Walter Johnson Vs. Christy Mathewson

[Peter_Spaeth]

Probably not real, but there's an anecdote about a hitter going down against Johnson on three straight called strikes, and complaining to the umpire that the third one sounded low.

[Snowman]

In what world was Cy Young a better pitcher than Christy Mathewson? I really don't get that argument.

And if the word "Wins" makes its way across your keyboard while forming your argument, then you should have your keyboard taken away from you.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Probably not real, but there's an anecdote about a hitter going down against Johnson on three straight called strikes, and complaining to the umpire that the third one sounded low.

Wait, hold the presses...Peter, weren't you the one leading the argument that, back in the Mathewson - Johnson era, pitchers were throwing the equivalent of peewee baseball today? 75 mph isn't going to make any sound at all. And if that's the case, how then did "The Big Train" get that nickname?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Wait, hold the presses...Peter, weren't you the one leading the argument that, back in the Mathewson - Johnson era, pitchers were throwing the equivalent of peewee baseball today? 75 mph isn't going to make any sound at all. And if that's the case, how then did "The Big Train" get that nickname?

I never said 75. I doubt it was consistently in the 90s either. No reason to think baseball is the exception to the rule that human performance has greatly improved over the last 100 years. And there is no doubt that in the context of his day, which is what counts, he was very fast.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I never said 75. I doubt it was consistently in the 90s either. No reason to think baseball is the exception to the rule that human performance has greatly improved over the last 100 years. And there is no doubt that in the context of his day, which is what counts, he was very fast.

I continue to believe, and will go to my deathbed believing, that they threw in the high 80s and up into the 90s consistently. Some few, like Johnson and Feller broke 100. I don't believe there is much difference between them and now, except there were way more minor leagues back then, and fewer pitchers at the MLB level. I don't give one hoot about the hyped up human performance of today. The ballplayers of that era were way more loose and carefree, and their diets, exercise and habits were way different than today, and that translates into the money and business of baseball today affecting human performance. I believe the pitching the pitching was better than you think. I'm 65. Just a few years ago I could hit 80 or 85 mph. If I could do it, there's no chance they were throwing watermelons at hitters at the MLB level back then. We've been all through this. You know I won't change in this.

[G1911]

Johnson was clocked at 91.36 mph by Remington Arms in 1917. This was measured at some distance from the actual release, but I haven't seen an account that gives the actual distance from release. If it was different from the point it is measured today, things would need to be scaled to make them align. While not radar, the arms world could and did measure pretty accurately the speeds of moving objects, which is one reason a whole lot of things changed in that world before modern testing methods became available.

It seems pretty clear that pitchers back then threw hard as well, not quite as hard as today, and likely less frequently as they had to hurl 350+ innings and surely conserved their arms unlike todays pitchers that go all out 100% of the time because there's 12 relievers to come in and they have little responsibility for any great length of time.

[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.

[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.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by G1911

Johnson was clocked at 91.36 mph by Remington Arms in 1917. This was measured at some distance from the actual release, but I haven't seen an account that gives the actual distance from release. If it was different from the point it is measured today, things would need to be scaled to make them align. While not radar, the arms world could and did measure pretty accurately the speeds of moving objects, which is one reason a whole lot of things changed in that world before modern testing methods became available.

It seems pretty clear that pitchers back then threw hard as well, not quite as hard as today, and likely less frequently as they had to hurl 350+ innings and surely conserved their arms unlike todays pitchers that go all out 100% of the time because there's 12 relievers to come in and they have little responsibility for any great length of time.

He was measured at 122 ft/sec, which is 83 mph. That measurement was taken 7 ft behind home plate. Adjusting for where pitches get recorded today, just a few feet from release, estimates put his velocity in the low 90s. Johnson likely topped out around 95mph.

[jingram058]

I have to respond. Think what you will of me, I don't care. It would seem that I am the only one in this thread who played real no-shit baseball at a competitive level. I don't know if you folks, who I very highly respect when it comes to all the nuances of baseball cards, realize what you're saying, but you don't know jack about the game itself. Yes, players at the MLB level are bigger, stronger, faster today. And they break down with incredible regularity, protecting their $$$. But. I've played the game. I know all about 85 to 90 mph fastballs. I could hit them pretty well, if I guessed right. I know that there is a WORLD of difference between 85 to 90 to 95 and 95 to 100. Above 95, you will hear the baseball, whizzing. You won't catch up to it, unless you're something special, even if you know it's coming. If you think Walter Johnson topped out at 95 mph, you're delusional. If that was the case, and if I could somehow go back in time, you'd be collecting MY t205 an t206 cards today! I don't give a flying f what idiotic facts you're reading. They're wrong. They called him "The Big Train" because his fastball, when he put on the gas, made noise. I'm done with listening to this goofy, armchair nonsense.