question about the old Bill Terry story [Archive]

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10-23-2005, 01:47 PM

Posted By: barry arnoldReading Josh's post about the Bill Terry photograph got me to reminiscing about Terry with my nephew. I started telling him about that story Dizzy Dean would tell Pee Wee Reese when they were commentators for baseball games. Usually Dizzy would tell the story when he was giving commercials for Falstaff beer or feeling the effects of the product himself--- often before singing the Wabash cannonball. I was a boy when i heard the story and as i talked to my nephew started wondering how much of the 'ball hit by Terry going through Dizzy's legs (while pitching) and being caught way in the air near the homerun fence' was based on some real fact. Or is this just great Dizzy embellishment? anybody know about this? thanks, barry

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10-23-2005, 02:46 PM

Posted By: DamianSounds like the Falstaff talking to me. I am not a big Dizzy Dean fan but I have heard he was quite a character. Damian

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10-23-2005, 03:51 PM

Posted By: Anonymouswithout running the numbers..I'd guess the ball would have to be traveling around 900 mph.

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10-26-2005, 01:39 PM

Posted By: Darren J. DuetIn the same vane, Willie Mays missed a couple of games in 1955. Legend has it, that Willie was fast, so fast in fact, that he smoked a line drive up the middle which hit him in the head as he was rounding second. Ty Cobb was giving an interview in the 1960's, and the reporter asked Cobb what he thought he'd hit in the modern game. Cobb stated ".290" The reporter shocked tried to rationalize the answer, "is it because of night games, specialty pitchers, greater talent?" Cobb perturbed stated,"NO! it's because I'm 70 years old!"

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10-26-2005, 10:50 PM

Posted By: barry arnoldgreat stories Darren! i needed a laugh tonight and have been chuckling at these stories again and again. many thanks! barry

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10-27-2005, 09:38 AM

Posted By: AnonymousBarry... ..Yhe Dizzy story is possible.. but only if the ball skipped off the mound between his legs...especially if it bounced off the piching rubber.

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10-27-2005, 10:06 AM

Posted By: Hal LewisRemember, the mounds were a lot HIGHER in those days... so the ball could have been 2 feet off the ground to go over the mound PLUS another 1.5 feet to go between his thighs... so if a batter hit the ball only 6 inches off the ground and "golfed" a wicked line drive that had already risen 3 feet by the time it traveled 60.5 feet back to the mound... could the ball not continue to rise in a straight path until it was about 14 feet off the ground (not an unreasonable height for a line drive)... which at that rate of ascent would put the ball 240 feet away from home plate... which would seem perfectly reasonable that the ball then started it's downward arc and ended up traveling over 350 feet by the end??? I know that gravitational forces start acting on the ball the second that it is hit... but wouldn't a low hit ball also have a "riser" effect (or whatever the opposite of "topspin" is)?? I have hit golf balls that start off low and then rise... and they have no seams on them. Can't pitchers use the seams to make a ball appear to "rise" (or at least to NOT sink due to gravity)??

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10-27-2005, 10:09 AM

Posted By: Hal LewisHow fast do ball come off of a baseball bat?? Surely they are in excess of 100 mph, right? I think if you set up a pitching machine at 120 mph and fired a baseball through it from 6 inches off the ground and aimed it to a height of 3.5 feet at the pitcher's mound... I think that ball would go a pretty long ways.

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10-27-2005, 02:10 PM

Posted By: barry arnoldthanks fellas for helping the Dizzy story become a possibility. i think i want to believe in it, even more than my nephew does. great physics stretches! barry

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10-27-2005, 02:18 PM

Posted By: Hal LewisBarry: I can get the pitching machine if you will volunteer to stand on the mound and let me hurl baseballs at 120 mph between your legs about 6 inches below your groin. Interested? <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

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10-27-2005, 04:47 PM

Posted By: AnonymousSir Isaac Newton meets William Tell

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10-27-2005, 10:21 PM

Posted By: barry arnoldOnly if you bring some of Dizzy's famous Falstaff, Hal, to numb the pain or the possibility of pain. <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14> Barry

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10-27-2005, 10:27 PM

Posted By: john/z28jdYears ago listening to a Yankees game Phil Rizzuto told of a story where he jumped for a line drive that went between his legs and ended up hitting the outfield wall on a fly.Bill White called him out on it as did whoever their partner was at the time(Frank Messer possibly?) and Rizzuto stuck to his story.They went back and forth about it for an inning or so

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10-28-2005, 09:36 AM

Posted By: Anonymouswell that one is easy to explain. everybody knows there is an anti-gravitational field installed under Yankee Stadium...How do you think they hit all those Home Runs? ...must have been on the blink that day. I wonder how many other HOF'ers would admit to leaping for a line drive and having it go between your legs.. Holy Cow! <img src="http://www.sgccardregistry.com/images/cards/Item_264_38667.jpg">

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10-28-2005, 10:57 AM

Posted By: Ted ZanidakisI don't know of the Rizzuto story. But, I can tell you what actually did happen back in the early '60s when Kubek was the Yankee SS. Now, Kubek is tall (6:3) and the batter is Frank Howard (a 6:7 slugger for Wash.). Frank was so powerful a hitter that most pitchers, and even the infielders, were in constant fear that a ball off his bat could seriously injure them. Anyhow, Howard undercuts a pitch with a powerful swing and the ball is heading right at Kubek. Kubek thinks he has a chance to catch it and leaps for it. The ball soars over his reach. The ball continues soaring till it hits the 457 ft. mark on the left-center field wall at Yankee Stadium. Now, I ask you to stop and consider this scenario.....the SS thought he had a chance at it....but, this line drive hits the the far off wall on a fly......WOW.....now that is power !

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10-28-2005, 11:39 AM

Posted By: identify7Frank Howard: what a powerhouse! Big. It was in the late 60s he hit 10 HR in 20 AB. Six games - what a demonstration!

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10-28-2005, 03:09 PM

Posted By: Ted ZanidakisGil I met Frank when he was batting coach for the Yankees. What a nice guy, he is the epitome of "the gentle giant" expression. In fact Frank and Clete Boyer were at a show and I had the opportunity to chat with them for at least 3/4 of an hour. You get these former ballplayers wound up and the stories they have to tell are really amazing. I never could figure out why the Dodgers traded him to Wash. (it wasn't a big trade). Frank played 1st,and Gil Hodges had left the Dodgers in the early '60s. Howard, on better teams would have had really great numbers.

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10-28-2005, 04:37 PM

Posted By: Anonymous<a href="http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:wX-EfLRc1yMJ:www.me.mtu.edu/~slpost/CLASS/baseball.htm+trajectory+calculation&hl=en" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:wX-EfLRc1yMJ:www.me.mtu.edu/~slpost/CLASS/baseball.htm+trajectory+calculation&hl=en</a>

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10-28-2005, 04:49 PM

Posted By: barry arnoldI must admit i was impressed with Uribe's dive into the crowd to catch the next to last out of this World Series----until i thought back to the Rizzuto and Kubek stories. and those backhanded grabs and scoops of Willie Mays. and as far as hitters, you fellas are right about Frank Howard--- i remembered as a boy being scared and excited at the same time when the GIANT OF A MAN came to bat. barry