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The Anatomy of a Pitch: Doing Physics with PITCHf/x Data

2009; American Association of Physics Teachers; Volume: 47; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1119/1.3225497

1943-4928

David Kagan,

Sports Analytics and Performance

On Aug. 7, 2007, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants was at bat waiting for a 3-2 pitch from Mike Bacsik of the Washington Nationals. The ball left the pitcher's hand at 84.7 mph and arrived at home plate traveling 77.2 mph. It was within 0.2 in of the center of home plate and 3.213 ft above the ground when Bonds swung and hit his 756th home run, making him the all-time leader for homers in a career. Thanks to a company called Sportvision and Major League Baseball, you can get kinematic data on any pitch thrown. Just think of the interesting and realistic physics problems you can generate from such a rich data set!