Quote:
Originally Posted by michael3322
In 1917, Johnson's fastball was tested in a Bridgeport, Conn., munitions laboratory at 122 feet per second, which converts to 83.2 mph. Feller's fastball was measured on the field in the late 1940s using Army equipment designed to measure artillery shell velocity. He clocked in at 98.6. And Ryan was clocked at 100.9 mph on Aug. 20, 1974, against the Tigers, when ABC's Monday Night Baseball first used a radar gun in a game.
But the speed of Johnson's fastball was measured after it would have crossed home plate. Feller's was measured at home plate. And Ryan's was measured approximately 10 feet in front of home plate. Today's MLB standard, the one by which Chapman was judged, is to use pitch speed measured at 50 feet from home plate.
"Johnson, Feller and Ryan were all timed in a very accurate way by reliable means, but the tests were very different from one another, based on where the ball was clocked," Hock said. "We had the opportunity to take these apples-to-oranges comparisons and make them apples-to-apples with the help of some brilliant physicists from Carnegie Mellon University."
Gregg Franklin, head of the physics department at Carnegie Mellon, made calculations to adjust for the different locations of each pitch measurement, taking into account the fact that a baseball loses approximately one mph per five feet after it is pitched. The new numbers show Ryan in the lead at 108.5 mph, followed by Feller at 107.6 and Johnson at 93.8.
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As Hank Thomas points out in his biography of Walter Johnson,
the apparatus Johnson and Nap Rucker had to throw through at the Remington Arm's bullet-testing range in Connecticut was at "shoulder height to measure bullets fired from a standing position and Johnson couldn't get his sidearm throws to go straight through the plate. "At length, however" it was reported, "after some effort and with a
consequent loss in speed in an attempt to place the ball accurately, "the sphere was successfully hurled in the proper direction, broke one of the fine wires in transit and collided with a heavy thud against the steel plate." Johnson's best throw clocked at 122 feet per second (82 m.p.h), Rucker's at 113, both on their third and last tries. Despite the flawed procedure, it does allow for some comparison. In June 1933, Van Lingle Mungo of the Dodgers and Lefty Gomez of the Yankees, two of the fastest pitchers of their era, were tested at West Point's department of ballistics and mathematics, presumably with more sophisticated equipment. Mungo registered 113 feet per second and Gomez 111 on their best throws."
Given that Walter Johnson was unable to use his natural motion during the speed test in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I don't think it is a reliable gauge of the Big Train's actual speed.