THE PHYSICS OF BASEBALL PITCHES - ft. DodgerFilms Crew

[@newmanhiding2314]

As a mechanical engineering student and baseball fan, this was a really fun and useful video.

[@jamesbentonticer4706]

Now im not quite a phd physicist yet, but this is the best REAL PHYSICS explaination of the movement of a basebase on youtube.

[@TheFireballReview]

Small Socks learned all this information when he pitched in the Marlins organization! Amazing!

[@paulh7589]

A friend of mine has been in and out of pro ball for a few years, when he is home he works for me. He is 26, I am a 55 yr old washed up athlete who played hockey, rugby and golden gloves boxing all at a pretty high level. I was pretty damn good at all sports and I was fearless. Last month we had a little spare time so he gave me a mitt, paced off 60 feet, and started off with 70mph. He let me know he was going to ramp it up a bit until I got used to it, and then he let me know he was going to go all out. I was terrified when he started throwing 95-97 mph fastballs. I have never ever been scared in sports until then. I was watching his arm closely thinking "Oh shit, Oh shit, here it comes!!!" The neighbors came out and watched and it even scared them. I've never experienced anything like it. I have MAD RESPECT for baseball players!

[@paulh7589]

@Jung Jin young Hopefully you'll get to be old some day too.

[@stm7810]

Sport is complicated. Thanks for teaching me this.

[@nnateo]

Small socks, I was amazed by how you hit your first homerun with the Didgerfilms Crew. Im looking forward to seeing you play more softball with them.

[@FrancoisBothaZA]

You should do a similar one, but on a cricket ball. Because of a single, straight seem, there are other ways to get the Magnus effect, besides ball spin. Keeping one side shinier than the other side is another and bowling the ball with an upright, angled seem is another. That's 3 sources of swing!

[@counterflow5719]

It takes a while for the flow to fully develop. The initial flow is called starting flow and it is as if there is zero viscosity. This may be the cause of some of the ball's changes after leaving the pitcher's grasp.

[@justinotten7635]

I think it would be awesome if you made a vid about the difference in metal bats and different wood bats? And why each and every go further

[@deancoronado4898]

You should look at volleyball serves, it's much easier to see a ball's path with topspin, backspin, and floater (curveball, fastball, and knuckleball pitches respectively.) And that floater is just as tricky as a knvukleball, even moreso if there's any crosswind. The volleyball path can even be changed slightly during a floater using the nozzle alignment. You ever hear the term "wicked serve"? Watch someone do a jump-serve with a floater...!

[@bobbiehutchinson6405]

Thank you Sirr. Very clear. Understood.

[@JRodizAwesome]

That force is called the magnus effect. On a curveball (12-6) the magnus effect ( higher air pressure) is directly above the ball. This pushed the ball down as it travels to home. That's how the curveball gets its curve.

[@JRodizAwesome]

On a fastball, the pressure is underneath the ball pushing the ball upwards. It basically carries the ball to home.

[@SoupMan21]

simply awesome

[@MTR702]

Hey Sup, thanks for the comment!

[@theonlyreject9319]

Who are you? Small socks, ocean view? I don't know but I like this channel

[@MTR702]

It says in the first 15 seconds of the video haha, I'm Small Socks

[@theonlyreject9319]

hey! can i send you my socks so you can sign them? lol

[@accard1no]

great and informative video. keep it up man. :)

[@MTR702]

Thanks!

[@ReneLimon37]

I'm not much into the baseball insights, does playing in altitude have an effect on pitching?

[@Dr.Ismael]

Amazing video as always mike

[@MTR702]

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed!

[@westzapwood8697]

I got here from your comment in Play Noggin'. Glad I did. You are underrated man..

[@wanlilu1680]

what about a normal fastball? if there is no spin then it's a knuckleball, but this fastball is not fluctuating in the air, nor does it have a curved trajetory?

[@adkchels2004]

Small socks and fireball! I'm loving it!

[@MTR702]

More to come Chelsea

[@anhkhoa5689]

I'm confused about what he said at 2:35 when the velocity in the y direction is 0?? Isn't that velocity would equal to voy - gt ??

[@yellowflamegaulent3902]

good breakdown.

[@tablet-xb2tt]

Great video!

[@NicholasBhagasinsan]

as a national pitcher for Indonesia. i appreciate your hard work Mike👍

[@MTR702]

Thanks Nicholas. It's nice to see comments like this

[@precisionwresonance]

1:33 he defines 'drag' in a way that sounds a lot like 'friction'

[@LegendxFTW]

I always learn something new when u always make a video +SpacePak

[@MTR702]

Awesome, that's what I like to hear Shawn!

[@OswaldGaming95]

this video is greatly edited and very nice, thank you

[@sarthakkokane5776]

love the videos keep it up

[@MTR702]

Glad to hear :D

[@kidzbop38isstraightfire92]

A knuckle ball is considered a "cheap trick"? That's insane. It's very hard to throw, requiring alot of skill, and it doesn't take advantage any more than any other pitch.

[@matthewterry1151]

great video!

[@xAKIMBOCURLYx]

And here's me trying to work out the turning forces on a ladder tilting on a rough wall.

[@southpaw788]

0:16 That pitch was NASTY!

[@ieye1183]

Does the ball can be faster than the pitcher's hand

[@willbrennan490]

I acutally love your content

[@MTR702]

Thanks, glad to hear Will

[@dume85]

good video i always wondered how this worked.

[@StridentBoss]

great video

[@artao5]

I don't suppose you know of any vids showing a baseball pitch, in the air, in high fps. Focused on the ball itself, showing how it moves thru the air in relation to its spin.

[@stevensiferd7104]

Or, baseballs act like airplane wings. The topspin on a four-seam fastball causes the slipstream over the top of the ball to move in the same direction as rotating seams, creating low air pressure. Meanwhile, the slipstream moving under the ball is flowing against the rotation of the seams, causing high air pressure, which causes lift. That's why four-seamers look like they are flying straight or even appear to have a slight upward trajectory. A breaking ball will move in whichever direction the low pressure area is against the ball. And throwing a knuckle ball is like ripping the wings off an airplane.

[@redbearmedia]

You should do a video about homeruns, i think it would be great to do after this video

[@josephmannix5120]

What about gyro spin?

[@daniellm9506]

I was looking for some video like this, since 2 years ago

[@daniellm9506]

And i never found it... Today was the day

[@josuerivera1196]

Mike Marshall aka The Marshall Effect

[@lrhafner1581]

Small socks for president

[@Linguini1996]

Yessss! I love the softball series and awesome seeing fireball. Love the video Mike and keep up the great work. You should do a video about racers and their reaction time or something else related to sports.

[@MTR702]

Oh awesome. I didn't know you watched the softball series. When did you start?

[@Linguini1996]

I don't remember when I started but I remember the first two games that I saw, you were MVP.

[@MTR702]

Oh okay, I thought you were a fan previously

[@hakanozbay9118]

Would it be right to say that baseballs are deliberately designed to slow down quicker if thrown in an inexperienced way, unlike a golf ball which is told to be the most aerodynamic human made object, thus will always do its best to resist drag no matter what?

[@gnochhuos645]

Awesome!

[@tripplively7036]

I didn't know whose channel this was but when I saw it was small sock's I had to sub

[@maggiekusmits6027]

I love you small socks!! 💜💜

[@lukekennedy4970]

What bout the 2-seamer (hint: it’s about sides being tougher than others)

[@dawddawds8019]

To throw a baseball we start by solving the Navier Stokes equations

[@petergabbert3192]

Why did you even include the interview footage of the guy who tried to explain how baseballs spin if you were just going to cut away and give your own complete explanation?

[@brandensingletary6625]

How bout the science of airsoft bb's/guns and how weight, size, Fps, and hop up affects the accuracy and distance of the projectile

[@MTR702]

I love airsoft. Haven't played in years. Will look into it

[@cjrouse9508]

The knuckle ball effect is due to the Theodore Von Kármán vortex street

[@johnbrooks7698]

Fascinating. Interesting to compare with the behaviour of a cricket ball. Does the weather/atmospheric conditions make a difference to the way the baseball moves?

[@baerlauchstal]

Baseball pitchers mainly use the Magnus effect, imparting deviation in the air through spin, whereas cricket bowlers mainly use the equatorial seam, and asymmetries in the ball's roughness, to create (for orthodox swing) turbulent flow on one side of the ball and laminar flow on the other or (for reverse swing) turbulent flow layers of different thicknesses on the two sides of the ball. There are exceptions to those generalisations. On the baseball side, the illegal spitball and scuffball work essentially the same way as swing bowling, and there's even a legal pitch that "swings" in a cricket sense, using small asymmetries in "average roughness" caused by orienting the seam carefully; though it's little-known, and very hard to get right. On the cricket side, the slow bowler's "drift" uses the Magnus effect, and there's an almost extinct form of medium-pace bowling that uses it too. Magnus-effect deviation is usually thought in cricket to be less effective than true swing; I think that's because swing can appear to the batsman to set in very late in the delivery, making it harder to counter. By the same token, the illegal pitches in baseball that use the equivalent of cricket-style swing are thought of as being especially hard to play.

[@zhaisy]

You have a nice commentary voice, upload more please.

[@MTR702]

I'm working on this. Current schedule is every other Wednesday at 12pm pst. I hope to improve that to every week

[@kenjipardilla2666]

How about the physics of the gyroball?

[@jamesnoftell5559]

What about movement?

[@sethmellen1]

Steve will do it

[@mesisson]

Today's curveball was yesterday's sinker. Today's slider was yesterday's curveball.

[@adkchels2004]

Your actually SO COOL.

[@MTR702]

Ha thanks Chelsea. i'm kind of presented like a goof at the games, mostly because I totally suck ha

[@LtThisty]

This seems like a smarter everyday video

[@legomaster438]

Nice

[@ankitms14]

i just now saw this video, and its march 20th 2018

[@Bubbertan]

Can you imagine how a knuckle ball would look in Houston in open air?

[@ethanashmore4064]

Did you actually play on the mlb

[@MTR702]

I cannot confirm or deny

[@luistavarez9581]

wow how you know all this cool asf

[@adkchels2004]

So that's why the umpire always switches the ball around!

[@MTR702]

Yep, if it gets too rough

[@magnussupan7686]

Magnus effect!

[@MTR702]

There it is!

[@jessequentin4441]

THIS EXPLANATION IS WRONG!!! It is the MAGNUS effect, not Bernouli's principle that causes a curveball to curve. Look up magnus effect. Bernouli's principle would actually tend to pull the ball in the opposite direction of how you explained it. If a ball is thrown with back spin the location of the highest relative velocity between the ball and air is at the bottom of the ball, which would create a low pressure and pull the ball down, however the opposite is true of balls with backspin. Your animation at 1:45 does not show the direction of air movement relative to ball movement, you just skimmed over that most critical part of your explanation with an assumption.

[@nickboston4911]

hey smallsocks! just fount your channel

[@ClayEavenson]

Hey... not to be "Debbie Downer"... but your explanation of drag on a rough baseball vs. smooth baseball is exactly the opposite of the book "The Physics of Baseball" which was written by physicists. If your explanation were correct, then golfballs shouldn't have dimples. Dimples on a golf ball cause less drag, not more. That is what helps them fly straighter. If they didn't have dimples, they would have more drag which would cause them to fly shorter distances and curve a lot more when struck slightly off the center axis. Check out the book and read it and see if you still have the same opinion. (Sorry if this comes across as a negative post). But as a former New York Yankee who has studied this, we're having this conversation right now in private Facebook groups of former pros, and what I see in this video doesn't line up. (please don't be mad at me).

[@rcmonks]

You are promoting the myth that a smooth ball has less friction. That is not true. If it were true a golf ball wouldn't have dimples. A spinning object creates an atmosphere that it carries with it and the roughness helps hold that atmosphere. Study the evolution of the golf ball, it applies to baseball as well.

[@kirbylee57]

Are you saying that friction and drag are not the same?

[@boredom_gaming_3405]

I'm here at 304 views

[@andrewrae8064]

Nelk

[@valintgameplay3132]

Second

[@themacocko6311]

Baseball, game of chess

[@JimPField]

“A rough ball has more drag”. This is incorrect. Rough spheres encounter less drag than smooth spheres. The flow past a rough sphere is turbulent. The flow past a smooth sphere is laminar. Turbulent flow has less drag than laminar flow. This is why golf balls have dimples. The dimples decrease drag and the ball goes farther.

[@StellarLunar]

this is why I always check the comments. Now I need to research golf balls.

[@TheWilliamLionheart]

"Hey air, you ain't grabbing me there." -Dimples

[@KylePlayzGamez]

First

[@Hola-gh2gn]

Hello sir

[@johonanandrewgomes7593]

👍

[@andrew.emmett]

That a boy small socks

[@lgg2304]

"Cheap trick" or "Trick pitch" ...lol haters gona hate!

[@sigh7793]

2:45 fap...

[@muimasmacho]

Yikes. Way too complicated. Lemme guess. Your day job is working for *The Department of Redundancy Department.* ??? Thankfully, Umpires have narrowed this science down to just two pitches. Balls and strikes. Jussed sayin' 😶

[@jclem8767]

hehehheheheh nerd I'm jk don't kill me

[@MTR702]

cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/229/files/2014/06/GOT17-The-Hound-Falls-Off-the-Cliff.gif

[@jclem8767]

LMAO

[@Masterhitman935]

Fight

[@jrb_0370]

2:47 fap

[@MTR702]

Illuminati confirmed

[@fathom493]

I gave the first dislike

[@MTR702]

Hey, thanks for the honest feedback. Be sure to let me know why you disliked so I can try and improve future videos. Thanks -Mike

[@williamgarcia356]

He disliked because he is an asshole

[@ballybunion9]

That's your idea of a simple explanation? Read Strunk and White's the Elements of Style before making another video.