Throwing Serious Heat

from the New York Times

Any fan of baseball or the Guiness Book of World Records
will enjoy this longish article on 100-mph fastball pitchers.

According to Robert Adair, a physicist and professor emeritus at Yale
University and the author of ”The Physics of Baseball,” throwing a ball
this hard transcends the ordinary parameters of the game. ”It’s really
at the edge of what human beings can do,” Adair told me.

Adair said a 100-m.p.h. fastball reaches the catcher four-tenths of a
second after it leaves the pitcher’s hand. A batter has fifteen-hundredths
of a second to react to a 100-m.p.h. fastball. ”The ball,” Adair said,
”moves faster than you can move your eyes.”