LynnBlakeGolf Forums - View Single Post - Physics Thread: Physics View Single Post #10 03-02-2005, 09:05 PM 6bmike Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Southern New Jersey Posts: 1,605 Originally Posted by Burner As for Baseball Pitchers; their totally ridiculous leg in the air starting posture is just that - ridiculous; showy but ineffectual. And, before you all pile into this Limey and ask what I know about Baseball I should tell you that I have spent a lifetime playing Cricket where throwing the ball fast, flat and accurately over distances of up to 75 yards is a regular feature of the game. Curiously, I always managed it without waving my front foot in the air to initiate the process. The Pitcher extends his arm at 90* to his starting position - shoulders square to the batter - before again pivotting his upper body back to starting point only to facilitate the catapulting motion of his arm, against his bodily resistance, to the point where he releases the ball. Ouch. The rules of baseball requires the back foot to have contact to what is called a “rubber,” a rectangled shaped hard slab of rubber on a small hill called a mound. A pitcher does this by standing his shoulders perpendicular to the batter, not have them parallel like in cricket which is a running throw. A pitcher must make a stride - a forward motion - down and off the “rubber.” In order to make this slide off and down the hill or the mound, the front leg must lift and step forward. This becomes a weight transfer, what baseball players call “putting the hip into the pitch.” The pitchers shoulders do become square to the batter after the front leg lands after the stride. The front leg movement, the pitcher’s stride, is the weight transfer, pivot and power package of the pitch. A good pitcher does not throw flat long throws. 60 feet 6 inches. The pitch will move downward from the top of a high hand release, the wrist snap puts a spin on the ball and if well executed will “break” off its path a few inches from the batters whirling bat. Strike one! 6bmike View Public Profile Send a private message to 6bmike Find all posts by 6bmike