In 1989, Nolan Ryan returned to the mound with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Another fascinating account of a fastball pitcher, who is often credited as one of the fastest ever, was described in great detail by baseball historian Jonathan Fraser Light. "I won the All-Star Game in Boston. He was also remarkably good about hitting his spots, as evidenced by his career 2.96 SO/BB ratio. And that makes the 100 mph pitches Nolan Ryan threw in 1974 (as measured by Rockwell laser/radar instruments relatively close to the plate) even more remarkable today. Theres a reason the kid had two Cy Young awards by the time he was 25. The guys that last the longest have learned to "hold back" and only pump it up when it absolutely necessary. One more factor: the hitters. Despite over 3,000 career punchouts Gibson finished his career averaging just 7.3 SO/9 and only led the league in strikeouts once. We finished in the second division, 18 games below .500 in sixth place. Often a starting pitcher will be removed from the . In fact, two or three pitchers have been known to reach 100 mph on the gunner machine. He didn't even have the highest strikeout rate in the league in 1946; that belonged to Newhouser, who struck out 8.46 batters per nine innings compared to Feller's 8.44. Jimenez is another pitcher who, at just 27 years old, has already raised eyebrows with some of his strikeout totals and radar gun readings. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Baseball Almanac did a study on the size of more than 16,500 players from 1876 through 2012 and found that more than 45 percent of major leaguers stood between 5'11" and 6'1". Pitchers before 1930 (or so) regularly finished their starts, too. Youre definitely on to something here. Oh, that's not what we were talking about? Allie Reynolds of the Yankees was tough, and I might think about him for 24 hours before a game, but Robert Feller: I'd think about him for three days.". Mookie Betts is playing like an MVP again, Real or Not? Source: Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch, June 7, 1939. He struck out 276 batters in 218 innings as arookiein 1984 and then came back the next season to win the Cy Young award by striking out 268 batters in 276.2 innings. Part of the Baseball Almanac family: 755 Home Runs | Baseball Box Scores | Baseball Fever | Today in Baseball History. Walter Johnson was reportedly measured at 99.7 MPH at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds, where they could measure the speed of bullets. Their speeds were shown by a gravity drop interval recorder. I'd sit in my room thinking about him all the time. In any case, this was a very rare feat, as most pitchers of that era weren't even close to throwing as fast as half their current speed. -- and his pitching motion was practically indistinguishable from the pitching motions we see today. I don't believe they threw, on average, as hard as pitchers throw today. Its not often you find a starter who can throw up to 102 mph in any inning in any count on any day. If you want to share an another or provide an accurate game date for those we have in the chart please send us an email. An 85 mph fastball (if registered by a Speedgun at the plate) would be roughly 93 mph if measured by Statcast out of the pitchers hand. An official reading is unavailable because Dalkowski pitched in the 1950s and 1960s, but some have estimated his fastball could reach 105 mph. Better balls gave a huge advantage to the offense, however, so starting in the 1920s and 1930s, pitchers began going all-out for every pitch, and few pitched an entire game from then on. He went 26-15 with a 2.18 ERA and 348 strikeouts, but that's not even the fun stuff. Some pitchers made their names by painting the corners and keeping hitters guessing. No longer could pitchers rely on wicked movement. He redefined what it meant to be a power pitcher and laid the groundwork for guys like Clemens and Johnson to take over the league. I believe there is wide agreement that there has been a lot of exaggeration (which continues today) but the degree of exaggeration and the degree of subsequent improvement in maximum pitch speed is nothing like so great as from 90 to 100 mph. Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Jose Lima of the Los Angeles Dodgers both reached this mark twice. Today's pitchers can reach up to 95 mph on their fastest pitches! I used to think that pitchers before Bob Feller didn't throw nearly as hard as pitchers throw today. Sign me up! The device measures the ball's speed between the two points and flashes it on a scale facing the pitcher. Bigger pitchers don't only throw harder in general, but they also release the ball closer to home plate, by virtue of their longer limbs. He was clocked as high as 103 mph before extreme wildness ended his career prematurely. Back then, no one could touch 100 mph. All Rights Reserved by Baseball Almanac, Inc.Hosted by Hosting 4 Less. Back then, there were three distinct periods during which a runner could score a run: when ahead by two or more scores, when behind by two or more scores, and if the game was not yet finished after five innings. The earliest appearance on the list of strikeouts per 9 IP among the top 100 is in 1955. The Baby Braves might be ready ahead of schedule, Real or Not? Clemens is known for a lot of things, and being a power pitcher is certainly one of them. Other pitchers, however, just reared back and threw as hard as they good. Theyd only throw at top speed in a situation where the game was on the line. In his final season, he led the Colonels to the Southern Division title with a record of 57-75. Live balls gave birth to Babe Ruth and subsequent homer-blasters. Feller was among the first ballplayers to truly think of himself as a mercenary, rather than a valued member of a franchise. His 105.1 mph fastball breached the 105 mph mark for the first time. On August 13, in a night game at home against the Tigers, I recorded my 262nd strikeout, breaking my career high of 261 in 1940. He finished with 4,196 in his career, good for fourth all-time and second among left-handers. I think that one of the reasons why the 20's was such an offensive era was that with the newer, more durable baseballs, and the outlawing of trick pitches, the art of pitching was in a transitory period. You throw into a hole two feet square. What's more amazing is that even though the Indians were well out of the race -- they'd finish 68-86 even with Feller winning 26 games -- manager Lou Boudreau started pitching him even more often in September. Aroldis Chapman holds the record using today's equipment, clocking in at 105.1 mph. Dmitriy Ioselevich is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Smoky Joe Wood often said, "I threw so hard, I thought my arm would fly right off my body." Three Cleveland Indians could do only 119 feet. Gerrit Cole's approach bringing Cy Young results, Mookie Betts vs. Bryce Harper -- and other pressing baseball debates, Real or not? Ich-i-ro!' At Griffith Stadium on Aug. 20, the machine was set up and Feller would fire in some fastballs. This machine will tell us at once whether he has the fast ball. Like Gangster Octopus says, we remember the exceptions. David Roark is a passionate and knowledgeable individual when it comes to sports. Scoreboards in nearly every ballpark - including High Schools - now flash pitch speeds for the world to see. At the Aberdeen Proving Grounds he was measured using the ever-popular speeding motorcycle test, once used in 1914 with Walter Johnson who reached 99.7 mph, and Feller reached 98.6 mph. But a lot of pitchers from the 1990s and 2000s are in the too 100 in this category. Hernandez is on pace for his third consecutive season of at least 200 Ks, and his strikeout rate is at a career-high 8.5 SO/9 this season. Nowadays everyone throws 95+ but when you watch older games it looks like if pitchers just lob pitches to the plate. Chapmans major league career hasnt gotten off to the thrilling start everyone expected, but the potential is through the roof. Pedro of course, would be banned from playing becuase of his skin color but thats another story. Today's games often last three or four hours! He wasn't always the most efficient of pitchers, even for 1946, when walks were plentiful. The results from the "contest for pitchers" have never been found. Walter Johnson, often cited as the fastest throwing pitcher in Major League history by experts, believed that Wood was faster than himself and once said, "Mister, no man alive can throw a baseball harder than Joe Wood." Lefty led his league in strikeouts five times, including a gaudy 310 in 1972 and won a Cy Young award in three of those years. He was never as dominant after that. He pitched 79 innings that month and started seven of Cleveland's final 17 games. Greg madux would only pump 90+ in later innings to throw hitters off. All four of these pitchers were fastballs primarily located in the upper 90s. Kerry Wood blazed onto the baseball scene (literally) with a 100 mph baseball and a 20-strikeout game that had fans thinking Hall of Fame in just his fifth career start. Pitchers could throw above 100 miles per hour (160 km/h or 45 m/s) in the late 1990s. Originally Published: February 2003 on Baseball Almanac. Bench gave in to the veteran (who had recently strung together four consecutive seasons with 200+ strikeouts) and signaled for a fastball. Spitballs and Sliders: 1900s to 1920s. The most widely quoted response is Nolan Ryan, whose fastball was "officially" clocked by the Guinness Book of World Records at 100.9 miles per hour in a game played on August 20, 1974, versus the Detroit Tigers. He even saved four games for good measure. He was an ace, struck out 1900+ guys. Weintraub writes: However, since the machine measured the speed of the ball as it passed through its sensors, unlike modern radar guns that clock the ball as it leaves the pitcher's hand, it actually flew much harder. Who was the fastest pitcher in baseball history? Dalkowski was clocked at only 93.5, but a few mitigating factors existed: 1) Dalkowski had pitched in a game the day before, so he could be expected to throw 5-10 mph slower than usual; 2) there was no mound to pitch from, which Feller had enjoyed, and this would drop his velocity by 5-8 mph; 3) he had to pitch for 40 minutes before the machine could measure his speed, and he was exhausted by the time there was a reading. Could a 108 mph fastball soon be in the future? It was harder for batters to pick up, and therefore arm-busting pitches with lots of movement werent needed. 14. Now they have 60 due to expanded ballparks and/or alternate site games being played away from home. He was once clocked at 101 mph in 2009 and is capable of throwing in the upper 90s late in the game. I would suspect that, if it were possible to look at how many pitches were thrown, youd see that todays pitchers throw a lot more to get through an inning. The best mark he recorded was 119 feet. Baseball owed much of its origin to cricket, and one of the game's first codified sets of rules -- the Knickerbocker rules, drafted in 1845 for New York's Knickerbocker baseball club -- speak to those roots: "The ball must be pitched, not thrown, for the bat." "Pitched", in the . A rookie catcher named Johnny Bench was behind the plate and eight-year veteran Jim Maloney was on the mound. c) The pitchers of the time just didnt pitch hard all the way through a game. Took place during a no hitter. In February 1920, the rules were changed to officially ban all "doctored" pitches, including spit balls, scuffed balls, sanded balls and any other . Like Dorothy Wiltse Collins, she was one of the few pitchers who adjusted to the transition from underhand pitching in 1944, to sidearm pitching in 1946, and then to overhand pitching in . Pitchers were not included in yesterday's test but "unofficially," Bob Feller of Cleveland threw three balls into the meter from a distance of 20 feet. He ended his career with 2,192 strikeouts and a.249 batting average against him. Overall, Ryan went 1-2 with a 5.40 ERA in three games back from surgery on his right shoulder. It measured velocity closer to the pitchers release point than the JUGS gun, so the JUGS flipped to being the slow gun. "They put me in the Hall of Fame? He had no problem lighting it up with one of the most violent deliveries you will ever see. If the stats existed, I think youd find that a lot more batters hit it into play or fouled out on the 1st or 2nd pitch. So even though it was recorded at 100 yards, it was actually 0.2 mph faster than what is considered to be legal ball speed. Fastball velocity is on the rise. That should explain a lot of the differences between pitching 110 years ago and today. He usually started on three days of rest, but five times started on two days of rest (not including the times he appeared in relief between starts). Fastball speeds increased steadily over the years as nutrition and weight training practices improved. 16 falloutranger San Francisco Giants 8 yr. ago How can that be? "The key here is that he did not pitch in pro baseball. Being 60 innings ahead of my career best convinced me to go for the American League season's record of 343, set by Rube Waddell. Others who claimed he was the fastest ever were Paul Richards, Harry Brecheen and Earl Weaver. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. In his brief taste of MLB action, Strasburg threw as hard as anybody in the game. Before the late 1880s the pitcher was limited to underhand or low sidearm deliveries. Other fast pitchers have included Carl Hubbell, Jack Quinn, and Roy Halladay. He drifted to various jobs and landed in Bakersfield, California, where he was arrested many times for fighting. He was then drafted by the Detroit Tigers (who had just won the World Series) into their farm system but refused to report, instead joining the Brooklyn Dodgers' roster as a free agent. Fans, researchers, historians and even the players argue all the time about who was the fastest pitcher of all-time. Matt Anderson, has thrown the fastest pitched baseball which measured 103 miles per hour (166 km/h or 46.0 m/s). It wasn't exactly Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, but it was a remarkable achievement. However, he is still just 23 years old. The strikeout king (5,714) is so far and ahead of everyone that as impressive as his record seven ho-hitters are, theres only one guy (Randy Johnson) within even 1,000 Ks of his lifetime mark. First Miss Cappy Ogiun, a visitor from Orlando, Fla., tried her speed yesterday. Document Creator: Sean Holtz of Baseball Almanac, Inc. 2003-2005. During the 1999 baseball season, this moment was recorded. When Gagne walked to the mound, you knew he was probably going to embarrass you. Chapman is also one of only two pitchers (the other being Randy Johnson) to throw two no-hit games in their careers. Shown by a gravity drop interval recorder, that 's not even the fun stuff strikeouts per 9 among. 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