Amazing Catch

Judging the speed based off of the sound of the hit seems pretty sketchy to me, especially since the camera recording quality could alter the sound a bit- so let's do it with math instead.

The average length between a batter and a pitcher is 60.5 feet. That's for an official field though- let's talk two thirds of that value since this could be a smaller field. 30.25 feet = 9.22m, I'll call it 10m to make the math easier.

I watched the video in slow-mo and it looks like the ball climbs the entire way from the batter to the pitcher. Now just because it appears like this in the video, it may not actually be the case (the camera looks like its filming from a slightly elevated position, which could distort our perception of the ball's trajectory) but if the ball didn't rise the whole way it definitely rose for almost the whole way. So let's assume that the ball hit the apex of its trajectory right as the pitcher caught it. Note that if the ball would have continued rising once it past the pitcher, it would have been going even faster, so this is a conservative estimate.

If the ball hits its apex after 10m after horizontal travel, it will return to its initial level after 20m.

I watched the video at 0.25 speed and timed the duration between the hit and the catch. My average value is around 2.1s which converts to 0.525s real time.

The acceleration due to gravity is -9.81m/s2

d = vi * t + at2 / 2

vi = (d - at2 / 2) / t

vi = (20 - (-9.81 * 0.5252 ) / 2) / 0.525

vi = 40.6m/s

That's 146km/h. Assuming a ball mass of 145g, the kinetic energy is given by:

E = mv2 / 2

E = 0.145kg(40.7m/s)2 / 2

E = 120J

That's the same as a squishing the mass of a bowling ball (mass 7.26kg) into the size of a baseball and having it hit your hand at 15km/h. Seems like it would pack a decent punch- and if the ball did not yet hit its apex when the pitcher caught it, it must have been going even faster!

Conclusion: not worth it.

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