How fast did pitchers throw in the 1960s

Q: How fast did they pitch in 1950?

The best pitchers velocity in Ruths day topped out at about 90 miles per hour, while relievers youve never heard of now flirt with 100 mph fastballs.

Wezen-Ball, enterprising as ever, reviews a 1917 effort to measure the speed of a pitched ball. Money quote:

Table of Contents Show

How fast did they pitch in 1950?
How fast did pitchers throw in the 1940's?
How fast was Nolan Ryan's pitch in 1974?
How hard were pitchers throwing in the 30s?

The Popular Science article is called "Two and a Half Miles a Minute: That's the speed at which a pitched ball travels." That's 150 mph. We won't be reaching those speeds any time soon. There might have been significant measurement and calculation error in that study, but it's still fascinating to see what people were doing nearly 100 year ago to better understand the game of baseball. We should just be thankful that we no longer have to resort to such elaborate means to get that kind of data. Instead, we just spend hours and hours analyzing it. Maybe we haven't changed all that much. Not that I'm complaining...

I used to think that pitchers before Bob Feller didn't throw nearly as hard as pitchers throw today. I thought that even the top power pitchers of the 1920s and '30s -- again, before Feller -- topped out around 90 miles an hour. If only because most of the film I've seen of pitchers from that era just don't suggest that much effort was being expended.
Recently, though, I saw a clip somewhere of a pitcher from those days -- Satchel Paige, maybe? -- and his pitching motion was practically indistinguishable from the pitching motions we see today.

No, pitchers didn't throw 150 miles an hour. I don't believe they threw, on average, as hard as pitchers throw today. Because 1) they weren't asked to max out, and 2) everyone in every sport is stronger and faster, more dynamic today than yesterday; why would pitchers be any different?

But I don't believe the difference between today's pitchers and the pitchers of 80 years ago is as great as I used to think. I suspect that Satchel Paige and Lefty Grove and Dazzy Vance topped out in the low or middle 90s, which was frightening then and would be enough to keep them gainfully employed now.

A fast fastball is a lot faster than it used to be.

On Sept. 24, 2010, Aroldis Chapman threw the fastest recorded pitch in major league history.

His 105.1 mph fastball was the first time the 105 mph barrier had been broken. It wasn’t Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, but it was significant.

But Major League Baseball now registers that pitch as a 105.8 mph fastball. Over the course of the past decade, Chapman’s fastest fastball had gotten faster by nearly a mile per hour. What was a 105 mph fastball can now be said (with rounding) to be the first recorded 106 mph pitch in MLB history.

How can that be? It all comes down to where the pitch is measured.

The moment a baseball leaves a pitcher’s hand, it starts to slow down because of drag. According to University of Illinois physicist Dr. Alan Nathan, a pitch that leaves a pitcher’s hand at 100 mph will (at sea level) slow down by 9 to 10% by the time it crosses the plate some 55-58 feet later.

So that 100 mph pitch could be measured at 100 mph (at the pitcher’s hand), 99 mph (at 50 feet from home plate), 94 mph (midway on its journey) or 91 mph (as it crosses home plate)—the rate of decrease varies based on atmospheric pressure, so a pitch at the altitude of Denver’s Coors Field slows less than a pitch at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Pitch/FX system that MLB used in 2010 measured pitches at roughly 50 feet from home plate, which is where the 105.1 mph of Chapman’s fastball was measured. The current MLB Statcast system measures velocity as the pitch leaves the pitcher’s hand. MLB has gone back and recalibrated Pitch/FX pitches to convert them to their velocity at pitch release. That’s why Chapman’s fastest fastball found an extra .7 mph.

For decades, comparing pitch velocities has often been an apples-and-oranges discussion. The first radar guns that began appearing at ballparks in the late 1970s and early 1980s measured pitches much closer to the plate. The Speedgun, developed by Decatur Technologies (a long-time maker of police radar guns) measured closer to the plate than the JUGS gun. For scouts, the Speedgun was known as the “slow gun” while the JUGS gun registered faster readings and was the “fast gun.”

Then Stalker came out with its Pro Sports radar gun in the early 1990s. It measured velocity closer to the pitcher’s release point than the JUGS gun, so the JUGS flipped to being the slow gun.

A 90 mph pitch on a Speedgun could register at 92 on a JUGS gun and 93-94 mph on a Stalker. The tech continued to improve. A 94 mph pitch on the Stalker Pro registered as 95 on the Stalker Pro II.

So when you read of 85-90 mph fastballs from the early 1980s, realize that they would be registering much faster with current measurement tech. An 85 mph fastball (if registered by a Speedgun at the plate) would be roughly 93 mph if measured by Statcast out of the pitcher’s hand.

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.

How fast did they pitch in 1950?

The best pitchers' velocity in Ruth's day topped out at about 90 miles per hour, while relievers you've never heard of now flirt with 100 mph fastballs.

How fast did pitchers throw in the 1940's?

In 1940, Bob Feller led all MLB players with an average fastball speed of 97 miles per hour. He also set several pitching records during that season including most strikeouts (374) and fewest walks allowed (143).

How fast was Nolan Ryan's pitch in 1974?

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. A record that's still included in the book.

How hard were pitchers throwing in the 30s?

90 MPH tops. The average fastball for all of the roughly 75 or so starting pitchers from, say, 1927 would be around 80–86 mph. There were no speed guns in the 1930s, but Bob Feller began his MLB career in 1936, and at al later date threw a pitch through timed electronic gates at over 100 mph.