Interesting article about the Mantle home run you guys were talking about earlier. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_y...slug=jp-mantlehomer041708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
We've had this debate on this board only fifty or so times before. I don't think anyone here has ever been nancy enough to argue against inside pitching. The question for today is: Do we want pitchers throwing behind batters' heads to take back the inside of the plate. That's overkill, and it's never been fair ball in any generation. Not ever. PLUS, there is an enormous difference between a starter throwing aggressively and a middle reliever throwing aggressively. Pedro could be a punk at times. He threw inside A LOT, and occasionally too far up and in. Pedro throwing tight is setting up his next start or next at-bat. Farnsworth throwing behind Manny's head was solely intended to start a battle, which I'm sure we'll see in July. High and tight would have been a message with a pass. My guess is that he's trying to show Joe that he's willing to be a good warrior for the New Yankee Regime.
Defend Red Sox player action: Check. Damn Yankee player action: Check. Your post is complete. Nice work.
That's only 507 according to the site, Ted Williams HR was measured at 527 at ground level. http://www.hittrackeronline.com/historic.php?id=1946_2
That's a different HR than the one we were talking about. That was the one in Washington. We were talking about the one at the Stadium. Oh, nm..I saw it mentioned at the bottom. There are some people who say there has never been a 500 foot HR and others that say there have been plenty. Like the article says at the end, "Part of the tape-measure home run’s beauty is the curiosity in how far it really went. Teams announce distances based off some chart, and it’s always just another guess, and you know, that’s all right. "
I honestly have no idea about the one you were talking about. I'm too young to have seen Mantle play and I'm not a Yankees fan, so I really don't know. I just thought it was strange that that article was posted today and you guys were (I thought) talking about it. I honestly had never heard of it before today, and I wasn't trying to start any trouble.
I don't think anyone assumed you were. I think we all got that you saw it was relevant to a conversation we were just having, and it was cool of you to point it out. Don was just explaining that we were discussing a different Mantle homer. It's pretty legendary in Yankees' history, since it's the one and only time a batted ball ever hit the facade. (This one was mentioned in the article, but only briefly.) Those that saw it claim the ball was still rising when it hit near the top. If that is true, it's hard to imagine it coming down closer than 600 feet, probably further. Of course, all we seem to have is eyewitness accounts, so there's no actual evidence of what truly happened. I think the article makes the best point though: who cares? It's a legend, and will continue on as such. Just part of the mystique of the game of baseball. It's for reasons like this that I laugh when someone says the game of baseball is boring. It's only boring if you don't truly understand it.
http://www.hittrackeronline.com/historic.php?id=1963_3 "Mickey Mantle, Yankee Stadium, May 22, 1963" On May 22, 1963, Mickey Mantle hit a home run that none who saw will ever forget. In the 11th inning of the game that day against the Kansas City A's, Mantle hit a Bill Fischer pitch hard on a line to right field, and the ball struck the decorative facade of the stadium mere feet from the top, barely missing becoming the only man ever to hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium during a major league game. The ball struck the facade at a point 102 feet above field level, at a point 352 feet horizontally from home plate. Atmopsheric data is known as follows: temperature was 70 degrees, wind was 13 mph from the SW, which at Yankee Stadium means it was blowing out to left field (and thus not helping Mantle's home run). As for the time of flight, it is not known, but various reports from witnesses state that the ball was still climbing when it struck the facade. Since all observers were below the flight path of the ball, it is not likely that anyone could really be certain that the ball was going up, but it seems likely that the ball must have been very near its apex when it hit the facade, so only those trajectories that yield an apex within a few feet of 102 feet above field level will be considered. Another consideration is the speed off the bat that comes out of the assumed time of flight: only times of flight that yield reasonable speeds off the bat will be considered. After trying numerous times of flight, a value of 3.00 seconds was chosen. This yields an apex of 107 feet, which means the ball had only slightly passed its peak. The ball left the bat at an angle of 29.4 degrees, with a calculated value for speed off the bat of 130.2 mph, an extrememly high value, but one that seems feasible for what Mantle, one of the greatest long-distance hitters ever, referred to as the hardest ball he ever hit. With the inputs described above, Hit Tracker estimates the true distance of the Mantle "facade" homer at 507 feet. (NOTE: the stadium image shows the current configuration of Yankee Stadium). Questions or comments about this analysis are welcome, but let me make two points first: 1. if the ball had TRULY still been going up when it hit the facade, it would have had to been going at least 150 mph off the bat. If Mantle (or anyone, for that matter) was capable of hitting a baseball 150 mph, he would certainly have hit a ball near that speed at a better angle (i.e. closer to 35 degrees) at some point in his long career, with that ball EASILY leaving the stadium on the fly. That never happened, which proves that Mantle could not have hit the ball at 150 mph off the bat, and thus that the ball wasn't actually still going up. 2. a baseball in flight responds to forces acting on it, such as gravity, wind resistance and the Magnus Force (from the spin of the ball); it does not respond to "mystique", and it has no idea who hit it. Any estimate of home run distance should limit itself to aerodynamically valid trajectories; a 600 foot home run hit without a following wind (as is the case here) would have to leave the bat at 149 mph, and a 734 foot homer at more than 175 mph.
dude, I like baseball as much as the next guy. and I like apple pie, although Im too fat to eat it without getting John Goodman jowels-which I might add is far from sexy macho. However, if you watch a hockey game or a football game, and then flip to a baseball game you have to say to yourself" hmmm, I love the green grass and the crackerjacks, but uhhh this can be a bit boring at times'
That was the only point I was making. Everybody has their own theories on how long HRs actually travel. They all have their own way of calculating them and none are accurate but only a guess. For years they said Dave Kingman's HR in Chicago went over 600 feet too? Did it? Nobody knows but I remember I was actually watching that game when he hit it and they did have video of it hitting the street and smashing into some woman's front door. The next picture was of her opening the door to see what happened. Classic, even if it wass 300, 400, 500 or 600 feet.
I don't have to say that to myself, and I don't. I'll watch baseball with intense interest over any other sport. For years I wasn't a baseball fan after the strike, and football became my primary sport. Over the past few years though, I've come back in full to the sport. Oh, and I've always hated Crackerjacks. Nasty shit.
