[jacksons]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

There was so much wrong with the 1912 attempt to measure his speed, one hardly knows where to begin, and the results totally invalid if not downright laughable. This was done at the Remington Arms Works on a device designed to measure the speed of bullets, so he had to throw the ball overhand (not his stlyle) through a series of hanging wires that registered that position and then when the ball hit the back of the device that also registered and the time it took for the ball to pass between them measured the speed. Presumably, a bullet would only hit one wire on its way to the wall, whereas who knows how many a ball would hit to slow it down before hitting the wall. He was also in street clothes (long sleeve shirt and tie) and had no warmup. For what it's worth, he did measure considerably faster than Nap Rucker, chosen as the fastest in the NL. To my knowledge, Walter's fastball never did get any kind of accurate measurement, but if you know what the batter's said about it you get some idea. First of all, it made a sound as it crossed the plate: Sam Crawford called it a "whoosh" and Cobb described it as a "hiss." I'm not aware of any other pitcher's ball they've said that about. Plenty of players lived long enough to compare Walter to other speedballers they saw through Nolan Ryan: I challenge you to find me one who said that any other pitcher was faster. Want my honest opinion? He threw 100 whenever he wanted to, and when he reached back for that little something extra, he'd have popped 103-105 on a gun. Look at his record, and realize he never had a great outpitch like all the other great pitchers throughout baseball history--every one of them. WaJo's arm was special, like the Babe was special at hitting the ball. It's right there in the record books.

It’s a fun debate for sure. I would be shocked though if deadball hurlers topped 100mph, and I don’t think they even needed to. 95 was fast enough against those bats of the time. Johnson’s delivery and arm slot may have helped his velocity but his locked left leg on plant probably didn’t. Either way he was likely the fastest of his era.