80s depending on how the pitch was
measured. I weighed 100 pounds. And I never did develop proper leg
mechanics. My legs were always weak anyway. My ability came purely
through my elbow, which I could snap incredibly fast. And my arms
are short but shaped kinda funny from all that throwing as a kid.
Even so, I threw amazingly hard and far for someone my size. I
was even better at distance than at speed simply because I could
impart a lot of backspin to a baseball (or better yet a rock) to
get lift. I was a complete freak in this regard. I never met anyone
remotely close to my size who could throw as far/hard as I could.
And it was all from arm speed; not arm/body strength.
JEarls21
JE: The Johnson test I can't refute, but find it irreconcilable to my
arguments and so must
>> weigh it as troubling but not persuasive evidence.
>
>What this amounts to is that you're not willing to accept the Johnson test
>*because it doesn't agree with your beliefs*. When the evidence doesn't fit
>your theory you need to find a new theory, not new evidence. Why should the
>Feller test be reliable and the Johnson one wildly off? Certainly it's hard
>to reconcile the two but unless you can find reasonable grounds to impeach
>one test both sides of the argument must do so.
Mike,
Sorry if your server is several posts behind. Honestly.
What I meant by the above, when I wrote it, is that
a- I had far more intuitive doubts about the Johnson test in 1912, but did
not have the
temerity or the intellectual dishonesty to simply ignore it. I said, in
effect "Okay (Doug),
that's the test you are putting up as evidence. It's not enough to sway
me yet, but
I can't ignore it." (Thus my use of the phrase "troubling, but not
persuasive")
b- The Feller test was conducted by the U.S Army in 1946 by a device
designed to yield
results accurate to within .0001 of a second. (It was used for testing
the speed of shells.)
I therefore had a strong evidential preference for that test versus
any test that might
have been administered in 1912.
Then, since you posted this, Roger Moore shared other information about the
Johnson test that does pretty much discredit it, in my opinion. Those will be
appear on the thread for you, as I already have them.
You are right to not allow me to ignore evidence, per se, nor points made.
However, when I can, I try not to commit the wrongs you point to , and will
usually concede a point, as in "Okay, score one for your side, but still, I am
not convinced....." to the opposition. ( On the other hand, I have at times
been fully convinced away from a strongly held belief. I was positive that no
one ever had a stretch comparable to Koufax, and that he was the greatest "peak
pitcher" of all-time. Positive. Now..well, if Maddux would just strike people
out more, add a little GLAMOUR to his record...gee.)
Anyway, If the discussion is involved enough, with enough ideas having been
generated, one point is usually not completely persuasive, unless it is
stunningly illuminative. At some point in these exchanges, dialectic and
rhetoric mix, and one's search for the "truth" gets intermingled with proving
one's "beliefs. " I try to balance the two, usually doing more of the former
when I join a thread late, and more of the latter if I am kind of leading the
charge, so to speak. (Though few of us know exactly when we've crossed the
line, really.) I was doing some rhetoric (i.e. hang in and win the argument)
with the above, and I think the group understands that the mixed methodology
works out well for most forms of discourse
In this INSTANCE, I would consider my overall argument in favor of Johnson's
velocity would have been much weaker if Roger had not been able to take away
much of the credibility of the 83 MPH figure Doug posted, and so I was glad
Roger did have that information and posted it.
In the meantime, I don't think I've convinced Doug that Johnson could throw
95+, either. I think both of us know that we are really talking to the center,
that his beliefs and mine (at least about old-time players) are too deeply
ingrained, and we (and everyone else who has weighed in here) are doing our
best to persuade the group, by pretending to persuade the other side.
Thanks to your appeal to our conscience, though, and for reading the thread
closely.
James Weisberg
<mike...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
[snip]
>Has anybody considered bat weights? Everybody agrees bats have gotten lighter
>and lighter. Yet the ball will travel further when hit with a heavy bat (at
>least according to The Physics of Baseball). Doesn't that suggest modern
>players need quicker swings?
I'm not sure if that was a rhetorical question or not, but
yes, indeed, modern players have quicker swings.
JEarls21
>
>Mr Earls,
>I have a serious problem with your argument. The first is that, while you
>may
>be able to argue against any single reason for change in athletic ability, I
>haven't seen you offer a reason why baseball *shouldn't* have changed. What
>forces could have held play exactly steady for a full century? Why would
>nutrition and weight training have *absolutely no* effect? Why would hitting
>and pitching coaches have learned *no new techniques* at all?
>
Mike,
I don't argue the extreme position you state above. I find, as do many
historians and semi-historians on the group, that one can point to dozens of
changes in the game over the last 100 years, the way it is played, and and the
way the game is taught.
For example, one of hundreds: that Ruth did not face any bullpen specialists,
and often faced tired starters on his 4th and 5th at bats, is very relevant.
Or, a second example that I am sure a modernist (if not an ultra-modernist)
would be happy with: weight training seems to have affected homeruns in the
90's, not just for the McGwires but for both leagues.
Other examples would include the arrival of new pitches, the growing importance
of the bullpen, the advent (and the 90's abandonment) of the stolen base, etc.
On a more historical note, the size and strength of the average player has
increased every decade, and the population pool from which he is drawn has
expanded, especially in the last 30 years. Therefore, even though I am not
crazy about the population argument, I find it hard to not agree with the
premise that the AVERAGE player of 1998 is far, far better than the average
player of 1948.
My answer to your question about is that I take a somewhat minority position
here about why is has changed far LESS than other sports. Without repeating my
entire career on rsbb, my basic ideas are that :
a- we are discussing a much longer period of time....no would compare
basketball of the 40's to
current basketball, but for baseball, organized professional baseball, we
go back further IN time, so the line of improvement is naturally less
sloped.
b- Size and speed seem less necesary to success in baseball than some more
baseball-specific skills: throwing, seeing, swinging.
c- Baseball, for a long time our national sport, drew virtually all of our
best athletes, no matter their social class, almost from its inception, and may
have even had a more "penetrating" character to the population in it's early
years then it does now. The best 400 players of 1950 may be fairly close to the
best 600 players of 1998, for that reason. (Here, everyone cites the Dominican
Republic, or the reverse example, as to why we can't produce world-class soccer
players.)
d- Ultimately, I find overlapping careers a compelling argument not for the
"unchanging" nature of skill development, but their nearly imperceptible
quality. From Schmidt to Dick Allen to McCovey to Mantle to Williams to
Gehrig brings you back to 1926, covering 72 years but a mere 6 players. Those
careers are not merely sequenced, but overlap, yet one cannot find a
perceptible time in those careers where the game suddenly got harder for the
second half of his career.
Why can't we find the game suddenly getting harder?
Well, we can't see the grass grow either, but we have to cut it most Saturdays.
I feel the players have improved with time, but don't think a Williams
automatically has to be diminished in our eyes because he played against what
we would project is inferior competion.
Nor do I think that one pitcher from 1907-1927 could not have thrown 95 MPH
just because his peers were throwing significantly less than today's pitchers.
And couple that with what I consider very, very solid evidence that 52 years
ago another pitcher reached home plate at 98.6 MPH, and was probably in
midflight at 104 MPH, where the average modern gun would find it, then I don't
see how one is not comfortable putting Johnson and Feller on a tier with
Clemens and others for velocity.
The TRAINING you ask me about relates to their contemporaries, in my opinion,
and there, I am quite willing to concede that strength, access, and technique
has improved the game markedly. But the reverse is not true, for me. Johnson
and Feller, without modern training, are still Johnson and Feller. Williams
without modern techniques is still the person who swung a bat every day of his
life growing up and whose achieved his aim to be the greatest hitter ever. A
younger Mantle, without modern technigues, was still the most gifted player, on
each side of the ball and the bases, that most observers had seen to that
point.
I wouldn't want to defend the average players of the past, and in the context
of your question, for exactly the reason you cite.
james withrow
I'd be an "ultra-modernist" except that we're currently in what's often
referred to as a "post-modern" world. Nonetheless, Mr. Earl's last post
found me nodding in agreement.
Weisberg's comment that current players' bat speeds are higher was
especially interesting.
A couple questions:
1) Would it be correct to suggest that reflexes and/or arm speed would
be unaffected by nutrional improvements?
2) Is it agreed here that a pitcher's height has little effect on his
velocity? Or on stamina?
James in Philly
DougP001
Johnson) writes:
>
>Rucker was indeed an above average pitcher. He was also a
>left-handed knuckleballer. Often cited as the inventor
>of the knuckleball. (Though in all probability he was simply
>the first to achieve a lot of success with it.)
>
>He was like Tom Candiotti at the start of his career. Threw a lot
>more than just a knuckler.
>
>The point here being that he's an odd choice for this experiment.
>And it's interesting that Johnson only comes out 8% faster than
>Rucker.
<I'll use this post as the jumping-off point for Part II of my essay...>
If I hadn't mentioned absolute speed, but merely said that "contemporary
tests measured Walter Johnson's fastball as 6 MPH faster than Nap Rucker's
or Van Lingle Mungo's, 7 MPH faster than Lefty Gomez's," I doubt the
post would have evoked such a response. Those numbers don't sound
unreasonable -- Gomez and Mungo won four strikeout titles between
them, but Johnson was always perceived as faster. But when I say
"Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77, Gomez at
76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
fastball for close to ninety years. But was Johnson really THAT much faster
than everyone else? In this post, I'll argue that the answer is No by
comparing Johnson to his contemporaries and near-contemporaries.
Superficially, Johnson's strikeout totals appear awesome. He led the
league in strikeouts 12 times, retired with 700 more strikeouts than
anyone else, and retained that all-time strikeout mark for more than 50
years. But much of this dominance was due to the large number of innings
he threw. Johnson led in K/9IP "only" seven times -- and as I posted
yesterday:
<<Only twice in Johnson's 21-year career (1910, 1912) did he strike
out 0.5 batters/game more than anyone else in the league. During those
same years, there were *seven* seasons when someone else finished that
far ahead of the AL pack: Rube Waddell (1907, 1908), Dutch Leonard (1914),
Eric Erickson (1919), Guy Morton (1922) and Lefty Grove (1925, 1926).>>
Hardly the numbers of someone who threw far harder than his peers.
Among all pitchers who entered the majors after the mound was moved to
its current distance, retired by 1956 (Bob Feller's last season), and threw
at least 1500 innings, here are the career leaders in K/9IP:
Rube Waddell -- 7.0
Dazzy Vance -- 6.2
Bob Feller -- 6.1
Johnny Vander Meer -- 5.5
Orval Overall -- 5.5
Hal Newhouser -- 5.4
Walter Johnson -- 5.3
Tommy Bridges -- 5.3
Dizzy Dean -- 5.3
Van Lingle Mungo -- 5.3
Lefty Gomez -- 5.3
Ed Walsh -- 5.3.
Newhouser and Bridges benefited from weak WWII competition, so let's
discard them. Johnson would then rank sixth in K/IP -- with Mungo and
Gomez, who were tested at 6-7 MPH slower, eighth and ninth. Feller,
Vance and especially Waddell are the ones who emerge as the dominant
strikeout artists of the era, with Johnson at the high end of a good-sized
cluster. Again, if Johnson actually threw as fast as his reputation suggests,
he'd rank considerably higher than he does.
"Okay," I hear the skeptics, "but Johnson pitched so much longer than
the others -- maybe his later years dragged down his average." Here
are the career marks for, in order, Waddell, Feller, Vance and Johnson
at the same ages (* = led league):
17 -- 11.0 -- --
18 -- 9.1 -- --
19 -- 7.8* -- 5.8
20 3.2 7.5* -- 5.6
21 -- 7.3* -- 5.0
22 5.0 6.8* -- 7.6*
23 5.6* -- -- 5.8
24 6.2 -- 5.3 7.4*
25 6.8* -- -- 6.3*
26 8.4* 7.4 -- 5.4
27 8.2* 8.4 0.0 5.4
28 7.9* 5.9* -- 5.6*
29 6.5* 5.3 -- 5.2*
30 7.3* 4.6 -- 4.5
31 7.3 3.8 4.9* 4.6
32 5.8 4.0 6.3* 4.9
33 3.8 7.6* 4.9*
34 3.1 7.5* 3.5
35 3.8 7.5* 4.5
36 2.7 6.1* 5.1*
37 2.8 6.4* 4.2
38 4.9 4.3
39 6.0 4.3
40 6.2*
41 5.3
42 6.1
43 4.9
44 4.9
All four were fastball pitchers -- no Steve Carlton sliders or Bert Blyleven
curveballs to clutter the analysis -- so I think it's reasonable to use their
strikeout proficiency as a surrogate for pitching speed. In their primes,
Waddell and Feller were both better strikeout pitchers than Johnson. (And
to answer Joe Earls' question, yes I believe Feller threw significantly faster
than Johnson: he was probably the fastest pitcher in the game when he
debuted at age 17, and would only have gotten stronger through his early
to mid 20s.) Vance had a freakish career, but was comparable or slightly
superior as a K man.
Johnson was clearly the BEST pitcher of the four, but I see no reason to
believe that he threw as hard as either Waddell or Feller in their primes.
<Done. Whew!>
Doug Pappas
DougP001
<glan...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>> I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw
>off
>> his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no
>way
>> anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power
>pitcher.
>
>I don't know about that. For one thing, every clip of Johnson's
>pitching that I've seen has been of him warming up, rather than
>throwing in an actual game, so I'm not sure if his motion wouldn't have
>been a bit different.
<returning to the fray after a day at the office and a trip to the microfilm
reader over lunch...>
Johnson's motion is described in Henry Thomas's biography: "a short
'windmill' windup in which he rotated his arm in a circle while standing
straight up on the mound, then swept the arm behind his back as far as
it would go before whipping it forward in a smooth sidearm-underarm arc."
(p. 10.)
A few pages later, Thomas adds: "A graceful, fluid delivery -- 'effortless,'
it was often described -- gave his long arm tremendous leverage while
spreading much of the effort to his back and legs, putting little strain
on the arm and shoulder. . . . There were others, including Grover Cleveland
Alexander, Addie Joss, Iron Man McGinnity, and to some extent Cy
Young, who also found great success using a similar sweeping sidearm
delivery." Then Thomas quotes Johnson's reaction to watching Joe Wood:
"When I used to see Wood pitch, although I admired his speed and control,
it made my own shoulders ache to watch his delivery. That pitching with
the arm alone, that wrenching of the muscles in the shoulder, would wear
out my arm, I am sure, much quicker than the easy, swinging motion I
always aim to use." (p. 59.)
These excerpts suggest a few conclusions. Johnson's motion may well have
let him throw faster than a pitcher using the then-"conventional" delivery
could: he built up more momentum and used more muscles. But this
"easy, swinging" motion, which put less strain on the arm, remained less
efficient than the modern approach, in which most of the strain is borne by
the stronger leg muscles which provide most of the forward momentum.
Finally, Wood's "pitching with the arm alone" and "wrenching of the muscles
in the shoulder" confirms that the conventional delivery of the era emphasized
the upper body almost exclusively and did not involve the modern leg drive.
>For another thing, one of the most common
>comments about Johnson's motion was how deceptive it was; it didn't
>look as if he could possibly throw the ball as fast as he did.
Agreed. But a fast pitch delivered from a deceptively slow motion will
appear faster than it actually is, just as a changeup thrown from a power
pitcher's fastball delivery will seem slower than it is. Players and fans
who watch enough games form expectations about how fast a pitch
delivered with a certain motion "should" be.
>Most
>importantly, people who watched both Johnson and Feller pitch,
>including players who batted against both of them, rated their speed as
>being similar.
But there are fundamental perception problems here. Johnson retired
after the 1927 season and Feller came up in 1936, so anyone who batted
against both did so at least nine years apart, with thousands of intervening
at-bats. Anyone who batted against Feller also grew up with the conventional
wisdom that Walter Johnson threw the fastest ball anyone had ever seen,
which would inevitably color his memory of Johnson's speed.
> A number of factors suggest that the
>test substantially underestimated his speed. He was wearing street
>clothes and street shoes rather than a uniform and spikes, which can't
>have helped his speed any. The target was a tube full of wires set at
>shoulder height, which forced him to adjust his delivery somewhat to
>get the pitch into the measuring apparatus. Most importantly, he
>wasn't throwing off a mound, which is well known to boost speed by
>something like 7 mph over throwing from a flat surface. I can easily
>believe that the combination of factors cost him 10-15 mph over what he
>would have registered using a radar gun.
Actually, your "most important" point may be the LEAST important for
Johnson. When I saw your post this morning, I made a note to check
a reference I'd once run across in TSN. For the June 26, 1941 issue,
TSN measured every pitching mound in the majors. Washington's Griffith
Stadium had the lowest -- only 7" high. (Until 1950 mounds were allowed
to be "up to" 15" high, with no minimum.) The accompanying article quoted
Yankee manager Joe McCarthy as saying that sidearm pitchers favor
flat mounds, while overhand pitchers prefer higher mounds; McCarthy
singled out Dazzy Vance as one overhander who'd especially benefited
from home groundskeeping. This makes sense: the overhanders would
benefit more from the added momentum of moving downhill, while Johnson's
gyrations would be easier to control on a more level surface.
Johnson was a sidearmer, and Clark Griffith owned the Senators in both
1941and Johnson's era, so it's reasonable to assume that Johnson threw off
an unusually low mound and wouldn't have suffered much by throwing "flat."
There's no question that the test was "fair" insofar as Johnson and Rucker
were allowed to warm up as long as they wished, and weren't timed until
they felt comfortable throwing at the target. I doubt if the combination of
factors cost Johnson more than 5 MPH off his fastball.
(In the next message, I'll discuss why, entirely independent of this test,
I think Johnson wasn't as fast as his reputation suggests.)
Doug Pappas
Jason Kassa
DougP001 wrote:
> In article <199807221459...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, jear...@aol.com
> (JEarls21) writes:
>
> >>Our fastest pitchers derive most of>their power from their legs, not their
> >arms. Nobody in Johnson's era threw with the leg drive of a Tom Seaver or
> >Roger Clemens.
> >
> >Really? First, I've never read about any pitcher, or pitching coach,
> >"discovering" leg drive as a key to velocity. Dean didn't drive off his leg?
> >Vance didn't? Feller didn't? Johnson's motion may be unusual, but where you
> >get
> >the idea (or, any sort of proof) that pitchers 1900 -- 1946 literally didn't
> >KNOW how to throw hard?
>
> They knew how to *throw* hard. They didn't know how to use their lower
> body to maximize their velocity. I've spent as many hours with old microfilm
> and game accounts as anyone on this newsgroup, and have NEVER seen
> photos or discussions of a pre-WWII pitcher with grass stains on his
> knee from pushing off so hard, a la Seaver or Clemens.
>
> JE>>Dismissing Johnson's velocity on the basis of old films of his motion is
> >like dismissing Ruth's power on the basis of his extra weight. It's pure
> imagery,
> >and it does injustice to the continuum of baseball history.
>
> >>DP:Old films AND electrical timing which clocked his fastball at 83 MPH.
> That's
> >>hardly "pure imagery."
>
> >No, it's using imagery from films of his motion, and adding it to a test
> that
> >you have some but not complete faith in, one which seems like the weakest
> piece
> >of evidence in the discussion, (and one that seems to contradict both
> >testimonial evidence about Johnson and Feller). I don't have a description of
> >that device -- do you?
>
> Yes. Johnson threw a ball through two sets of fine wires located a
> measured distance apart. The electrical impulses created at each impact
> were recorded, and the time between impacts noted. Distance/time =
> velocity. (I transcribed the discussion from Baseball Magazine the last
> time this issue arose on here, a couple of years ago. Look it up on
> DejaNews if you want.) Not to mention that "the imagery," as you put
> it, clearly shows that however fast Johnson may have thrown, his
> pitching motion was less efficient than that of modern power pitchers at
> maximizing his velocity.
>
What?
Walter Johnson
used his legs.
A pitcher doesn't need to stride very far,
to generate power.
You do not have to drop to one knee
to throw most efficient. He also had that long
arm arc and then used the larger
chest muscles (as opposed to the
shoulder muscles) with his sidearm acceleration.
He was a big guy, who was a very fast pitcher.
I would expect that he could at least throw 90.
JEarls21
(DougP001) writes:
> But when I say
>"Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77, Gomez at
>76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
>
>Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
>fastball for close to ninety years.
Doug,
No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions about the
advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to baseball in
particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft delineated here
and in other threads.
2- Your arguments about how fast Johnson may have been, or how accurate the
test(s) are, strike me as quite separate.
JEarls21
> Feller, Vance and especially Waddell are the ones who emerge as the dominant
>strikeout artists of the era, with Johnson at the high end of a good-sized
>cluster. Again, if Johnson actually threw as fast as his reputation
>suggests, he'd rank considerably higher than he does
.That's if we assume that SO/IP translates directly into velocity, though,
Doug. (And, if it is necessary, to remind all readers that strikeout per game
was in the high three's and the low 4's until 1957 (with very few exceptions,
and those years got only to about 4.5). None of these pitchers, including
Feller, benefitted from the modern free swinging style of hitting. Herb Score
is the first starting pitcher to get to a 1:1 ratio, in 1956.
If he's fourth, behind Vance, Feller, and Waddell, I don't think his reputation
as "among the hardest throwers of all time" is in jeopardy. You certainly take
him off a pedastal that "no one was even close to his velocity" , but no one
has been trying to prove that. Instead, I have been trying to persuade people
that Johnson probably threw hard enough to compete today, if we assume that
Feller could.
But we can mention other factors, that again, for the sake of argument, may put
him back up to 1B to Feller's 1A. Vance and Waddell may have pitched with
styles and strategy different than Johnson: i.e they may have tried to strike
out every hitter, even though Waddell predates Johnson somewhat as a deadball
pitcher. Vance may have had to (he pitched in the 20's) and according to the
strategy of the time, was not going to coast (maybe not with his defense,
either.) Waddell is just very hard to explain: his ball may have moved like
crazy, as did someone like Dick Radatz's 1962-64 (Radatz would say he simply
messed with his motion and began to throw the ball straight in 1965 and was
done as a K artist. ) Or maybe Waddell was gone too soon.
I'd like to see how contemporary accounts explain Waddell's incredible K
totals, because they ARE incredible.
Second, Rube Waddell and Dazzy Vance are not bad company for Johnson to fans
who know their baseball: both had remarkable stats, and lacked only the career
length or the publicity to get noticed as "the hardest thrower of all time."
>In their primes,>Waddell and Feller were both better strikeout pitchers than
Johnson.
> (And to answer Joe Earls' question, yes I believe Feller threw significantly
>faster than Johnson: he was probably the fastest pitcher in the game when he
>debuted at age 17, and would only have gotten stronger through his early
>to mid 20s.)
Here, just to monkey the works, we can throw in the possibilty that Grove has
an interestingly overlapping career to both Feller and Johnson, led the league
in strikeouts for seven straight years after Johnson, was often said to be as
fast or faster than Feller,( again, I have only Bill James quoting Joe Cronin
and Charlie Gehringer), yet I am not sure Grove was often said to be faster
than Johnson by very many people.
(I know I'm back to mere "testimony" and have not much to add to this
discussion now, and if I don't pack for my trip, my girlfriend is leaving
alone. However, I felt I owed Doug a rejoinder or two.)
To tell truth, if God promised me the answer, and then asked me to bet, I'd bet
on 1936-1946 Feller being faster than anyone before Ryan, but would assume
that the truly greats, from Waddell to Johnson to Vance to Dean to Grove, got
into the low 90's.
>Johnson was clearly the BEST pitcher of the four, but I see no reason to
>believe that he threw as hard as either Waddell or Feller in their primes.
As we head towards some middle ground, Doug, I think many of us are still in
some doubt that the difference was 10-15 MPH, and would like to fix Johnson
much higher than your 83 MPH figure. tly.
Have a good one, everyone.
DougP001
(JEarls21) writes:
>
>> Feller, Vance and especially Waddell are the ones who emerge as the
>dominant
>>strikeout artists of the era, with Johnson at the high end of a good-sized
>>cluster. Again, if Johnson actually threw as fast as his reputation
>>suggests, he'd rank considerably higher than he does
>
>.That's if we assume that SO/IP translates directly into velocity, though,
>Doug.
I think it's the best available surrogate, at least for fastball pitchers for
whom no more than one or two speed measurements (however reliable)
are available.
>(And, if it is necessary, to remind all readers that strikeout per game
>was in the high three's and the low 4's until 1957 (with very few exceptions,
>and those years got only to about 4.5). None of these pitchers, including
>Feller, benefitted from the modern free swinging style of hitting.
Very true.
>But we can mention other factors, that again, for the sake of argument, may
put
>him back up to 1B to Feller's 1A. Vance and Waddell may have pitched with
>styles and strategy different than Johnson: i.e they may have tried to strike
>out every hitter, even though Waddell predates Johnson somewhat as a deadball
>pitcher.
No one familiar with the Waddell legend could imagine the Rube pacing
himself on the mound, or otherwise resorting to strategy when brute
force was available. Vance may have been more "strategic," though --
the Bill James Historical Abstract says that control problems kept him
out of the majors until his thirties, and control problems are often caused
by trying to throw too hard.
Doug Pappas
Mike Harmon
> I want to add my congratulations on the strength of this thread.
>I'd be an "ultra-modernist" except that we're currently in what's often
>referred to as a "post-modern" world. Nonetheless, Mr. Earl's last post
>found me nodding in agreement.
> Weisberg's comment that current players' bat speeds are higher was
>especially interesting.
> A couple questions:
I'll jump in with (my) answers.
>1) Would it be correct to suggest that reflexes and/or arm speed would
>be unaffected by nutrional improvements?
I wouldn't call that correct, for a couple of reasons. One,
improved nutrition will let the body and mind function better.
I don't see why reflexes and/or arm speed would be exempt from
the general increase in physical capabilities. Two, it helps
prevent injury. Not really relevant to the discussion, which
has dealt with a comparison between pitchers who are assumed to
be healthy, but it is a reason I would call "reflexes and/or arm
speed would be unaffected by nutritional improvements" incorrect.
A more interesting collarary issue would be "how much has nutrition
improved, and how much impact could that have had?" I'd wager the
answer to those two questions is "less than you might think."
>2) Is it agreed here that a pitcher's height has little effect on his
>velocity? Or on stamina?
I wouldn't quite agree to that. It's not an overwhelming factor,
as Billy Wagner can attest, but I think you'd find a longer
armspan would allow for greater velocity. Longer levers in the
arm mean increased velocity at the hand, and a longer arc in the
throwing motion means more time/distance through which the pitcher
can accelerate the ball. It's not a hard and fast rule, and it's
certainly possible to throw very hard with short arms, but the
physics favor a taller pitcher. Don't forget that a taller pitcher
releases the ball closer to the plate, also, allowing marginally
less reaction time.
OK. I just did a little thinking about that last part, and a
quick experiment involving me and some numbers I just made up.
I'm approximately Billy Wagner's size. A little lighter, but
we've probably got the same armspan within a couple of inches. My
armspan is about 71 inches - say Wagner's is 6 feet even. Randy
Johnson is about a foot taller than me or Wagner. Suppose his
armspan is a foot greater than Wagner's. It's probably a bit more,
but I'll be conservative and call his armspan 7 feet even.
Right away, he's moved the release point half a foot closer to home,
just by being taller. Of course, he also takes a longer stride than
Wagner. I have no idea how much longer, so I just guessed at a
foot. If that's right, Randy Johnson, in effect, pitches from
eighteen inches closer to home than Billy Wagner. That's about 2.5%
of the distance between the pitching rubber and home plate. That
means Wagner has to throw 97.375 mph to get the ball to the plate in
the same time it gets there if RJ throws it 95 mph, assuming it
travels at a constant rate, which it doesn't. That extra eighteen
inches hurts Wagner again, since it's adding on an extra eighteen
inches of travel during which the ball is necessarily going slower
than at any time during the rest of it's flight. So, Wagner has to
throw even harder to get an average velocity of 97.375 mph than
Johnson would have to throw to get the same average velocity. I
hope someone will be able to make a decent estimate of that, for
now, I'll just bump the 97.375 mph up to 97.5 mph.
All of that is without considering that it's mechanically easier
for a 6'8" guy to throw a ball 95 mph than it would be for a 5'8"
guy to do the same thing. Even if the shorter pitcher is able to
get the same velocity, it doesn't have quite the same effect it
would coming from a taller pitcher.
On top of that, I've understated RJ's advantage considerably,
since it's possible he has a bigger advantage than a foot on
Wagner's stride, and bearing in mind that neither one of them
actually releases the ball *at* the pitching rubber. A slightly
more realistic version would be Wagner releasing the ball 55 feet
from the plate, and Johnson releasing it 53 feet from the plate.
In that case, Johnson is throwing the ball 96% as far as Wagner,
which means Johnson's 95 mph fastball gives as much time for
reaction as Wagner's 98.6 mph fastball, again ignoring that
Johnson is actually losing the two slowest feet, not two average
feet, on his fastball. I'd guess Johnson's 95 mph heater gives
as much reaction time to hitters as Wagner's 99 mph heater. How
tall was Feller?
--
Look, Maw, I done made me one of them thar' .sig file thingies!
Temporary addresses: | Permanent addresses:
rx7...@concentric.net | mikeh...@usa.net
http://www.concentric.net/~rx7guy | http://www.HCLabs.com -- soon!
Chris Dial
<199807230035...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>...Tom Seaver, who didn't throw 95 MPH despite
>far more efficient mechanics,
Tom Seaver didn't throw 95??????
I'll attempt to disbelieve; the dice, please.
Chris Dial
Paul G. Wenthold
>
> I want to add my congratulations on the strength of this thread.
> I'd be an "ultra-modernist" except that we're currently in what's often
> referred to as a "post-modern" world. Nonetheless, Mr. Earl's last post
> found me nodding in agreement.
> Weisberg's comment that current players' bat speeds are higher was
> especially interesting.
> A couple questions:
> be unaffected by nutrional improvements?
> velocity? Or on stamina?
Some time ago (during this same thread), I saw some footage
of gymnastics from the 1950s. Now, the usual argument
is that baseball is not comparable to other sports
because the skills that are used in baseball can't
be easily improved by running faster or being stronger.
Well, one would say similar things about (of all things)
balance. I was watching footage of a balance beam
competition from the olympics in the 50s, and it
was amazing. The gymnast was doing everything she could
_just to stay on_. Flips, cartwheels, etc were
definately out of the question. But, when you
watch it now, the gymnasts are tumbling all over
the place. The difference? The gymnasts today
have much better balance then they did back then.
So, arguments that baseball skills can't really be improved
by modern training are as meaningless to me as would
be a claim that balance can't be any better on the
balance beam.
I don't necessarily mean velocity, I mean overall
baseball skills.
paul
--
Invention is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% inspiration,
and 2% butterscotch ripple --- Willie Wonka
mike...@my-dejanews.com
A well written post. I'll have to snip large parts of it, however :-(
In article <199807232130...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
jear...@aol.com (JEarls21) wrote:
> In article <6p84kl$fgq$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mike...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>
> >
> >Mr Earls,
> >I have a serious problem with your argument. The first is that, while you
> >may
> >be able to argue against any single reason for change in athletic ability, I
> >haven't seen you offer a reason why baseball *shouldn't* have changed. What
> >forces could have held play exactly steady for a full century? Why would
> >nutrition and weight training have *absolutely no* effect? Why would hitting
> >and pitching coaches have learned *no new techniques* at all?
> >
>
> Mike,
>
> I don't argue the extreme position you state above. I find, as do many
> historians and semi-historians on the group, that one can point to dozens of
> changes in the game over the last 100 years, the way it is played, and and the
> way the game is taught.
<snip>
> My answer to your question about is that I take a somewhat minority position
> here about why is has changed far LESS than other sports. Without repeating my
> entire career on rsbb, my basic ideas are that :
>
> a- we are discussing a much longer period of time....no would compare
> basketball of the 40's to
> current basketball, but for baseball, organized professional baseball, we
> go back further IN time, so the line of improvement is naturally less
> sloped.
But track and field and swimming are far, far older than baseball. They still
show progress in recent years.
I don't find the NBA analogy convincing because the rules of basketball have
changed so dramatically. Michael Jordan would have to play much differently
with a two-handed dribble and very strict travelling rules.
> b- Size and speed seem less necesary to success in baseball than some more
> baseball-specific skills: throwing, seeing, swinging.
Well, speed helps both baserunning and defense. But I think you have a point
about hand-eye coordination.
> c- Baseball, for a long time our national sport, drew virtually all of our
> best athletes, no matter their social class, almost from its inception, and
may
> have even had a more "penetrating" character to the population in it's early
> years then it does now. The best 400 players of 1950 may be fairly close to
the
> best 600 players of 1998, for that reason. (Here, everyone cites the Dominican
> Republic, or the reverse example, as to why we can't produce world-class
soccer
> players.)
This gets into sociological grounds where I know I don't belong :-) How
attractive was an athletic career in 1910? Exactly what is the change in
population?
> d- Ultimately, I find overlapping careers a compelling argument not for the
> "unchanging" nature of skill development, but their nearly imperceptible
> quality. From Schmidt to Dick Allen to McCovey to Mantle to Williams to
> Gehrig brings you back to 1926, covering 72 years but a mere 6 players. Those
> careers are not merely sequenced, but overlap, yet one cannot find a
> perceptible time in those careers where the game suddenly got harder for the
> second half of his career.
I don't see why you insist the league has to suddenly get harder. Suppose it
improved at the rate of a point of batting average per year? That would never
produce a sudden change but make players from the 20's worthless today.
BTW, I don't advocate either that rate of change or players from the 20's
being worthless today. I'm demonstrating how even a large effect wouldn't be
easily visible.
We expect players to drop off as they age. Perhaps part of that is not from
a loss of objective physical ability but the slow process of the league
improving around them.
mike...@my-dejanews.com
with...@webtv.net (james withrow) wrote:
> I want to add my congratulations on the strength of this thread.
> I'd be an "ultra-modernist" except that we're currently in what's often
> referred to as a "post-modern" world. Nonetheless, Mr. Earl's last post
> found me nodding in agreement.
> Weisberg's comment that current players' bat speeds are higher was
> especially interesting.
> A couple questions:
> 1) Would it be correct to suggest that reflexes and/or arm speed would
> be unaffected by nutrional improvements?
I'm not a doctor but I pretend to be one on Usenet. Arm speed comes from
muscles so I imagine they could be improved. Reactions, I don't know.
> 2) Is it agreed here that a pitcher's height has little effect on his
> velocity? Or on stamina?
On the contrary, both are thought to be helped by height. Not determined by
it, but helped.
mike...@my-dejanews.com
jear...@aol.com (JEarls21) wrote:
> In article <199807240256...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
doug...@aol.com
> (DougP001) writes:
>
> >"Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77, Gomez at
> >76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
> >
> >Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
> >fastball for close to ninety years.
>
>
> No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
>
> 1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions about the
> advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to baseball in
> particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft delineated here
> and in other threads.
>
> 2- Your arguments about how fast Johnson may have been, or how accurate the
> test(s) are, strike me as quite separate.
heresy n 1: any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or
orthodox position [syn: {unorthodoxy}, {heterodoxy}] [ant: {orthodoxy}] 2: a
belief that rejects the orthodox tenets of a religion [syn: {unorthodoxy}]
You might want to pick a word other than "heresy." It makes it sound like
this is an article of faith to you and there's no point in discussing it.
James Weisberg
DougP001 <doug...@aol.com> wrote:
><I'll use this post as the jumping-off point for Part II of my essay...>
>
>If I hadn't mentioned absolute speed, but merely said that "contemporary
>tests measured Walter Johnson's fastball as 6 MPH faster than Nap Rucker's
>or Van Lingle Mungo's, 7 MPH faster than Lefty Gomez's," I doubt the
>post would have evoked such a response. Those numbers don't sound
>unreasonable -- Gomez and Mungo won four strikeout titles between
>them, but Johnson was always perceived as faster. But when I say
>"Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77, Gomez at
>76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
>
>Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
>fastball for close to ninety years. But was Johnson really THAT much faster
>than everyone else? In this post, I'll argue that the answer is No by
>comparing Johnson to his contemporaries and near-contemporaries.
>
>Superficially, Johnson's strikeout totals appear awesome. He led the
>league in strikeouts 12 times, retired with 700 more strikeouts than
>anyone else, and retained that all-time strikeout mark for more than 50
>years. But much of this dominance was due to the large number of innings
>he threw. Johnson led in K/9IP "only" seven times -- and as I posted
>yesterday:
The stats here are interesting, but I'm not sure why you
want to submit this as evidence that Johnson didn't throw faster
(or THAT much faster) than his contemporaries. When you write,
"much of this dominance was due to the large number of innings
he threw", I think that pretty much answers the question.
Walter Johnson didn't need to strike out a lot of guys to
be dominant. He just needed to pitch well and hit his spots.
We all know Johnson had great control, so it's very likely that
he was very willing to let the batter put the ball in play.
Knowing in advance that he was counted on to pitch a lot of
innings for his team, Johnson probably did his best to conserve
his arm -- which meant that his K/IP totals might not neccessarily
be as dominant as they could have been.
The question here is what happens when Walter Johnson busts
out his best fastball? I don't think the answer to that question
lies in K/IP totals compared to his contemporaries.
Ben Flieger
JEarls21 wrote in message
<199807231530...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>Your only response to this is "Feller was a freak." That's not a
very helpful
>statement, Ben.
Freak as in able to throw the ball exceptionally hard. The fact that
so few people can throw 100+ leads me to believe that it isn't
something that can be gained through training and nutrition and
whatnot, but rather through exceptional natural luck. I believe Feller
threw the ball that fast. I see no reason why the Army would lie, and
the technology would be accurate enough.
>
>3- Many people found Feller and Johnson at least comparable, and they
were only
>separated by as
> little as 11 years, or, for the sake of easier rhetoric, call it
20
>(Johnson's last excellent year was 1925, at age 38, his last
strikeout leading
>season was 1924. Feller's rookie year was 1936.) I know that is an
awkward
>fact. though, like Doug, you could have answered it with
attentiveness and
>authority.
>
>## Conclusion: At this time, despite the evidence Doug presents
about the
>tests, I have trouble believing that a full 15- 17 MPH separated
Johnson and
>Feller, and because the test on Feller is so accurate, I would be
inclined to
>believe Johnson was closer to 95 MPH than to 80, and certainly closer
to 90 MPH
>than he was to 80 MPH ##
Why? You believe because you read people believed that. Second hand
subjective information.
>Your response is:
>
>>People also though Joe Carter was a productive player and that the
>>1998 Baltimore Orioles had a good team. Testimonials are worth
>>nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been,
>
>Testimonials are worth nothing at all, then?
Nice misreading. Hyperbole is fairly common in English. If I say I
have a million things to do tomorrow, how likely is that?
>Or, if Doug found a list of people who said "Feller is so much faster
than
>anyone who has come before, it is not even close", that evidence
would be
>worth "nothing"? (Actually, that evidence would have a decent amount
of weight
>-- but it isn't there, is it?) The testimonial evidence that Ruth
hit more
>LONG homeruns than anyone of his time is worth "nothing"?
I would give the Feller comments much, much less value than the actual
tests, if the tests indicated Johnson threw as fast or faster.
>Pretty feeble, Ben.
>
>More feeble is your willingness to admit that the 1912 test "may have
been
>inaccurate".
That a deliberate twisting of my words to mean something I obviously
didn't mean. Your use of quotations around something I never said is a
pretty low arguing technique, and really hurts your credibility. It's
a technique trolls will often use, though. If you don't want to be
taken for a troll, try to avoid that. In a different situation, it's
libel.
And the comma after "been" indicates the sentence wasn't
finished(though the meaning was pretty clear without the rest). I
accidently sent the post before finishing off that sentence:
"Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been, I still give it more
weight than personal accounts from before WW2." And just to cut your
misreading off at the pass, I don't give personal accounts from after
WW2 any more weight.
Well, if you are going to jump in on a thread you are having
>trouble following, and, especially, if you are going to adopt a
condescending
>tone, I would at least have some have faith in your evidence, even if
Doug
>found it for you.
_I_ am adopting a condescending tone and _I_ am the one having trouble
following the discussion?!? That's rich. _You_ think I disagree with
the Feller test. _You_ are the one telling me I can't follow the
thread.
>>>: No, you offered information about karate or something. As you are
so wont
>to point out, baseball is different.
>
>Another misreading by you, Ben. I suggested to Doug that Johnson's
motion
>
>a- doesn't prove for me that he was incapable of throwing extremely
fast
>b- may be unorthodox enough to be worth studying, not dismissing
I understand that. I think a is stubborn in the face of data and b is
something I didn't address, but your list of reasons _why_ was silly(I
think b itself is silly too, I think some pitchers would use his
motion if it was any good).
Are you dense or is my post coming through your newsreader changed,
because you are making some real leaps.(I can be condescending too)
>>>I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion,
>
>You just did -- unless you want me to ignore such a shallow and
overtly
>personal post, in which case, you probably should not have posted.
No, I disputed Johnson throwing as fast as Feller. As some of my
statements above should show, I am not one of those hated
ultra-modernists.
>There certainly is something about this "oldtimer", "modernism",
>"ultra/modernism" topic that brings out strong emotion quickly
(Would that
>explain why even though you didn't WANT to get involved in a post
about
>modernism, you did anyway?) .
As was obvious, I was commenting purely on the Johnson speed issue. I
didn't bring up the continuum of athletic development or the fact that
track and field stars are better now.
I really hate being defensive or sarcastic on a
>post. I would appreciate being read more carefully next time.
As would I.
JEarls21
<went...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu> writes:
>The difference? The gymnasts today have much better balance then they did
back then.
>
>So, arguments that baseball skills can't really be improved by modern training
are as meaningless to me as would be a claim that balance can't be any better
on the balance beam.
>
>I don't necessarily mean velocity, I mean overall baseball skills.
>
>paul
Paul,
What you know (I think) we are discussing is not "that skills can't be improved
by modern training
techniques." That is -- how is it said around here? -- a "strawman"?
What I have been saying is that
a- it is possible that certain baseball skills are not highly improved by
training (arm/whip speed), though as James Weisberg and Doug have suggested,
perhaps improved mechanics of the leg and the rest of the body have been
improved. The other alternative that might favor Johnson's MPH estimate is a
belief that a good % of the "modern evolution" of the motion had already taken
place. Doug's microfilm evidence disputes this, but professional baseball had
existed since 1876.
b- and, in the most general way, again, you are taking the slopes of two sports
and analogizing from them. And, In this particular, high-slope sports, and
"objective/timed" sports, like gymnastics and track and field have much to do
with psychological thresholds, and especially in the case of gymnastics, much
more to with cultural values, the number of participants per generations, and
many other cultural factors.
If the slopes are similar, and Olga Korbut (1972) doesn't even qualify for the
team, much less a medal in 1996, then does that mean Dick Allen couldn't make a
major league roster?
Neither of us think that.
Further, I have trouble being able to point to specific advances IN technique
in baseball, except the arguments about motion that Doug is into now. Kolbut
couldn't do a triple-whatever, Monceau can. Sonja Henie (sp) really DOES look
like a high school skater in old films.
But Ted Williams and Babe Ruth look like big league hitters to me, and though
Johnson's motion doesn't look that way to Doug, it does to other people.
If the baseball slope is as gradual as I think it is, I find no reason to
believe that some players had enough God given baseball talent, per se, to
stand above the slope they were on and stand as high, or nearly as high, as the
players of today. Finally, their rather "gaudy" stats prove that they seemed
like giants of their own time. That doesn't PROVE that they were not pretty
regal figures if they came into our own.
David Marc Nieporent
JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> claimed:
>doug...@aol.com (DougP001) writes:
>> But when I say Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77,
>> Gomez at 76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
>> Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
>> fastball for close to ninety years.
>Doug,
>No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
>1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions about the
>advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to baseball in
>particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft delineated here
>and in other threads.
"Reasons?" How about one reason, and not a particularly convincing one to
anybody but you? Your only reason is "People started playing baseball
sooner," which is hardly convincing, and isn't even *true* when compared
to basic skill sports (ie, track & field events).
Even were I to grant you the point, that's hardly a good argument. Even
if techniques were fully evolved decades ago, people are still much
bigger, faster, and stronger than they were then. So even without
improvements on the mechanics side of things, we should expect the level
of play to go up considerably in that time.
--
David M. Nieporent "Mr. Simpson, don't you worry. I
niep...@alumni.princeton.edu watched Matlock in a bar last night.
2L - St. John's School of Law The sound wasn't on, but I think I
Roberto Petagine Appreciation Society got the gist of it." -- L. Hutz
JEarls21
writes:
JE>> I really hate being defensive or sarcastic on a
>>post. I would appreciate being read more carefully next time.
>
>As would I.
Your need to explain what you meant by "Feller is a freak" suggest to me that
the statement, as well as your entire original post, wasn't written very
clearly, Ben. And if Feller was a freak of nature, as you go on to explain in
the latter post, why not Johnson?
It also contained buzzwords like "Joe Carter", and the "condescension" was
your seeming attempt to give me a lesson on the value of testimonial evidence.
Your comparing my posts in depth to James's posts on Cobb's (which, if you
haven't gotten it yet, have turned into a friendly joke around here, not an
insult) were clearly meant to be derogatory, as other reader told you.
In this post, you continue to post with a certain amount of unconcealed
disrespect, at the same time trying to clarify your intentions of the first
post.
This post, although seeming to be an attempt to set the record straight,
contains other unpleasant buzzwords: troll, libel, dense, newbie, deliberate
twisting, "hated" ultra-modernists. (Imagine if I actually hated someone over a
baseball discussion. Gosh)
I suggest we check each other's posting styles in DejaNews overall. I might
ask myself why I became defensive to you and no one else. You might ask why
your first post, and now this one, were the only ones I felt I needed to take
personally.
Joe Earls
Unfortunately, your first post contained these phrases:
"No, you offered information about karate or something. As you are so
wont to point out, baseball is different".
" I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion, but Joe's Johnson
argument makes Weisberg's Ty Cobb SB argument seem well-thought out
and logical. James had data that backed up some of his claims, you
have testimonials that is in direct conflict with actual evidence."
You then restated my argument in the most ludicrous terms.
"Your argument essentially is: "We must ignore the empirical
evidence(the 1912 test) because otherwise it contradicts me. People
thought Johnson was fast, people thought Feller was fast. Therefore
Johnson threw as hard as Feller."
You then wrote a statement that I took, even at hyperbole, as WHAT YOU MEANT TO
SAY. (That is how most writing gets read.)
" Testimonials are worth nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may have been,
Tell me, how I was supposed to react to such an aggressive and underdeveloped
post? If you have ideas, explain them clearly. It is much harder to get misread
that way.
James Weisberg
<mike...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <28299-35...@newsd-123.bryant.webtv.net>,
> with...@webtv.net (james withrow) wrote:
>> I want to add my congratulations on the strength of this thread.
>> I'd be an "ultra-modernist" except that we're currently in what's often
>> referred to as a "post-modern" world. Nonetheless, Mr. Earl's last post
>> found me nodding in agreement.
>> Weisberg's comment that current players' bat speeds are higher was
>> especially interesting.
>> A couple questions:
>> 1) Would it be correct to suggest that reflexes and/or arm speed would
>> be unaffected by nutrional improvements?
>
>I'm not a doctor but I pretend to be one on Usenet. Arm speed comes from
>muscles so I imagine they could be improved. Reactions, I don't know.
I'm not a doctor either, but I would be interested in someone
with some more knowledge of anatomy and conditioning to help out
here. I don't think it's just muscles which contribute to arm
speed and overall velocity. I am absolutely certain I could find
someone with stronger arm muscles than myself and yet I could
throw harder/farther than that person.
I think it has also to do with the shape of your arm and the
way the ligaments/tendons adhere to the bone and various muscle
fibers. In my case, my arm is severely bent. If I were to rest
my arm on level surface with my thumb pointing up, the angle
between my forearm and the surface would be a good 30 degrees,
if not more. Basically, my forearm juts out at a weird angle
from my elbow. I think that has something to do with the fact
that I constantly was throwing rocks and baseballs as a kid.
Those muscles strengthened and perhaps the way the ligaments
and tendons held stuff together caused my arm to grow at a
weird angle. My non-throwing arm is much straighter.
Anyway, I don't know if that is common or not, but I bring
it up because my arm itself isn't very strong but I have some
incredible elasticity in my elbow which I can use to snap the
ball through a release point. So my contention is that the
actual shape of my arm contributes significantly to the speed
at which I can throw things. I don't know if that makes any
sense, but I know I can certainly find people who have stronger
arm muscles than myself who just don't have the flexibility to
throw like I can.
JEarls21
>
>You might want to pick a word other than "heresy." It makes it sound like
>this is an article of faith to you and there's no point in discussing it.
>
>
Just playing off Doug's word, but thanks for the point well taken. I think it
is really just one error in logic, but it is so often repeated throughout the
sport world that I find it kind of Hydra-like.
Joe Earls
JEarls21
Nieporent) writes:
>,
>>No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
>>1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions about the
>>advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to baseball in
>>particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft delineated here
>>and in other threads.
>
>"Reasons?" How about one reason, and not a particularly convincing one to
>anybody but you? Your only reason is "People started playing baseball
>sooner," which is hardly convincing, and isn't even *true* when compared
>to basic skill sports (ie, track & field events).
>
The "one" point I have is that there is only one ultra-modern "point", or bias,
from which they draw an inescapable, but to my mind, a false conclusion.: that
people, or athletes, are stronger, faster, etc. today, therefore, then all
players from today are stronger, faster, than those in 1946 or 1912.
If we insist on reasoning that what is true for the entire group must be true
for every member of the particular group, yes, David, your conclusion is true,
and mine incontestably wrong. The only problem is that the argument makes a
false conclusion from a generalization.
By that logic
a- extended to its most extreme conclusion, Johnson (or Feller) couldn't even
compete today.
b- extended to an even reasonable conclusion by some "moderate" modernists (of
which you might be close to the middle?), is that players from the past would
have a great deal competing today.
Even if b is true in the context of a baseball argument, it involves trying to
prove a particular from the generality that we might agree on -- that players
of the past GENERALLY weren't as good.
BUT: that doesn't prove that if players of Feller's era weren't as good as
current players, Feller cannot be.
If you have leapt to that conclusion, in logic, that means you have already
concluded with the first part of your premise that Feller is not as good,
because you must have examined all 400, of which Feller must be one. So your
conclusion is fallacious.
What you know is that my position is somewhat more involved than that. I don't
know why you do me the injustice of simplifying it in this way.
JEarls21
>Those careers are not merely sequenced, but overlap, yet one cannot find a
>> perceptible time in those careers where the game suddenly got harder for
>the second half of his career.
>
>I don't see why you insist the league has to suddenly get harder. Suppose it
>improved at the rate of a point of batting average per year? That would
>neverproduce a sudden change but make players from the 20's worthless today.
>
>BTW, I don't advocate either that rate of change or players from the 20's
>being worthless today.'m demonstrating how even a large effect wouldn't be
>easily visible.
That is in fact my point. My defense is of the inherent abilities of GREAT
players who appear at various times in baseball history. My sense is that a
GREAT 80's player may be a LITTLE better than a GREAT 30's player, even if the
average player is far less good.
Again, this drop does not have to be precipitous -- how could it be? We already
have Ruth's and Williams's amazing stats (or Feller's 376 IP) to prove that
maybe they were playing against slightly weaker competition. That does not
prove that THEY were weaker than players playing today.
What David Nieporent and others seem to be missing is that the only THESIS I am
trying to persuade people of is that the gap between these two BASEBALL
players,( the 30's player and the 90's player) is far, far less than one could
possibly find in virtually any other sport.
THAT is why I find out-of-hand dismissals of baseball players not from "the
modern era" to be arguable. That is why I suggest that Mays, Feller, Ruth, and
maybe even Johnson could play today and be successful.
Though David suggests on his post that I am the "only one" to feel this way, I
know he is wrong about THAT. I have certainly read many posters who would
project the statistics of the aforementioned players suffer somewhat in the
modern era, but would be very willing to agree that they would play today and
flourish.
So that the ultra-modernist can't have it both ways, really. If they want to
make the error in logic that I point out in David N.'s post, they can defend
that. The error is to continue to assume that what is true for 90's and 30's
players generally is true for all players in particular: most 90's pitchers,
therefore, are said to be better than Bob Feller.
Particularly, the "ultra-modernist" is in trouble when he makes analogies from
other sports. Recent events in other sports have been so remarkable that if we
apply the same time-line to baseball, then some players we know to be excellent
from the 60's and 70'scould not play in the contemporary game.
If they want to admit to a different time line for baseball, then we enter into
a discussion of the shape and chronology of that line, and then we can actually
talk about baseball and exchange ideas, not empty syllogisms.
If they want to say that Williams and Feller (and, by logical extension, if
they have such faith in the modern athlete, Mays and Mantle) could play today,
then they are agreeing with me, at least in part. If they do not, it seems
they have a great deal of the burden of argument back on their shoulders. If
they do not, at that point, theirs becomes somewhat the minority argument, not
mine.
Michael David Jones
>In article <6pacm1$6...@pluto.njcc.com>, niep...@pluto.njcc.com (David Marc
>Nieporent) writes:
>>>No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
>>>1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions about the
>>>advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to baseball in
>>>particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft delineated here
>>>and in other threads.
>>"Reasons?" How about one reason, and not a particularly convincing one to
>>anybody but you? Your only reason is "People started playing baseball
>>sooner," which is hardly convincing, and isn't even *true* when compared
>>to basic skill sports (ie, track & field events).
>The "one" point I have is that there is only one ultra-modern "point", or bias,
>from which they draw an inescapable, but to my mind, a false conclusion.: that
>people, or athletes, are stronger, faster, etc. today, therefore, then all
>players from today are stronger, faster, than those in 1946 or 1912.
>If we insist on reasoning that what is true for the entire group must be true
>for every member of the particular group, yes, David, your conclusion is true,
>and mine incontestably wrong. The only problem is that the argument makes a
>false conclusion from a generalization.
This generalization is certainly not supportable as a point of logic,
but no one is trying to use it that way. We are looking at some
observations, notably that for a *wide* range of sports over a *long*
period of time, performances have improved as people have gotten
stronger, faster, better training, better nutrition, etc., and
concluding that the improvement that has been seen in those sports
*most likely* should be seen in baseball as well, and that the burden
of proof should be on those who think that baseball is exempt to show
why the exemption should apply. You are also engaging in a form of the
logical fallacy when you say that the argument is that "all
players...are stronger..."; the argument is that players, *as a group*
are stronger, faster, etc., which is a very different argument that
saying that all players today are stronger. I don't find it at all
difficult to believe that Bob Feller may have thrown as hard as Nolan
Ryan, or that Babe Ruth would be a first-rate slugger today. That
isn't incompatible with believing that most of their contemporaries
were not as strong, fast, etc., as Ryan's and McGwire's.
Mike Jones | jon...@rpi.edu
Paradise is a place with German engineers, British policemen and
French cooks;
Hell is a place with German policemen, British cooks and French
engineers.
Ben Flieger
JEarls21 wrote in message
<199807241907...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>JE>> I really hate being defensive or sarcastic on a
>>>post. I would appreciate being read more carefully next time.
>>
>>As would I.
>
me that
>the statement, as well as your entire original post, wasn't written
very
>clearly, Ben. And if Feller was a freak of nature, as you go on to
explain in
>the latter post, why not Johnson?
The test seems to dispute that.
>It also contained buzzwords like "Joe Carter", and the
"condescension" was
>your seeming attempt to give me a lesson on the value of testimonial
evidence.
>Your comparing my posts in depth to James's posts on Cobb's (which,
if you
>haven't gotten it yet, have turned into a friendly joke around here,
not an
>insult) were clearly meant to be derogatory, as other reader told
you.
Umm, yea. It was a bit derogatory, but I wasn't trying to be
condescending at all. I don't post with a serious tone. IT'S A
JOKE(the Cobb bit was at least, along with much of the rest of the
post).
>In this post, you continue to post with a certain amount of
unconcealed
>disrespect, at the same time trying to clarify your intentions of the
first
>post.
Because you misread them heavily.
>This post, although seeming to be an attempt to set the record
straight,
>contains other unpleasant buzzwords: troll, libel, dense, newbie,
deliberate
>twisting, "hated" ultra-modernists. (Imagine if I actually hated
someone over a
>baseball discussion. Gosh)
"hated" ultra-modernists: more hyperbole. You have posted several
times using "unconcealed disrespect" towards Doug Pappas on the
subject of modernism.
Oh, and I had ample reason to accuse you of deliberate twisting, you
drastically changed the meaning of my sentence, which is still a very
low arguing technique.
And I didn't use the word "newbie".
>I suggest we check each other's posting styles in DejaNews overall.
I might
>ask myself why I became defensive to you and no one else. You might
ask why
>your first post, and now this one, were the only ones I felt I
needed to take
>personally
I have no clue. I wasn't trying to be espically malicious or anything.
I merely feel you have taken a very, very odd stance. Then you
hideously misread my post and put words in my mouth.
>
>Joe Earls
>
>Unfortunately, your first post contained these phrases:
>
>"No, you offered information about karate or something. As you are so
>wont to point out, baseball is different".
You did offer information about martial artists advocating pushing off
to create force, and you have refuted Doug Pappas' information about
track and field with the claim throwing a baseball is different.
>" I'm not going to get into the modernism discussion, but Joe's
Johnson
>argument makes Weisberg's Ty Cobb SB argument seem well-thought out
>and logical. James had data that backed up some of his claims, you
>have testimonials that is in direct conflict with actual evidence."
Your argument is based on testimonals that are(grammar error) in
direct conflict with actual evidence.
>You then restated my argument in the most ludicrous terms.
>
>"Your argument essentially is: "We must ignore the empirical
>evidence(the 1912 test) because otherwise it contradicts me. People
>thought Johnson was fast, people thought Feller was fast. Therefore
>Johnson threw as hard as Feller."
Yes. I did. Because I think your argument is silly. If I've
misunderstood one of your main points, please correct me.
>You then wrote a statement that I took, even at hyperbole, as WHAT
YOU MEANT TO
>SAY. (That is how most writing gets read.)
>
>" Testimonials are worth nothing. Inaccurate as the 1912 test may
have been,
>
>Tell me, how I was supposed to react to such an aggressive and
underdeveloped
>post? If you have ideas, explain them clearly. It is much harder to
get misread
>that way.
My main point is that I think the 1912 test is more accurate than
testimonials from the time. Eyes can be fooled.
I don't hate being sarcastic in my posts, I usually am. I don't like
having words put in my mouth and I hate condescension.
Clifford Blau
fastball. Certainly 10 years ago it was regarded as average. How
fast does Greg Maddux throw?
As to the comparison of old-timers vs. moderns, I have one word to say
to you, Benjy: golf.
------------
Clifford Blau
http://pw2.netcom.com/~proboy/orb.htm
Roger Moore
> JEarls21 <jear...@aol.com> claimed:
> >Doug,
> >No, just to be clear, let's distinguish the two points.
> >1- "Ultra-modernism" is the heresy of applying broad conclusions
about the
> >advancement of skills, drawn from "all sports" and applied to
baseball in
> >particular. So, I still think it's a heresy, for reasons oft
delineated here
> >and in other threads.
>
> "Reasons?" How about one reason, and not a particularly convincing
one to
> anybody but you? Your only reason is "People started playing
baseball
> sooner," which is hardly convincing, and isn't even *true* when
compared
> to basic skill sports (ie, track & field events).
I don't know about that. The rate at which records have improved in
track has varied drastically from event to event, and in a way which
suggests that a lot of the difference depends on modern athletes having
more time to condition themselves. Times in the 100 meters, for
instance, haven't dropped by that much since Jesse Owens and Jim
Thorpe, and a lot of the difference appears to be the result of changes
in tracks, shoes, starting blocks, etc. rather than improvement in the
athletes themselves. Top marathon times, of course, have undergone a
much more radical improvement.
IMO, baseball is probably more similar to the 100 meters than the
marathon. The biggest reason for this is that track has, until fairly
recently, been dominated by amateur athletes who didn't have that much
time to train, while baseball has been played by professionals who did.
Top players like Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson had fairly rigorous
off-season training regimens, largely because they earned enough money
so that they could spend six months a year doing things to help them
get in shape for the other six. Incidentally, I think that the type of
training that Johnson undertook (mostly hunting and hiking) indicates
that he felt that his legs were a very important part of his pitching;
he stressed the need for strong legs to improve his pitching stamina.
There's additional evidence to suggest that baseball skills haven't
developed that rapidly. Some of the things that could be easily
measured haven't been improved on a whole lot. As an example, in an
exhibition game in 1917, Babe Ruth won a fungo hitting contest at 402
feet and Joe Jackson a throwing contest at 396 feet. We can easily
compare those accomplishments with those of modern players, and the old
timers will show up pretty well. We can look at what various players
did under game circumstances- by looking at landmarks they hit balls
over, etc., to see how far they were able to hit.
As far as the results of the tests of Johnson's speed go, my position
is that the results can't be taken at face value. For one thing, the
measurement of Johnson's velocity was not undertaken under anything
like game conditions: i.e. street clothes, no mound, awkward target,
etc. That's enough to throw considerable doubt on the quality of the
results, especially given that a similar test suggested that Lefty
Gomez, supposedly one of the fastest pitchers in the game and who had a
career which overlapped Feller's considerably, was more than 20 mph
slower than Feller was. Don't you think that people would have noticed
that Feller's changeup was faster than Gomez's fastball? I just find
it completely unbeliveable that Johnson threw about as fast as Bob
Tewksbury and Feller was as fast as Nolan Ryan and nobody could tell
the difference- no matter how much time separated the two of them.
--
Roger Moore r...@alumni.caltech.edu
Master of Meaningless Trivia http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~raj/
(626) 585-0144
"They are a great band, these armored knights of bat and ball...
While baseball remains our national game, our national tasest will
be higher and our national ideals on a finer foundation."
Calvin Coolidge
JEarls21
Jones) writes:
First, Michael, as a tangential point on this thread, I want to stop calling
PEOPLE "ultra-modernists": that is too unpleasant and sets up a we vs. them
mindset that is helpful to no one. Instead,
I refer to now to an "ultra-modern" bias. The "ultra-modern": bias is not a
kind of moderate pro-modern leaning you articulate below and which I partly
agree with, but is more extreme.
That bias ( or, I might more properly say, that "belief" ) is, as I have said
before, very widespread
in the media and among fans , a little less so on rsbb.
It is essentially the bias/belief that Doug expressed in his very first post:
> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
> Johnson be any different?
It is essentially the bias that the modern athlete is so superior to the
"old-timer" in all sports that anyone who would suggest an old-timer could
compete in today's game (including baseball) is a romantic.
In my opinion, that dismissive belief doesn't hold up in a baseball context,
at least not in a simple reflexive way some posters or some fans assume it
does. If I have tried to be Socratic about any issue on rsbb in the three
years I have been posting here, it has been on this topic.
(* Socratic, in this context, is truly in an adverbial: asking people to
question their own assumptions: certainly not as an adjective: I amnot
especially calm, wise, or motivated purely by the love of wisdom.)
About the bias that Doug articulated first, but many hold, I have asked:
1- Because it applies to track and swimming, does it have to apply to
baseball?
(As you agree, well, in terms of strict logic, no.)
2- If we agree to some improvement, does it follow the same time line as
track and field?
3- Does the improvement of the modern athlete seem to have been at the same
rate in all sports?
4- If the timeline in some sports is slower or faster than in others (say,
basketball), what
evidence might we have about baseball's development?
5- If we have evidence about a slower timeline applies to baseball (Ruth, or
Feller's MPH fastball),
what fruitful discussion might we have about which players might still be
able to play in
today's game? What discussions might we have about the length and height
of that slope?
If you want to put the burden of proof on me (and below, I say I will gladly
take it), then please remember (and David and Ben and anyone else who has
rebutted me) that what I am trying to disprove is that the "accuracy" of the
ultra-modern belief itself.
I am not ready to dismiss or de-value Johnson, Ruth, or Feller because some
athletes from another sport have leapt ahead in the same time period. Neither
am I willing to devalue them because they lacked "modern" advantages, as if "A"
(Feller) MUST be less than "A+ training" (Ryan). There are far too many
hypotheses and factors at work for that simple syllogism to work. (For example,
Feller's diet may have been wonderful, and his early training, even at home
with his father, may have maximized his peak (though overuse cut it short. Or,
maybe the "training" mattered very little. period.
If some people begin to believe that a baseball player from 40, 60, or even 80
years ago could play today, then Doug's FIRST, using the "old versus modern"
form ( the quoted one, not the more evidential ones that follow in his other
posts) is shown to be a reflexive bias, not some kind of athletic " given" or
an obvious postulate.
If some readers see that, I have at least created uncertainty and dialogue ,
where mere belief in the modern player's complete superiority existed before.
And, as I will discuss for you, that belief is in fact a combination of
imagery,(Johnson's motion, Ruth's belly), some unexamined assumptions (for
example, the chronology problem -- if Mantle could, why NOT Williams?) and
last, some fallacious logic.
>This generalization is certainly not supportable as a point of logic,
>but no one is trying to use it that way. We are looking at some
>observations, notably that for a *wide* range of sports over a *long*
>period of time, performances have improved as people have gotten
>stronger, faster, better training, better nutrition, etc., and
>concluding that the improvement that has been seen in those sports
>*most likely* should be seen in baseball as well, and that the burden
>of proof should be on those who think that baseball is exempt to show
>why the exemption should apply.
And, don't you think, Michael, that I have first asked people to realize that:
a- when they try to sneak it in as being good logic, it DOESN"T work, as you
point out, and I
have, as well?
b- and, don't you think that I've accepted the "burden of proof" in my rather
extensive arguments, and the evidence I present (Feller's fastball,) is
to simply get
people to accept that baseball may have the longest and flattest slope
of all, and
THEREFORE, it is possible to believe that some of the GREATS of the past
could be
GREAT, or NEAR-GREAT, today.
*Please notice how absolutely contrary that is to the ultra-modern bias quoted
in the post
that helped begin this thread.**
Before Doug and I and others split the argument somewhat and focused on
Johnson,(and often, Johnson VERSUS Feller), the problem of Doug's ultra-modern
bias was raised and has crept back into the thread, though often not by him
alone.
Once again, I think baseball has improved, and I don't think baseball is
"exempt". As I have
said time and again, different sports seem to have different slopes of
improvement, and any
number of hypotheses and factors can enter into explain the differences.
Roger Moore has
another good one about baseball versus track and field nearby, for example. I
personally think, from observation, that there is a huge skill gap in
basketball that got created from the early 60's to the late -70's, but one that
seems leveled off since then.
> You are also engaging in a form of the
>logical fallacy when you say that the argument is that "all
>players...are stronger..."; the argument is that players, *as a group*
>are stronger, faster, etc., which is a very different argument that
>saying that all players today are stronger.
That phrasing was to show how ultimately the ultra-modern bias, especially when
it uses other sports, leads to all or nothing thinking. If NONE of the 50
best sprinters or milers in the world from 1958 could compete in the world
today, then we HAVE to conclude that Mickey Mantle would not be among the 50
best hitters in the game now, or we HAVE to conclude that the two sports cannot
be fairly compared.
> I don't find it at all
>difficult to believe that Bob Feller may have thrown as hard as Nolan
>Ryan, or that Babe Ruth would be a first-rate slugger today. That
>isn't incompatible with believing that most of their contemporaries
>were not as strong, fast, etc., as Ryan's and McGwire's.
Exactly-- and people who have been trying to undermine my arguments for the
excellence of GREAT players of the past REPEAT the accusation that I don't
think
modern players are OVERALL better.
People who know how I feel on this issue should know better and play more
fairly.
People who are reading me in this subject area for the first time, please read
the above carefully.
Clifford Blau
> I'm not a doctor either, but I would be interested in someone
>with some more knowledge of anatomy and conditioning to help out
>here. I don't think it's just muscles which contribute to arm
>speed and overall velocity. I am absolutely certain I could find
>someone with stronger arm muscles than myself and yet I could
>throw harder/farther than that person.
Here is some of what Joseph Elinich had to say on the subject recently
on the SABR mailing list. He is paraphrasing a book by a Doctor
Harold Klawans entitled "Why Michael Couldn't Hit". The doctor is a
neurologist. (This discussion had to do with why there are few black
pitchers, but I think it is relevant to our topic, too.)
"The issue isn't one of body mass
(although the doctor attests that large back muscles advantage and
disadvantage certain athletic endeavors) but that of leverage. He
notes that a torso 0.1 longer than that of a competitor results in an
increase in force of 5x as the arm swings through the greater arc.
The drawback is that the longer arc results in a greater degree of
difficulty in controling the result. While the legs certainly provide
thrust toward the plate, their main function is to provide the stable
base on which the fulcrum of the waist rotates the torso. The length
of the legs are more important than their strength as the body bends
at the waist serving as the fulcrum for the torso as it delivers the
ball. Shorter legs would also be more of an advantage here as the
waist would attain a lower position relative the the
ground with a lesser amount of effort (all other aspects being equal).
To further paraphrase, if the optimum point of release was for the
waist, serving as the fulcrum, was to reach a point one third of the
height of the body off the ground at the point of release, then a body
with shorter legs would be better able to attain that perspective. If
at the same time, that same athlete possessed a torso one tenth longer
than that of a competitor, he can deliver a ball with greater force.
_All_other_aspects_being_equal_.
Since the discussion had to do with tall athletes, the doctor goes on
to discuss that the optimum size of _sluggers_ has shown itself to be
6'0" to 6'1". Anything beyond that results in greater difficulty in
bat control(and I can readily think of any number of tall hitters who
struck out excessively). Anything below that decreases the power that
can be delivered at the point of contact (the so-called "singles"
hitters).
Michael David Jones
>In article <6pas7h$27...@alumni.rpi.edu>, jon...@alumni.rpi.edu (Michael David
>Jones) writes:
>First, Michael, as a tangential point on this thread, I want to stop calling
>PEOPLE "ultra-modernists": that is too unpleasant and sets up a we vs. them
>mindset that is helpful to no one. Instead,
> I refer to now to an "ultra-modern" bias. The "ultra-modern": bias is not a
>kind of moderate pro-modern leaning you articulate below and which I partly
>agree with, but is more extreme.
>That bias ( or, I might more properly say, that "belief" ) is, as I have said
>before, very widespread
> in the media and among fans , a little less so on rsbb.
>It is essentially the bias/belief that Doug expressed in his very first post:
>> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
>> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
>> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
>> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
>> Johnson be any different?
>It is essentially the bias that the modern athlete is so superior to the
>"old-timer" in all sports that anyone who would suggest an old-timer could
>compete in today's game (including baseball) is a romantic.
Two observations: by labeling this "bias" rather than, say, an opinion
or point of view, you are loading the discussion from the start.
Second, "bias" implies that this is an opinion which comes from a will
to believe, rather than any evidential support. The post itself
contains the roots of the evidence that lead many people to hold this
opinion: over 80 years, performance levels have increased
substiantially in a wide variety of sports which are judged
objectively (as opposed to say, figure skating or diving). This raises
the question of why baseball should be different? That's not a
conclusion, but a statement about where the burden of proof should
like. I think you're reading more into this than is realy justified by
the text in a couple of ways; the first I've described in the previous
sentence, and the second is nothing that no one is making claims about
what Walter Johnson could have done had he had the benefits of today's
medical, nutritional, and training regiments but how his performance
in situ would register in the modern context. I fully believe that the
Cobbs, Ruths, Johnsons, and Groves of the game could be stars today
*given modern development*. If you picked up Ruth in 1927 and dropped
him into today's game I think he'd have a hard time staying on a ML
roster.
>In my opinion, that dismissive belief doesn't hold up in a baseball context,
>at least not in a simple reflexive way some posters or some fans assume it
>does. If I have tried to be Socratic about any issue on rsbb in the three
>years I have been posting here, it has been on this topic.
>(* Socratic, in this context, is truly in an adverbial: asking people to
>question their own assumptions: certainly not as an adjective: I amnot
>especially calm, wise, or motivated purely by the love of wisdom.)
The problem is that this is not a question that readily yields to the
Socratic method; the people you are talking to have, for the most
part, considered the questions you are asking and come to different
conclusions. What you have been asked, and not given very convincing
answers to, is why baseball should be a special case relative to such
a wide range of other sports. After all, if your beliefs about
baseball are true, they should apply not just to Johnson, but to the
average player of 1912. Do you really believe Fred Merkle, for
example, could be a starting second baseman today?
>About the bias that Doug articulated first, but many hold, I have asked:
> 1- Because it applies to track and swimming, does it have to apply to
>baseball?
> (As you agree, well, in terms of strict logic, no.)
But it applies not only to track and swimming, but to a large variety
of field events, to football, to basketball, and to a number of less
objective sports. Could you imagine the reports if someone had done a
quadruple axel in warmups in 1950? If someone had pulled off one of
today's high-difficulty dives during the 1942 Olympics? We can't
directly compare judged events, but we can observe that one of Peggy
Fleming's winning performances from not so many years ago wouldn't
even contain all the required elements in today's event. These cover a
range of skills; not just speed or strength, but also balance and
control. Why should baseball be exempt?
> 2- If we agree to some improvement, does it follow the same time line as
>track and field?
> 3- Does the improvement of the modern athlete seem to have been at the same
>rate in all sports?
I think it's quite likely that each sport follows its own time line,
but I can't think immediately of a sport that hasn't undergone a large
enough change over 80 years that it has become qualitative. Why should
baseball be exempt?
> 4- If the timeline in some sports is slower or faster than in others (say,
>basketball), what
> evidence might we have about baseball's development?
> 5- If we have evidence about a slower timeline applies to baseball (Ruth, or
>Feller's MPH fastball),
> what fruitful discussion might we have about which players might still be
>able to play in
> today's game? What discussions might we have about the length and height
>of that slope?
We might have a large number of discussions if you would participate
on the answer side as well as the question side. :-)
>If you want to put the burden of proof on me (and below, I say I will gladly
>take it), then please remember (and David and Ben and anyone else who has
>rebutted me) that what I am trying to disprove is that the "accuracy" of the
>ultra-modern belief itself.
>I am not ready to dismiss or de-value Johnson, Ruth, or Feller because some
>athletes from another sport have leapt ahead in the same time period. Neither
>am I willing to devalue them because they lacked "modern" advantages, as if "A"
>(Feller) MUST be less than "A+ training" (Ryan). There are far too many
>hypotheses and factors at work for that simple syllogism to work. (For example,
>Feller's diet may have been wonderful, and his early training, even at home
>with his father, may have maximized his peak (though overuse cut it short. Or,
>maybe the "training" mattered very little. period.
Let's address the general question, then. A good simple starting
place: do you believe the average baseball player of 1912 could hold a
job on a ML roster today? Of 1939? Of 1950? Why?
Personally, I think an average player from 1950 with a little luck
could hold down a utility infielder/5th outfielder type spot today. I
don't believe an average player from 1939 or 1912 could maintain a
ML job. That's my statement about how steep I think the improvement
slope is. In any era after the live ball was introduced, I think there
were a few players who could be competitive in today's game (the dead
ball game was different in so many ways that I think the adjustment to
today's game would be too large for success). I don't think there are
any player whose careers ended prior to WWII who could star at the
Clemens/Maddux/McGwire/Griffey level today.
Bear in mind that we're talking time machine out of the middle of
their careers.
Now, Joe, how much of that do you disagree with? If we can get a
baseline, we can start discussin why we differ.
>>This generalization is certainly not supportable as a point of logic,
>>but no one is trying to use it that way. We are looking at some
>>observations, notably that for a *wide* range of sports over a *long*
>>period of time, performances have improved as people have gotten
>>stronger, faster, better training, better nutrition, etc., and
>>concluding that the improvement that has been seen in those sports
>>*most likely* should be seen in baseball as well, and that the burden
>>of proof should be on those who think that baseball is exempt to show
>>why the exemption should apply.
>And, don't you think, Michael, that I have first asked people to realize that:
>a- when they try to sneak it in as being good logic, it DOESN"T work, as you
>point out, and I
> have, as well?
I don't think anybody *has* been trying to "sneak it in" (another
loaded term) as logic; you've been jumping to that conclusion where I
think it's not warranted.
>b- and, don't you think that I've accepted the "burden of proof" in my rather
> extensive arguments, and the evidence I present (Feller's fastball,) is
>to simply get
> people to accept that baseball may have the longest and flattest slope
>of all, and
> THEREFORE, it is possible to believe that some of the GREATS of the past
>could be
> GREAT, or NEAR-GREAT, today.
I don't think you've accepted the burden of proof in any significant
way, because
- your argument hasn't gone beyond the greats to addressing
average players from other eras,
- you've had a bit too much Socrates and not enough Perry Mason
(i.e., you're trying to raise questions more than generate
answers),
- you've argued both sides of the question in a couple of areas,
such as using Feller's timed measurements as support while
dismissing Johnson's, and
- you've been claiming the benefit of the doubt on every
occasion; every test you want to use may underestimate, every test
you don't like may be inaccurate high.
...snip...
>> You are also engaging in a form of the
>>logical fallacy when you say that the argument is that "all
>>players...are stronger..."; the argument is that players, *as a group*
>>are stronger, faster, etc., which is a very different argument that
>>saying that all players today are stronger.
>That phrasing was to show how ultimately the ultra-modern bias, especially when
>it uses other sports, leads to all or nothing thinking. If NONE of the 50
>best sprinters or milers in the world from 1958 could compete in the world
>today, then we HAVE to conclude that Mickey Mantle would not be among the 50
>best hitters in the game now, or we HAVE to conclude that the two sports cannot
>be fairly compared.
Why? This is beginning to sound like a creation/evolution debate,
where the creationist side claims that if you can't produce every
transitional form, then evolution *must* be false. Look at the actual
history, though, and progress in sports follows something much more
like "punctuated equilibrium" - progress neither occurs neither
uniformly within a sport nor in lockstep among sports. Your argument
above rests on a couple of HUGE simplifying assumptions that don't
seem supportable to me.
>> I don't find it at all
>>difficult to believe that Bob Feller may have thrown as hard as Nolan
>>Ryan, or that Babe Ruth would be a first-rate slugger today. That
>>isn't incompatible with believing that most of their contemporaries
>>were not as strong, fast, etc., as Ryan's and McGwire's.
>Exactly-- and people who have been trying to undermine my arguments for the
> excellence of GREAT players of the past REPEAT the accusation that I don't
>think
> modern players are OVERALL better.
But the existance of a few outliers doesn't say anything about the
overall slope of improvement, which was a large part of your argument
earlier in this post.
Mike Jones | jon...@rpi.edu
Till next time, remember: getting rid of welfare because of welfare
cheats is like getting rid of convenience stores because people rob them.
- Ian Shoales
Jason Kassa
DougP001 wrote:
> In article <6p6f4d$l...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, "Roger Moore"
> <glan...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >
> >> I do. Have you ever seen a film clip of Johnson pitching? He threw
> >off
> >> his back foot, with a sweeping, near-sidearm delivery. There's no
> >way
> >> anyone with that motion could throw as hard as a modern power
> >pitcher.
> >
> >I don't know about that. For one thing, every clip of Johnson's
> >pitching that I've seen has been of him warming up, rather than
> >throwing in an actual game, so I'm not sure if his motion wouldn't have
> >been a bit different.
>
> <returning to the fray after a day at the office and a trip to the microfilm
> reader over lunch...>
>
> Johnson's motion is described in Henry Thomas's biography: "a short
> 'windmill' windup in which he rotated his arm in a circle while standing
> straight up on the mound, then swept the arm behind his back as far as
> it would go before whipping it forward in a smooth sidearm-underarm arc."
> (p. 10.)
>
> A few pages later, Thomas adds: "A graceful, fluid delivery -- 'effortless,'
> it was often described -- gave his long arm tremendous leverage while
> spreading much of the effort to his back and legs, putting little strain
> on the arm and shoulder. . . . There were others, including Grover Cleveland
> Alexander, Addie Joss, Iron Man McGinnity, and to some extent Cy
> Young, who also found great success using a similar sweeping sidearm
> delivery." Then Thomas quotes Johnson's reaction to watching Joe Wood:
> "When I used to see Wood pitch, although I admired his speed and control,
> it made my own shoulders ache to watch his delivery. That pitching with
> the arm alone, that wrenching of the muscles in the shoulder, would wear
> out my arm, I am sure, much quicker than the easy, swinging motion I
> always aim to use." (p. 59.)
>
> These excerpts suggest a few conclusions. Johnson's motion may well have
> let him throw faster than a pitcher using the then-"conventional" delivery
> could: he built up more momentum and used more muscles. But this
> "easy, swinging" motion, which put less strain on the arm, remained less
> efficient than the modern approach, in which most of the strain is borne by
> the stronger leg muscles which provide most of the forward momentum.
> Finally, Wood's "pitching with the arm alone" and "wrenching of the muscles
> in the shoulder" confirms that the conventional delivery of the era emphasized
> the upper body almost exclusively and did not involve the modern leg drive.
the "wrenching" occurs during follow through, and is not contributedto, or
eliviated by leg drive.
Johnson's stride was not as long as the modern technicque,
by about a foot, so I would guess about a 3-4 mph reduction
in speed from that.
He used his hips very well and generated a lot of power
into his long arm arc.
Here is my explanation of the "smooth effect": Johnsons
arm arc was longer and he it took longer from start to finish
causing a ball to be faster than expected.
Watch Randy Johnson's arm speed. It does not seem that
the ball should be thrown at 97mph. Sometimes he looks like
he is not straining.(when you can't see his face)
(snip many things and stuff)
> Actually, your "most important" point may be the LEAST important for
> Johnson. When I saw your post this morning, I made a note to check
> a reference I'd once run across in TSN. For the June 26, 1941 issue,
> TSN measured every pitching mound in the majors. Washington's Griffith
> Stadium had the lowest -- only 7" high. (Until 1950 mounds were allowed
> to be "up to" 15" high, with no minimum.) The accompanying article quoted
> Yankee manager Joe McCarthy as saying that sidearm pitchers favor
> flat mounds, while overhand pitchers prefer higher mounds; McCarthy
> singled out Dazzy Vance as one overhander who'd especially benefited
> from home groundskeeping. This makes sense: the overhanders would
> benefit more from the added momentum of moving downhill, while Johnson's
> gyrations would be easier to control on a more level surface.
Throwing downhill is a faster throw.
> Johnson was a sidearmer, and Clark Griffith owned the Senators in both
> 1941and Johnson's era, so it's reasonable to assume that Johnson threw off
> an unusually low mound and wouldn't have suffered much by throwing "flat."
He would suffer when compared to a guy throwing off a higher mound.
> There's no question that the test was "fair" insofar as Johnson and Rucker
> were allowed to warm up as long as they wished, and weren't timed until
> they felt comfortable throwing at the target. I doubt if the combination of
> factors cost Johnson more than 5 MPH off his fastball.
I agree that 5mph is a good guess.
>
>
> (In the next message, I'll discuss why, entirely independent of this test,
> I think Johnson wasn't as fast as his reputation suggests.)
>
> Doug Pappas
Jason Kassa
Mike Harmon wrote:
good stuff. I was just writing a post about how Randy Johnson'sdeceptive
speed and Walter Johnson's deceptive speed may
be comparable.
Jason Kassa
DougP001 wrote:
> In article <6p3sp7$q...@cosmos.ccrs.emr.ca>, joh...@cosmos.ccrs.emr.ca (Ron
> Johnson) writes:
>
> >
> >Rucker was indeed an above average pitcher. He was also a
> >left-handed knuckleballer. Often cited as the inventor
> >of the knuckleball. (Though in all probability he was simply
> >the first to achieve a lot of success with it.)
> >
> >He was like Tom Candiotti at the start of his career. Threw a lot
> >more than just a knuckler.
> >
> >The point here being that he's an odd choice for this experiment.
> >And it's interesting that Johnson only comes out 8% faster than
> >Rucker.
>
> <I'll use this post as the jumping-off point for Part II of my essay...>
>
> If I hadn't mentioned absolute speed, but merely said that "contemporary
> tests measured Walter Johnson's fastball as 6 MPH faster than Nap Rucker's
> or Van Lingle Mungo's, 7 MPH faster than Lefty Gomez's," I doubt the
> post would have evoked such a response. Those numbers don't sound
> unreasonable -- Gomez and Mungo won four strikeout titles between
> them, but Johnson was always perceived as faster. But when I say
> "Johnson was tested at 83 MPH, Rucker and Mungo at 77, Gomez at
> 76," I'm condemned for the heresy of "ultra-modernism."
>
> Why? Largely because of the aura which has surrounded Walter Johnson's
> fastball for close to ninety years. But was Johnson really THAT much faster
> than everyone else? In this post, I'll argue that the answer is No by
> comparing Johnson to his contemporaries and near-contemporaries.
>
> Superficially, Johnson's strikeout totals appear awesome. He led the
> league in strikeouts 12 times, retired with 700 more strikeouts than
> anyone else, and retained that all-time strikeout mark for more than 50
> years. But much of this dominance was due to the large number of innings
> he threw. Johnson led in K/9IP "only" seven times -- and as I posted
> yesterday:
>
> <<Only twice in Johnson's 21-year career (1910, 1912) did he strike
> out 0.5 batters/game more than anyone else in the league. During those
> same years, there were *seven* seasons when someone else finished that
> far ahead of the AL pack: Rube Waddell (1907, 1908), Dutch Leonard (1914),
> Eric Erickson (1919), Guy Morton (1922) and Lefty Grove (1925, 1926).>>
> Hardly the numbers of someone who threw far harder than his peers.
>
> Among all pitchers who entered the majors after the mound was moved to
> its current distance, retired by 1956 (Bob Feller's last season), and threw
> at least 1500 innings, here are the career leaders in K/9IP:
>
> Rube Waddell -- 7.0
> Dazzy Vance -- 6.2
> Bob Feller -- 6.1
> Johnny Vander Meer -- 5.5
> Orval Overall -- 5.5
> Hal Newhouser -- 5.4
> Walter Johnson -- 5.3
> Tommy Bridges -- 5.3
> Dizzy Dean -- 5.3
> Van Lingle Mungo -- 5.3
> Lefty Gomez -- 5.3
> Ed Walsh -- 5.3.
>
> Newhouser and Bridges benefited from weak WWII competition, so let's
> discard them. Johnson would then rank sixth in K/IP -- with Mungo and
> Gomez, who were tested at 6-7 MPH slower, eighth and ninth. Feller,
> Vance and especially Waddell are the ones who emerge as the dominant
> strikeout artists of the era, with Johnson at the high end of a good-sized
> cluster. Again, if Johnson actually threw as fast as his reputation suggests,
> he'd rank considerably higher than he does.
>
> "Okay," I hear the skeptics, "but Johnson pitched so much longer than
> the others -- maybe his later years dragged down his average." Here
> are the career marks for, in order, Waddell, Feller, Vance and Johnson
> at the same ages (* = led league):
>
> 17 -- 11.0 -- --
> 18 -- 9.1 -- --
> 19 -- 7.8* -- 5.8
> 20 3.2 7.5* -- 5.6
> 21 -- 7.3* -- 5.0
> 22 5.0 6.8* -- 7.6*
> 23 5.6* -- -- 5.8
> 24 6.2 -- 5.3 7.4*
> 25 6.8* -- -- 6.3*
> 26 8.4* 7.4 -- 5.4
> 27 8.2* 8.4 0.0 5.4
> 28 7.9* 5.9* -- 5.6*
> 29 6.5* 5.3 -- 5.2*
> 30 7.3* 4.6 -- 4.5
> 31 7.3 3.8 4.9* 4.6
> 32 5.8 4.0 6.3* 4.9
> 33 3.8 7.6* 4.9*
> 34 3.1 7.5* 3.5
> 35 3.8 7.5* 4.5
> 36 2.7 6.1* 5.1*
> 37 2.8 6.4* 4.2
> 38 4.9 4.3
> 39 6.0 4.3
> 40 6.2*
> 41 5.3
> 42 6.1
> 43 4.9
> 44 4.9
>
> All four were fastball pitchers -- no Steve Carlton sliders or Bert Blyleven
> curveballs to clutter the analysis -- so I think it's reasonable to use their
> strikeout proficiency as a surrogate for pitching speed. In their primes,
> Waddell and Feller were both better strikeout pitchers than Johnson. (And
> to answer Joe Earls' question, yes I believe Feller threw significantly faster
> than Johnson: he was probably the fastest pitcher in the game when he
> debuted at age 17, and would only have gotten stronger through his early
> to mid 20s.) Vance had a freakish career, but was comparable or slightly
> superior as a K man.
>
> Johnson was clearly the BEST pitcher of the four, but I see no reason to
> believe that he threw as hard as either Waddell or Feller in their primes.
>
> <Done. Whew!>
>
> Doug Pappas
(xMPH) is not equal to (xSTRIKEOUTS).
Paul G. Wenthold
>
> In article <35B887...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu>, "Paul G. Wenthold"
> <went...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu> writes:
>
> >The difference? The gymnasts today have much better balance then they did
> back then.
> >
> >So, arguments that baseball skills can't really be improved by modern training
> are as meaningless to me as would be a claim that balance can't be any better
> on the balance beam.
> >
> >I don't necessarily mean velocity, I mean overall baseball skills.
> >
> >paul
>
> Paul,
>
> What you know (I think) we are discussing is not "that skills can't be improved
> by modern training
> techniques." That is -- how is it said around here? -- a "strawman"?
>
Um, Joe, I'm confused. Maybe, just maybe one of the
reasons I might get the idea that you don't think
skills can be improved by modern training is because
you say things like:
> What I have been saying is that
>
> a- it is possible that certain baseball skills are not highly improved by
> training (arm/whip speed),
Given that you have been saying this, how is
the statement above straw?
(besides, I don't recall that I was responding
to you directly, just providing more discussion)
Paul G. Wenthold
>
> b- and, in the most general way, again, you are taking the slopes of two sports
> and analogizing from them. And, In this particular, high-slope sports, and
> "objective/timed" sports, like gymnastics and track and field
Look, Joe, if you want to make an argument, you have
to maintain credibility. To use the words "objective"
and "gymnastics" in the sentance is not helping.
As the Bulgarians at the Goodwill Games how objective
they think gymnastics competition is.
Besides, please justify why you think "balance" should
be a high-slope feature. Notice, I didn't mention
the number of flips that Dominique Moceaneau can do,
or the number of spins by Nancy Kerrigan, I mentioned
a specific skill that few people at the outset
would consider to be one of those to be seriously
affected by modern training techniques. How do you
teach balance? The same way you teach bat speed?
JEarls21
<went...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu> writes:
> To use the words "objective"
>and "gymnastics" in the sentance is not helping.
>As the Bulgarians at the Goodwill Games how objective
>they think gymnastics competition is.
What I meant is that Olga Korbut could not do certain acts on the balance beam
that modern gymnnasts could do.
This fact, as well as the modern times of track and field stars, is what I
meant by "objective". It's objective evidence that in gymnastics, the skill
level has advanced dramatically.
The number of reasons why this might be true in gymnastics, but not in a lower
slope sport like baseball (Dick Allen could hit 450 foot homers in 1972), are
anyone's guess.
Your suggestion that balance, in and of itself, was a "skill that can be
improved by modern training methods" is either
a- true
b- or, it's not balance, exactly, that is being radically improved in
gymnastics, but some combination of skills.
Whichever is true (or, to take another sport, the the ability to leap might
make 70's basketball clearly superior to 50's basketball), I don't know whether
every single baseball skill would have the "teachability" of sports of gymastic
training.
Actually, I can't think of another sport where the increase in performance is
as much the result OF training (and finding the most natural talent as early as
possible) as gymnastics.
And, as I have been saying, I can't think of another sport where the optimum
methods of achieving skills may have already emerged long before our time than
baseball(if not Johnson, then certainly Feller. If not Feller, then certainly
Bob Gibson.), and I can't find another sport that was already doing an
excellent job of finding all the talent available in the country as baseball
was (If not in Johnson's time, then in Feller's....etc.
JEarls21
Jones) writes:
:
JE>>First, Michael, as a tangential point on this thread, I want to stop
calling
>>PEOPLE "ultra-modernists": that is too unpleasant and sets up a we vs. them
>>mindset that is helpful to no one. Instead, I refer to now to an
"ultra-modern" bias. The "ultra-modern": bias is not akind of moderate
pro-modern leaning you
articulate below and which I partly
>>agree with, but is more extreme.
>>That bias ( or, I might more properly say, that "belief" ) is, as I have
>saidbefore, very widespread in the media and among fans , a little less so on
rsbb.
>>It is essentially the bias/belief that Doug expressed in his very first
>post
Old quote from Doug::
>>> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
>>> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
>>> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
>>> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
>>> Johnson be any different?
>>It is essentially the bias that the modern athlete is so superior to the
>>"old-timer" in all sports that anyone who would suggest an old-timer could
>>compete in today's game (including baseball) is a romantic.
>Two observations: by labeling this "bias" rather than, say, an opinion
>or point of view, you are loading the discussion from the start.
>Second, "bias" implies that this is an opinion which comes from a will
>to believe, rather than any evidential support. The post itself
>contains the roots of the evidence that lead many people to hold this
>opinion: over 80 years, performance levels have increased
>substiantially in a wide variety of sports which are judged
>objectively (as opposed to say, figure skating or diving).
I was using the word "bias" as it is often used in the statistical sense around
here, as
something that mght slant one's viewpoint without being aware of it. However,
it is
a loaded term: you're right.
> This raises
>the question of why baseball should be different? That's not a
>conclusion, but a statement about where the burden of proof should
>like. I think you're reading more into this than is realy justified by
>the text in a couple of ways; the first I've described in the previous
>sentence, and the second is nothing that no one is making claims about
>what Walter Johnson could have done had he had the benefits of today's
>medical, nutritional, and training regiments but how his performance
>in situ would register in the modern context. I fully believe that the
>Cobbs, Ruths, Johnsons, and Groves of the game could be stars today
>*given modern development*. If you picked up Ruth in 1927 and dropped
>him into today's game I think he'd have a hard time staying on a ML
>roster.
This came up earlier in the post, Michael, courtesy of Pat Mathews. This is
exactly where
I disagree completely, and even if you consider my position on this to be a
greatly minority one,
I am not the only rsbb'er who feels that Ruth (or try Ted Williams -- he's a
little harder to dismiss)
would be fine in today's game without any modern advantages.
>>In my opinion, that dismissive belief doesn't hold up in a baseball
>context, >>at least not in a simple reflexive way some posters or some fans
assume it
>>does. If I have tried to be Socratic about any issue on rsbb in the three
>>years I have been posting here,
>The problem is that this is not a question that readily yields to the
>Socratic method; the people you are talking to have, for the most
>part, considered the questions you are asking and come to different
>conclusions.
Not all of them have had this particular opinion questioned, Michael, and some
of the
more experienced posters have reacted (intellectually, emotionally,
rhetorically)
as if I'd just said that "RBI's are the most important batting statistic."
What you have been asked, and not given very convincing
>answers to, is why baseball should be a special case relative to such
>a wide range of other sports. After all, if your beliefs about
>baseball are true, they should apply not just to Johnson, but to the
>average player of 1912.
Precisely what I haven't been saying. What I have been saying, to use a Bill
James analogy about
peak vs career performance (Warren Spahn "weighed 400 pounds" but was never 7
feet tall),
is that if Johnson and Ruth seem 6'10 in their own time, is it possible that
they would seem 6'5 in our own.
Do you really believe Fred Merkle, for
>example, could be a starting second baseman today?
No.
>
>>About the bias that Doug articulated first, but many hold, I have asked:
>> 1- Because it applies to track and swimming, does it have to apply to
>>baseball?
>> (As you agree, well, in terms of strict logic, no.)
>
>But it applies not only to track and swimming, but to a large variety
>of field events, to football, to basketball, and to a number of less
>objective sports. Could you imagine the reports if someone had done a
>quadruple axel in warmups in 1950? If someone had pulled off one of
>today's high-difficulty dives during the 1942 Olympics? We can't
>directly compare judged events, but we can observe that one of Peggy
>Fleming's winning performances from not so many years ago wouldn't
>even contain all the required elements in today's event. These cover a
>range of skills; not just speed or strength, but also balance and
>control. Why should baseball be exempt?
It isn't in the sense we assume a gradual development of some kind.. (Please
read the other posts closely.)
It is in that I can't find that many SKILLS in baseball that one can point to
as having been perfected
over a short period of time.
>We might have a large number of discussions if you would participate
>on the answer side as well as the question side. :-)
True ;-) But all I want people to do when the discussions START is to not hear
a response like the one Doug gave above immediately (which is the ultra-modern
belief !!) rather than the ones he gave later.
>Let's address the general question, then. A good simple starting
>place: do you believe the average baseball player of 1912 could hold a
>job on a ML roster today? Of 1939? Of 1950? Why?
>Personally, I think an average player from 1950 with a little luck
>could hold down a utility infielder/5th outfielder type spot today. I
>don't believe an average player from 1939 or 1912 could maintain a
>ML job. That's my statement about how steep I think the improvement
>slope is. In any era after the live ball was introduced, I think there
>were a few players who could be competitive in today's game (the dead
>ball game was different in so many ways that I think the adjustment to
>today's game would be too large for success). I don't think there are
>any player whose careers ended prior to WWII who could star at the
>Clemens/Maddux/McGwire/Griffey level today.
>Bear in mind that we're talking time machine out of the middle of
>their careers. Now, Joe, how much of that do you disagree with? If we can get
a
>baseline, we can start discussin why we differ.
I think a certain dark hole may exist in a lot of people's minds about the
20's: people believe that there IS some sudden dropoff there, or just AT the
deadball era. I agree in the gradual slope, and that if four teams were drafted
to make "all-era" all stars (1900-1920, 1921-1941, 1941-1961, 1962-1981,
1982-2000), each succeeding era would be stronger.
Specifically, how MUCH better is worth discussing, but I think on another
thread. Or. to be more accurate, asking me to be very specific so we CAN argue
in a baseball sense I would gladly do, but it would take time, like asking me
my all-time teams, and I would be glad to answer it as a branch of this thread
given that time. (( I suspect my projected standings are a little more generous
to old-timers than yours, but would still point to a steady, marked, and as I
have called it, and "incremental" improvement, virtually invisible over time
(as you say) but evident over a longer stretch.)
>> I don't find it at alldifficult to believe that Bob Feller may have thrown
as hard as Nolan
>>Ryan, or that Babe Ruth would be a first-rate slugger today. That
>>isn't incompatible with believing that most of their contemporaries
>>were not as strong, fast, etc., as Ryan's and McGwire's.
>>Exactly-- and people who have been trying to undermine my arguments for the
>> excellence of GREAT players of the past REPEAT the accusation that I don't
>>think modern players are OVERALL better.
>But the existance of a few outliers doesn't say anything about the
>overall slope of improvement, which was a large part of your argument
>earlier in this post.
My point in the post is, has been, that certainly SOME players, if not
several, from the 1920's all-star team or the 1940's all-star team might be
welcomed on a later team, or would certainly fill a slot if a 5th "expansion"
team from the 60's or the 80's was created.
My point was that the slope doesn't eliminate the EXISTENCE of the outliers.
My point has been that Ruth or Johnson or Williams or Feller might be able to
play in the 50's, 70's or today, not Fred Merkle.
My point has been that the "ultra-modern" belief that says "No WAY!" to any
players of the distant or somewhat distant past is inaccurate.
The only point that I care about trying to sway readers on is the one I quote
below again: that Doug's reaction/rejection (that essentially started this
thread) of Johnson is premature, and that it is.....well, the ultra-modern
belief, unexamined.
Joe Earls
>>> Nor should this be surprising in light of the evolution of other sports
>>> records since Johnson's day. The 1912 performances of the best milers,
>>> javelin throwers and others who compete against a stopwatch or tape
>>> measure wouldn't win a high school meet today -- why should Walter
>>> Johnson be any different?
JEIt is essentially the bias that the modern athlete is so superior to the
>>"old-timer" in all sports that anyone who would suggest an old-timer could
>>compete in today's game (including baseball) is a romantic.
"The greater the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."
My father's favorite.
samson98
> Since the discussion had to do with tall athletes, the doctor goes on
> to discuss that the optimum size of _sluggers_ has shown itself to be
> 6'0" to 6'1". Anything beyond that results in greater difficulty in
> bat control(and I can readily think of any number of tall hitters who
> struck out excessively). Anything below that decreases the power that
> can be delivered at the point of contact (the so-called "singles"
> hitters).
Has anyone mentioned all this to Frank Thomas?
(Maybe someone did this year...)
Jason Kassa
Michael David Jones wrote:
I boo that statement (lots of loud wailing boos).
do you think Ruth was some fat guy hacking away at bum
pitchers?
Those guys Gehrig and Foxx must have been some real dogs
too.
If Ruth was dropped into today's game he would: be 6'2" 215+,
have one of the harder swings,
have one of the more fluid swings among power hitters,
have one of the best "eyes" at the plate,
have great timing at the plate.
Maybe those sliders and forkballs from relief specialists
would just get him so depressed that he would drink and
eat himself down to a .420 obp and a .715 slg.
the only thing that could knock him out of a 1998 lineup
is another one of those "intestine" problems he had.
He could play for Denver and break a few records,
and go out and eat hotdog b.l.t. clubs
on rye (see note) with Bichette.
(the obscure club they are both into.)
David Andrew Leonardo Marasco
for something else:
Chicago Tribune, Oct. 10, 1910
Cincinnati, O. Oct. 9 - The world's record for long distance throwing
of a baseball, which had stood for thirty-six years, was broken at the
field today between the Cincinnati and Pittsburgh National league teams
here today when Sheldon Lejeune of the Evansville club of the Central
league threw the sphere 426 feet 6 1/4 inches, which is 25 feet 10 3/4
inches over the old record.
This long distance throwing event was in a special match between Lejeune
and Oscar Fandree of Springfield. The record that has stood for more than
a third of a century was made by Tom Hatfield and was 400 feet 7 1/2 inches.
In the field events that followed Pittsburg was unable to carry any
honors. In two events the visitors succeeded in getting ties, but
were outdone in the finals. Following are the summaries:
Beating out a bunt - John Lobert and Ward Miller, both of Cincinnati,
tied at :03 2/5 and divided the prize money.
Fungo hitting - Won by Rowan of Cincinnati, distance 398 feet 6 1/2 inches.
Circling the bases - Campbell of Pittsburg, and Lobert of Cincinnati, tied.
Time :14. In the run-off Lobert won by repeating the circuit in :14.
Catchers, accurate throwing - Won by McLean, Cincinnati, making two bullseyes
out of three throws.
Pitchers control contest - Won by Harry Gaspar, Cincinnati. Record 8
strikes out of eleven balls thrown.
Outfielders, accurate throwing - Paskert, Cincinnati, and WIlson, Pittsburgm
tied on two throws, Paskert winning on the third.
100 yard dash - Won by Lobert Cincinnati; Campbell, Pittsburgh, second; and
W. Miller, Cincinnati, third. J. Miller, Pittsburg, also started.
David Marasco mar...@nwu.edu http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~dmarasco
"An object at rest cannot be stopped." - The Tick
Paul G. Wenthold
>
> In article <35BA07...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu>, "Paul G. Wenthold"
> <went...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu> writes:
>
> > To use the words "objective"
> >and "gymnastics" in the sentance is not helping.
> >As the Bulgarians at the Goodwill Games how objective
> >they think gymnastics competition is.
>
> What I meant is that Olga Korbut could not do certain acts on the balance beam
> that modern gymnnasts could do.
>
> This fact, as well as the modern times of track and field stars, is what I
> meant by "objective". It's objective evidence that in gymnastics, the skill
> level has advanced dramatically.
>
> The number of reasons why this might be true in gymnastics, but not in a lower
> slope sport like baseball (Dick Allen could hit 450 foot homers in 1972), are
> anyone's guess.
>
> Your suggestion that balance, in and of itself, was a "skill that can be
> improved by modern training methods" is either
>
> a- true
> b- or, it's not balance, exactly, that is being radically improved in
> gymnastics, but some combination of skills.
>
> Whichever is true (or, to take another sport, the the ability to leap might
> make 70's basketball clearly superior to 50's basketball)
However, the ability to leap would be an issue of
strength, so I want to keep it out of the discussion.
I'm talking about those skills that are not obviously
strength/speed skills.
, I don't know whether
> every single baseball skill would have the "teachability" of sports of gymastic
> training.
>
However, three years ago I would have said the same
thing about "balance." But then I saw footage
from the 195? olympics and saw that clearly, balance
has improved since then. That's the point of
this whole exercise. I don't know how in the world
"balance" could be taught to a gymnast, but I know
that it has. Therefore, I don't put much credance
anymore in claims that baseball skills, or hand-eye
coordination, or whatever, cannot be improved upon.
My example of balance on the balance beam demonstrates
that you can't just claim that "this skill can't
be taught."
craf...@naspa.net
PR>fastball. Certainly 10 years ago it was regarded as average. How
PR>fast does Greg Maddux throw?
PR>As to the comparison of old-timers vs. moderns, I have one word to say
PR>to you, Benjy: golf.
PR>------------
PR>Clifford Blau
PR>http://pw2.netcom.com/~proboy/orb.htm
Hell, I think 63 MPH is a major league fastball for Mike Magnante. :-)
Russ Craft
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JEarls21
<went...@dorothy.chem.ttu.edu> writes:
Paul,
You may be right. I wouldn't want to get stuck with my defending an
thesis that relies merely on believing that certain skills , ones particular
to
baseball, can't be taught, or to us that as my best "evidence":
I would hate to hear myself saying: "Velocity, or bat speed, or anything
else,
is a natural gift, "nyah, nyah" (sound of tongue sticking out.) and you
ultra-modern
believers have to prove it isn't "nyah, nyah""
That may be a little bit true, but it's not much of a closing argument.
I look at an NFL lineup from the 40's or NBA films from the 50's, or
skating films
or gymnastics films (whichever combination of size or skill:, in your post,
you
are desirous of leaving size out of it.), but I KNOW I have to believe the
teams in the films could not compete today, and very few of the people.
Too small, too slow, not enough skill.
However, I think at this POINT in the development of baseball and my reading
about it , I don't think HAVE to believe that Ruth didn't have Killebrew's
bat speed, or Johnson's or Feller did not have Ryan's approximate velocity. I
don't
think enough evidence, scientific or persuasive or otherwise, has been
presented
to me yet..
Doug's second major point (other than his pro-modern athlete stance) was that
the skills HAD jumped forward. When Doug got back to Johnson specifically,
he said he felt Johnson's motion seemed incapable of such velocity. He may be
correct, and I could be drawing a false conclusion that Johnson's motion was
simply very effective for him, that he was as fast as Feller, that Feller was
as fast
as Ryan, etc.
We may find, sometime in the future, that some development in either throwing
or
hitting technique brings about an improvement rapid enough to be seen within
just
one era. (Ruth's uppercut, full swing might be a candidate.)
In the future, perhaps players become strong enough to pull EVERYTHING, as
McGwire seems to,
or develop such great bat speed or such refined plate coverage that the phrase
"a hole
in his swing" becomes an anachronism. Or, perhaps the ability to throw
strikes becomes
both a more valued and a more TEACHABLE skill, and the decade 2020 becomes
filled
with pitchers with BB/IP of 1.5/9, one's that make Maddux's look like a mere
precurser
to the truly "modern" pitcher, whom never drafted or out of college without
learning not to
give up free baserunners.
AT THIS POINT, though, in regards to baseball, I don't find it completely
compelling to believe that
"modern training methods" have improved ALL baseball skills, particularly the
"natural" ones mentioned above. I just hear people saying "Well, they MUST
have! All athletic skills have!"
(or, as your post suggest, maybe ALL skills can be taught) but I don't think
they
MUST have improved yet because other sports have moved forward, in Skills or
in Athletics.
Roger's post and David's post about the throwing contests seem to indicate a
lack of a "quantom leap" in certain baseball skills, unlike the leap you see
in a skill, balance i.e. gymnastics.
Michael David Jones asked me to take on the burden of proof about this "lack of
improvement"
being peculiar to baseball. It just seems to me that the closer and closer on
looks AT baseball in particular FOR these skills, and try to IDENTIFY the
improvements, the harder and harder it gets.
I think, then, the burden of proof moves towards the middle.
I don't say the whole major leagues as a whole aren't better, stronger, etc.,
as all modern athletes are, or that the process has been gradual but
continuous.
Howver, I think if one can make a believable case that baseball might be
uniquely immune to DRAMATIC CHANGES in SKILL,( maybe because we found the
skills already by 1912 or 1932, or, when the next evolution shows 1998 to be
archaic --say 2020,), then the "improvement in the game" is found ONLY in the
athleticism (the athletes) who play it.
One way to summarize what I have been saying is that better ATHLETES, on
average, play baseball better, decade by decade, but they aren't ALL better
baseball players. Fred Merkle might not be enough of an athlete to play today,
even though he looks fine around the bag and at bat until compared with a
modern, quicker, stronger counterpart.
In baseball, more so than other of the major sports, this "athletic"
development is not nearly as important as having great baseball skills.
I would like to put a cover on this can of worms right away, though. If someone
says, "Why not
go all the way, Joe? If Merkle could play then, why not now?" I would answer
"Because the population and the passing years had no trouble finding a brown or
white player stronger and quicker enough to be one of the best 30 first-basemen
in the world, and make Merkle a marginal
or a Triple AAA first baseman. "
I am not sure the same is true for Ruth, Johnson, etc. As David Marasco said
once, if the population doubles, you may get not a player clearly better than
Jimmie Foxx, but two Jimmie Foxxes. There was only one Ruth, one Williams, one
Mantle, one Bonds, one Thomas, one McGwire, even if there are many Merkles and
many Darren Braggs and John Valentins.
David Nieporent once argued on a Ruth vs. Thomas thread (I think it was there)
that even a young Mantle would have been improved by "modern training" methods.
I don't happen to think that is NECESSARILY . Just as some players avoid
Creatine or stay away from weights, I think (a younger) Mantles or Williams or
Feller ate just as well and honed their skills by practice as much as a modern
player. Even IF a lot of modern players had advantages, that doesn't force us
to conclude
either that
a- Bragg is in Mantle's league as a player, we just don't realize it
b- Bonds is *clearly* better than Mantle, *because* he had training advantages
Mantle never had.
I think neither of the above are true (even if Bonds is better than Mantle for
other reasons.)
It took a century to produce a McGwire 1995-1998 (not that he is better than
Ruth in every category.) After he retires, it may take another few decades
before someone is hitting homers less than every 10 AB's for a sustained
period.
Greatness pops up when and where it will, even as the stream moves glacierlike
forward.
Postscript: I will offer one last invitation to readers on this overall topic:
Take a look at Ted Williams' 1960 stats, when he was 41 years old: .316, 29
HR's in 310 at bats
What kind of skill level does that represent?
How had those skills managed to fight off advances in the population and the
talents entering the game during his career so successfully?
Mantle and Mays were in mid-career, but with their best years somewhat behind
them. Aaron was about to become the best overall player of the 60's. 1960 is
within most of our projections of "modern", if not within out memories.
Yet Williams shows NO erosion of talent or performance, other than might be
attributed to age, since 1939.
If Williams, why not Ruth? In his late prime, not his twilight, why couldnt
Ruth have put up mumbers like Williams did in 1960? Water down the lifetime
stats for the weaker competition, don't try to convince your son he would hit
.342 today, maybe, but why convince yourself he could not play in the modern
game?
The closer I look at that latter opinion, the more inaccurate it sounds, and
the more prejudicial it sounds against "old time athletes".
That's why I've spent a lot of time trying to convince people that it is a
"pre-judging, " a false induction that doesn't work in the case of baseball.
Joe Earls
Ivan Weiss
> A few pages later, Thomas adds: "A graceful, fluid delivery -- 'effortless,'
> it was often described -- gave his long arm tremendous leverage while
> spreading much of the effort to his back and legs, putting little strain
> on the arm and shoulder. . . . There were others, including Grover Cleveland
> Alexander, Addie Joss, Iron Man McGinnity, and to some extent Cy
> Young, who also found great success using a similar sweeping sidearm
> delivery." Then Thomas quotes Johnson's reaction to watching Joe Wood:
> "When I used to see Wood pitch, although I admired his speed and control,
> it made my own shoulders ache to watch his delivery. That pitching with
> the arm alone, that wrenching of the muscles in the shoulder, would wear
> out my arm, I am sure, much quicker than the easy, swinging motion I
> always aim to use." (p. 59.)
>
> These excerpts suggest a few conclusions. Johnson's motion may well have
> let him throw faster than a pitcher using the then-"conventional" delivery
> could: he built up more momentum and used more muscles. But this
> "easy, swinging" motion, which put less strain on the arm, remained less
> efficient than the modern approach, in which most of the strain is borne by
> the stronger leg muscles which provide most of the forward momentum.
Doug, I appreciate all the research you have done, and certainly you make
a strong *circumstantial* case. However, you can't conclude from this that
Johnson *didn't* throw in the 90s. Your conclusions may well apply to the
general population of pitchers, and maybe to Johnson himself, but maybe
not.
> Finally, Wood's "pitching with the arm alone" and "wrenching of the muscles
> in the shoulder" confirms that the conventional delivery of the era emphasized
> the upper body almost exclusively and did not involve the modern leg drive.
Well, we know this is true for Wood. Hindsight's a wonderful thing. But
there were other pitchers at the time who threw as Wood did, whose arms
*didn't* go bad. Why do you think this is? Because everyone's physiology
is different.
> Agreed. But a fast pitch delivered from a deceptively slow motion will
> appear faster than it actually is, just as a changeup thrown from a power
> pitcher's fastball delivery will seem slower than it is. Players and fans
> who watch enough games form expectations about how fast a pitch
> delivered with a certain motion "should" be.
All true. But not necessarily conclusive in Johnson's case.
> But there are fundamental perception problems here. Johnson retired
> after the 1927 season and Feller came up in 1936, so anyone who batted
> against both did so at least nine years apart, with thousands of intervening
> at-bats. Anyone who batted against Feller also grew up with the conventional
> wisdom that Walter Johnson threw the fastest ball anyone had ever seen,
> which would inevitably color his memory of Johnson's speed.
No response, then, to my "Flea" Clifton ancedote, which took place in
1934?
> There's no question that the test was "fair" insofar as Johnson and Rucker
> were allowed to warm up as long as they wished, and weren't timed until
> they felt comfortable throwing at the target. I doubt if the combination of
> factors cost Johnson more than 5 MPH off his fastball.
Fair, maybe. but how accurate was it? You seem to be basing much of your
argument on this test, but how do we know how valid it was?
Please tell me I'm wrong. But it *appears* that you had a preconceived
notion going in that Johnson wasn't in the 90s, and have woven a
circumstantial web in an attempt to back that up.
I mean no disrespect here. You are, after all, looking for the truth, and
hell, *I* didn't look all this stuff up. But although you raise many
interesting points, I must remain skeptical.
Ivan Weiss "Then dropping a barbell, he points to the sky
Vashon WA and says the sun's not yellow, it's chicken."
-- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues"
James Weisberg
Ivan Weiss <iv...@blaze.accessone.com> wrote:
>> There's no question that the test was "fair" insofar as Johnson and Rucker
>> were allowed to warm up as long as they wished, and weren't timed until
>> they felt comfortable throwing at the target. I doubt if the combination of
>> factors cost Johnson more than 5 MPH off his fastball.
>
>Fair, maybe. but how accurate was it? You seem to be basing much of your
>argument on this test, but how do we know how valid it was?
>
>Please tell me I'm wrong. But it *appears* that you had a preconceived
>notion going in that Johnson wasn't in the 90s, and have woven a
>circumstantial web in an attempt to back that up.
Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
flat surface.
James Weisberg
David Grabiner <grab...@math.lsa.umich.edu> wrote:
>chad...@news.wwa.com (James Weisberg) writes:
>
>> Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
>> Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
>> is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
>> in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
>> 5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
>> flat surface.
>
>pitcher uses an identical motion with no mound, he should be able to
>throw 10 inches lower. A waist-high pitch will thus be low, but will
>still be in the strike zone.
Off a mound, your upper torso has farther to fall before
you plant your front foot, which in turn helps drag your arm
through to its release point, like a whip. It increases your
arm speed, and thus increases the velocity at which the ball
is released. I know I can throw more than 5mph off a mound.
I can't imagine any ML pitcher not getting more assist than
that.
David Grabiner
> Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
> Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
> is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
> in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
> 5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
> flat surface.
I don't see that the mound gives that much help to velocity. If a
pitcher uses an identical motion with no mound, he should be able to
throw 10 inches lower. A waist-high pitch will thus be low, but will
still be in the strike zone.
--
David Grabiner, grab...@math.lsa.umich.edu
http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.
Jim H Jackson
David Grabiner wrote:
> chad...@news.wwa.com (James Weisberg) writes:
>
> > Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
> > Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
> > is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
> > in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
> > 5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
> > flat surface.
>
> I don't see that the mound gives that much help to velocity. If a
> pitcher uses an identical motion with no mound, he should be able to
> throw 10 inches lower. A waist-high pitch will thus be low, but will
> still be in the strike zone.
>
as far as velocity, the mound's advantage is not in the release point
of the pitcher, rather it is that the pitcher is throwing downhill.
Jim H Jackson
James Weisberg wrote:
> In article <ybgi67gi...@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu>,
> David Grabiner <grab...@math.lsa.umich.edu> wrote:
> >chad...@news.wwa.com (James Weisberg) writes:
> >
> >> Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
> >> Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
> >> is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
> >> in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
> >> 5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
> >> flat surface.
> >
> >I don't see that the mound gives that much help to velocity. If a
> >pitcher uses an identical motion with no mound, he should be able to
> >throw 10 inches lower. A waist-high pitch will thus be low, but will
> >still be in the strike zone.
>
> Off a mound, your upper torso has farther to fall before
> you plant your front foot, which in turn helps drag your arm
> through to its release point, like a whip. It increases your
> arm speed, and thus increases the velocity at which the ball
> is released.I know I can throw more than 5mph off a mound.
Pitching coach to Weisberg:
"And I told Leyland not to leave you in after 100
pitches. Damn it James!
I guess you're gonna have
to learn the knuckler."
james withrow
try to wrap them into some kind of evidence.
The consensus seems to be that pitchers' heights contribute to the
speed they can throw the ball. It's not the only determining factor--
there are other factors involved. But it seems pretty obvious that
being taller is helpful to a pitcher. It's also a verifiable fact that
U.S. citizens have been getting taller, as a group, since the turn of
the century. (This hasn't always been the case. Between the
Revolutionary War and the 1840s, our citizens actually got shorter and
there's much suspicion that standards of living declined.)
Better nutrition may contribute to better reflexes, but it's
certainly not as obvious. Unless we get a good medical opinion that
says otherwise, I'm going to go blissfully on assuming that reflexes are
helped far less by nutrition than is pitchers' velocity (thru the
heighth factor.)
And, I'd think that power for hitters is helped by nutrition as
well. Heighth and muscle mass would seem to combine to launch the ball
further.
So, if pitchers were throwing faster due to their height, wouldn't
we expect strikeouts to go up and batting average to go down (if relexes
were less helped by nutrition), while hitters' increasing size would
also mean slugging percentages would go up.
Isn't that pretty much what happened in the period from 1900 to
1955? Realizing that there other factors would also be important-- park
factors. lighting conditions, etc.
Could we even guess at pitchers' velocities in the past by grouping
today's pitchers' strikeout capabilities with their known velocities and
infer that a certain strikeout percentage suggest a certain velocity?
This doesn't help much the Walter Johnson debate (being an individual
pitcher rather than a group), but it would certainly give us a picture
of what baseball was like.
James in Philly
P.S. Could James Weisberg please post an attatchment with a photo of
his arm? I'm completely curious as to its freakish shape.
Clifford Blau
> I just wanted to return to a couple questions I'd asked earlier and
>try to wrap them into some kind of evidence.
> The consensus seems to be that pitchers' heights contribute to the
>speed they can throw the ball. It's not the only determining factor--
>there are other factors involved. But it seems pretty obvious that
>being taller is helpful to a pitcher.
Obvious, perhaps, but not necessarily true. These figures are
courtesy of Tom Ruane and the Fan Park electronic encyclopedia.
1880-1889:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5' 8" 36372 37515 22690 13428 8586 14482 3.32 9.28 2.12 3.58
5' 9" 16889 16784 9957 5689 3971 6535 3.03 8.94 2.12 3.48
5'10" 30557 29659 17601 10264 6860 13082 3.02 8.74 2.02 3.85
5'11" 11337 11441 7459 4514 3140 4858 3.58 9.08 2.49 3.86
6' 0" 32874 33305 20574 11963 8085 14534 3.28 9.12 2.21 3.98
1890-1899:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5' 8" 27425 31385 19091 12704 10092 7519 4.17 10.30 3.31 2.47
5' 9" 17217 18498 11323 7626 6778 5496 3.99 9.67 3.54 2.87
5'10" 34573 38026 22949 15429 12653 10346 4.02 9.90 3.29 2.69
5'11" 21812 24156 14851 10111 8719 6102 4.17 9.97 3.60 2.52
6' 0" 20592 23012 14076 9201 7548 6417 4.02 10.06 3.30 2.80
6' 1" 27351 28919 17326 11567 10247 9567 3.81 9.52 3.37 3.15
1900-1909:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5' 9" 28950 27667 13362 9349 8079 10550 2.91 8.60 2.51 3.28
5'10" 31500 30048 14632 10195 9149 11869 2.91 8.59 2.61 3.39
5'11" 37504 35487 16336 11480 10619 14655 2.75 8.52 2.55 3.52
6' 0" 35562 34708 16837 11944 10258 13187 3.02 8.78 2.60 3.34
6' 1" 33386 30146 13536 9413 9099 15683 2.54 8.13 2.45 4.23
6' 2" 24733 22913 10754 7419 6754 10758 2.70 8.34 2.46 3.91
1910-1919:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5' 9" 25567 24116 11089 8479 8433 9917 2.98 8.49 2.97 3.49
5'10" 26106 25035 11976 8995 8490 10473 3.10 8.63 2.93 3.61
5'11" 42479 39992 18489 13786 13181 17521 2.92 8.47 2.79 3.71
6' 0" 53855 51419 24462 18509 18618 21407 3.09 8.59 3.11 3.58
6' 1" 41918 38447 17498 12979 13376 18549 2.79 8.25 2.87 3.98
6' 2" 48632 44949 20852 15556 16165 20983 2.88 8.32 2.99 3.88
1920-1929:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'10" 46890 51225 25195 21107 16378 15578 4.05 9.83 3.14 2.99
5'11" 38502 42317 20926 17523 13447 11680 4.10 9.89 3.14 2.73
6' 0" 53188 59052 28441 23704 16992 15855 4.01 9.99 2.88 2.68
6' 1" 40654 45047 22466 18582 14119 12444 4.11 9.97 3.13 2.75
6' 2" 40700 44041 21357 17626 13396 13745 3.90 9.74 2.96 3.04
1930-1939:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'10" 33187 37069 18630 16051 11580 11688 4.35 10.05 3.14 3.17
5'11" 36986 41254 21107 18011 13412 12562 4.38 10.04 3.26 3.06
6' 0" 43765 47993 24353 20869 16160 16569 4.29 9.87 3.32 3.41
6' 1" 44882 48936 24716 21220 16358 16427 4.26 9.81 3.28 3.29
6' 2" 34345 37240 18935 16184 12976 13498 4.24 9.76 3.40 3.54
6' 3" 25738 27527 13715 11687 9361 10939 4.09 9.63 3.27 3.83
1940-1949:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'10" 21932 21682 10491 9039 8752 8447 3.71 8.90 3.59 3.47
5'11" 25246 25269 12227 10563 9869 9853 3.77 9.01 3.52 3.51
6' 0" 43725 43331 20841 18038 17614 17507 3.71 8.92 3.63 3.60
6' 1" 40653 40379 19418 16788 16265 15121 3.72 8.94 3.60 3.35
6' 2" 50675 50843 24322 21094 19256 20626 3.75 9.03 3.42 3.66
6' 3" 38846 38846 19260 16594 15996 16207 3.84 9.00 3.71 3.75
1950-1959:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'10" 24180 23786 11604 10268 9134 11696 3.82 8.85 3.40 4.35
5'11" 23018 22785 11477 10156 9164 11716 3.97 8.91 3.58 4.58
6' 0" 47750 46957 23459 20735 18708 23023 3.91 8.85 3.53 4.34
6' 1" 36769 36534 18725 16648 15240 18090 4.07 8.94 3.73 4.43
6' 2" 42780 42302 21161 18815 17140 20808 3.96 8.90 3.61 4.38
6' 3" 46647 46405 23624 20914 18870 23530 4.04 8.95 3.64 4.54
1960-1969:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'11" 45563 43546 20738 18306 15472 28482 3.62 8.60 3.06 5.63
6' 0" 45974 42829 20537 17953 15997 28525 3.51 8.38 3.13 5.58
6' 1" 51585 48432 23395 20660 18543 32713 3.60 8.45 3.24 5.71
6' 2" 49965 46984 23022 20238 18072 31030 3.65 8.46 3.26 5.59
6' 3" 42456 39680 18911 16706 14417 27147 3.54 8.41 3.06 5.75
6' 4" 50897 47176 22383 19581 17545 34541 3.46 8.34 3.10 6.11
1970-1979:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'11" 31697 30422 14429 12783 12086 18415 3.63 8.64 3.43 5.23
6' 0" 55675 53563 25577 22649 19902 30484 3.66 8.66 3.22 4.93
6' 1" 60243 58035 27195 24154 21440 35642 3.61 8.67 3.20 5.32
6' 2" 59181 56872 27804 24663 23478 35334 3.75 8.65 3.57 5.37
6' 3" 69211 68124 32232 28540 24971 38420 3.71 8.86 3.25 5.00
6' 4" 41802 40898 19434 17239 14651 23363 3.71 8.81 3.15 5.03
6' 5" 37449 36518 17964 15909 14242 22083 3.82 8.78 3.42 5.31
1980-1989:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'11" 22497 21565 10416 9365 8428 14551 3.75 8.63 3.37 5.82
6' 0" 38775 38280 18593 16721 13678 21420 3.88 8.89 3.17 4.97
6' 1" 61564 60392 29391 26329 21363 35029 3.85 8.83 3.12 5.12
6' 2" 63688 62528 30907 27558 23713 38782 3.89 8.84 3.35 5.48
6' 3" 75498 74425 35715 32124 26734 45638 3.83 8.87 3.19 5.44
6' 4" 55280 54752 26642 23729 19851 33595 3.86 8.91 3.23 5.47
6' 5" 47267 46924 23166 20815 17397 29132 3.96 8.93 3.31 5.55
1990-1997:
Hgt IP H R ER BB SO ERA H/9 BB/9 K/9
5'11" 17471 17237 8811 7940 6965 12152 4.09 8.88 3.59 6.26
6' 0" 32375 32832 16518 14962 11881 20489 4.16 9.13 3.30 5.70
6' 1" 46461 46370 23134 21074 17240 31772 4.08 8.98 3.34 6.15
6' 2" 54403 55010 28633 26025 21001 36847 4.31 9.10 3.47 6.10
6' 3" 61679 62867 32480 29489 23530 40963 4.30 9.17 3.43 5.98
6' 4" 45277 45302 22763 20630 16846 30602 4.10 9.00 3.35 6.08
6' 5" 41635 41898 21653 19673 16295 29704 4.25 9.06 3.52 6.42
--------------
The opinions expressed in this post are mine, if you agree with them, and someone else's if you don't.
Phil L.
uphill/level?????
Jim H Jackson wrote in message <35BE8550...@carrol.net>...
>
>
>David Grabiner wrote:
>
>> chad...@news.wwa.com (James Weisberg) writes:
>>
>> > Maybe, just maybe, the absence of a mound didn't affect
>> > Johnson all that much, but there's no way a 5 MPH degradation
>> > is accurate for anyone who uses his legs. Take any fastballer
>> > in the MLs today and I *highly* doubt they could come within
>> > 5 MPH of their best fastball from the mound, standing on a
>> > flat surface.
>>
>> I don't see that the mound gives that much help to velocity. If a
>> pitcher uses an identical motion with no mound, he should be able to
>> throw 10 inches lower. A waist-high pitch will thus be low, but will
>> still be in the strike zone.
>>
>
Jason Kassa
some speed.