Walter Johnson Vs. Christy Mathewson

[michael3322]

Source: https://www.mlb.com/news/lindsay-ber...ed/c-119564372
'Fastball' searches for the game's all-time top speed
Documentary uses physics to help calculate which heater stands alone as No. 1

By Lindsay Berra:
April 21, 2015

NEW YORK -- It's a question every baseball fan has asked, an argument every baseball fan has had: Who threw the hardest ever?

Thomas Tull, head of Legendary Pictures and producer of "42," and Johnathan Hock, eight-time Emmy Award-winning producer, director, writer and editor, are no different than any other baseball fans.

Their new baseball documentary "Fastball," which premiered Monday night at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, made an attempt to answer that question.

"Thomas wanted to put a stake in the ground and say, 'This was the fastest pitcher ever,'" says Hock, the film's director. "We went through a lot of effort to try to figure it out."

"Fastball" walks the delicate line between the mythology and the science of the fastball, drawing on both anecdotal and empirical evidence.

Video: Director Jonathan Hock, fans share favorite moments

Quite a few remarkable anecdotes come from the 20 Hall of Famers Hock interviewed for "Fastball." They include notable pitching masters Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson and Goose Gossage, along with current flamethrowers Justin Verlander, Craig Kimbrel and David Price.

On the flip side, "Fastball" also includes Hall of Fame hitters Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Gwynn, George Brett and Mike Schmidt, along with current stars Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper and Brandon Phillips, who share their opinions on the hardest-throwing pitchers of all-time.

But Hock wanted more than just stories.

"We felt in this subject, the fastball, God was in the details, not just in the mythology," Hock says. "We felt we had to understand what was going on with the atom before we could understand the whole universe."

The record book is clear. Cincinnati pitcher Aroldis Chapman's fastball to Tony Gwynn, Jr. in the eighth inning of a Sept. 25th, 2010, game between the Reds and Padres registered 105.1 mph on the radar gun, the highest ever.

But radar guns are a relatively new invention, and most of the early entries into the who-was-the-fastest-ever argument never had the chance to be clocked using modern methods.

"Fastball" presents Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Ryan and Chapman as the four pitchers who have carried the banner of hardest thrower in their respective baseball eras. Fortunately, Johnson, Feller and Ryan were all timed in a very accurate way.

In 1917, Johnson's fastball was tested in a Bridgeport, Conn., munitions laboratory at 122 feet per second, which converts to 83.2 mph. Feller's fastball was measured on the field in the late 1940s using Army equipment designed to measure artillery shell velocity. He clocked in at 98.6. And Ryan was clocked at 100.9 mph on Aug. 20, 1974, against the Tigers, when ABC's Monday Night Baseball first used a radar gun in a game.

But the speed of Johnson's fastball was measured after it would have crossed home plate. Feller's was measured at home plate. And Ryan's was measured approximately 10 feet in front of home plate. Today's MLB standard, the one by which Chapman was judged, is to use pitch speed measured at 50 feet from home plate.

"Johnson, Feller and Ryan were all timed in a very accurate way by reliable means, but the tests were very different from one another, based on where the ball was clocked," Hock said. "We had the opportunity to take these apples-to-oranges comparisons and make them apples-to-apples with the help of some brilliant physicists from Carnegie Mellon University."

Gregg Franklin, head of the physics department at Carnegie Mellon, made calculations to adjust for the different locations of each pitch measurement, taking into account the fact that a baseball loses approximately one mph per five feet after it is pitched. The new numbers show Ryan in the lead at 108.5 mph, followed by Feller at 107.6 and Johnson at 93.8.

"Anecdotally, and based on his performance, you have to think Johnson was throwing harder than that," Franklin says. "So is this definitive? I don't know. I don't think we'll ever really know who threw the hardest, but it's a lot closer than the original numbers suggest."

Hock agrees.

"What's great about this is that we have this answer, and we can still have the argument 10 seconds later," he says. "And we will, because that's baseball. It's half what happens on the field and half what happens inside of us when we watch something beautiful, or when we just want to have a mallet-headed argument about who threw faster. And baseball is just really, really good for both of those things."

And so is "Fastball."

Lindsay Berra is a columnist for MLB.com.

[G1911]

Numerous sources give the 83 as in post 25 and also the 91 in post 24. Not clear if the 91 is a converted figure to reflect the range, or which is really right.


I found this from the NRA's records. 122fps = 83.18, but at a distance that is not specified. The distance is the key to whether 83 is fast or not; the picture appears to place this at quite some distance.

[darwinbulldog]

Mathewson was great, but Johnson was the best pitcher in MLB history -- and if not for Babe Ruth, I'd say the greatest player in MLB history, so not really a close call between WaJo and Matty.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by michael3322

In 1917, Johnson's fastball was tested in a Bridgeport, Conn., munitions laboratory at 122 feet per second, which converts to 83.2 mph. Feller's fastball was measured on the field in the late 1940s using Army equipment designed to measure artillery shell velocity. He clocked in at 98.6. And Ryan was clocked at 100.9 mph on Aug. 20, 1974, against the Tigers, when ABC's Monday Night Baseball first used a radar gun in a game.

But the speed of Johnson's fastball was measured after it would have crossed home plate. Feller's was measured at home plate. And Ryan's was measured approximately 10 feet in front of home plate. Today's MLB standard, the one by which Chapman was judged, is to use pitch speed measured at 50 feet from home plate.

"Johnson, Feller and Ryan were all timed in a very accurate way by reliable means, but the tests were very different from one another, based on where the ball was clocked," Hock said. "We had the opportunity to take these apples-to-oranges comparisons and make them apples-to-apples with the help of some brilliant physicists from Carnegie Mellon University."

Gregg Franklin, head of the physics department at Carnegie Mellon, made calculations to adjust for the different locations of each pitch measurement, taking into account the fact that a baseball loses approximately one mph per five feet after it is pitched. The new numbers show Ryan in the lead at 108.5 mph, followed by Feller at 107.6 and Johnson at 93.8.

As Hank Thomas points out in his biography of Walter Johnson, the apparatus Johnson and Nap Rucker had to throw through at the Remington Arm's bullet-testing range in Connecticut was at "shoulder height to measure bullets fired from a standing position and Johnson couldn't get his sidearm throws to go straight through the plate. "At length, however" it was reported, "after some effort and with a consequent loss in speed in an attempt to place the ball accurately, "the sphere was successfully hurled in the proper direction, broke one of the fine wires in transit and collided with a heavy thud against the steel plate." Johnson's best throw clocked at 122 feet per second (82 m.p.h), Rucker's at 113, both on their third and last tries. Despite the flawed procedure, it does allow for some comparison. In June 1933, Van Lingle Mungo of the Dodgers and Lefty Gomez of the Yankees, two of the fastest pitchers of their era, were tested at West Point's department of ballistics and mathematics, presumably with more sophisticated equipment. Mungo registered 113 feet per second and Gomez 111 on their best throws."

Given that Walter Johnson was unable to use his natural motion during the speed test in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I don't think it is a reliable gauge of the Big Train's actual speed.

[GeoPoto]

A week before the (1924) World Series, syndicated columnist and future American icon Will Rogers, who ranched about 40 miles from the Johnson family spread in Coffeyville, Kansas, wrote that if Walter Johnson had played for John McGraw's New York Giants all those years, he would have had to be incompetent to have lost even a single game. Johnson, Rogers declared, could be sure that he caried more good wishes than any man, let alone athlete, who'd ever entered any competition in the entire history of America. After a "diligent search" of 150 years, Rogers wrote, Washington had finally found an honest man.

For their sheer beauty, here are the words formulated by Bill Corum, as they appeared in the New York Times the following morning (after Game 7 of the 1924 World Series): To the victor belong the spoils. When future generations are told about this game they will not hear about Barnes, or Frisch, or Kelly, or even about Harris or McNeely. But the boy with his first glove and ball crowding up to his father's knee will beg: "Tell me about Walter Johnson."