The pitch from Gibson shattered his right elbow. The word went out. Get a long foul on Gibson and he made sure the next pitch stayed in the ballpark by burying it in your anatomy. Gibson, who got his own ankle broken by a line drive from Roberto Clemente, only shrugs. He believes that the art of pitching calls for the periodic brush-back. The rest is not so easy to get out of the way. Baseball men call it the purpose pitch. Only a very small percentage of them were at hitters.
More than 9, of them went to the catcher. But he wanted all 17 inches of home plate. Ted Williams once had a hitting wheel. It showed what you would bat if you swung at pitches in various locations of the strike zone.
Out over the plate was. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Out of all the men gifted with the talent of pitching at miles per hour, Nolan Ryan was the man who kept it the longest and used it the most. In his year career, there is no doubt he threw more pitches over that speed than anyone else.
Besides his legendary fastball, known as "The Ryan Express," he also had one of the best curve-balls in the history of the sport. So how good was Nolan Ryan? Well, baseball is a game of statistics, and he has a huge number of dominating numbers—some of which will likely never be touched.
First and foremost, Ryan struck out more batters than anyone with a record of 5, More impressive is his record of seven no-hitters. He allowed fewer hits per nine innings of pitching over his career than anyone, an average of 6. He held opposing batters to a lower batting average than anyone at. His season record of strikeouts and his six seasons with more than strikeouts are also very telling. There has never been a more intimidating pitcher than Nolan Ryan.
Unless, of course, you face Randy Johnson. By the time he threw the ball, it seemed like his left arm was halfway to home plate.
He also threw from a three-quarter position rather than straight over the top—if you were you a left-handed hitter, every pitch would seem aimed at your head. When Johnson first made it to the big leagues, he had a wild and long mullet, a big burly mustache, and he stomped around on the mound in a very angry manner. He would then launch mph pitches. This giant man had to have been the most frightening redneck to ever grace a pitcher's mound.
The Big Unit threw a no-hitter early in his career. A possibly even more impressive accolade was when he became the first left-handed pitcher to ever strike out Wade Boggs three times in one game. However, Johnson was still struggling quite a bit; he'd often walk so many batters that he'd lose the game. But Nolan Ryan had seen Johnson pitch and he knew the potential he had. Ryan scheduled a visit with Randy to show him some things that would change his career. What Ryan suggested was that Randy focus where he'd land on his feet when throwing a ball, and soon Johnson would become a dominating pitcher.
In a game, Johnson started against Ryan and the Texas Rangers and he got 18 strikeouts, winning the game. Though Johnson did at times throw miles per hour, he didn't do so as often as other pitching greats. His fastball wasn't even his best pitch. The Big Unit's devastating slider is what made him so lethal. He'd end his career second only to Nolan Ryan in strikeouts with 4,, and he'd tie Nolan with six seasons in which he'd strike out or more batters.
He pitched two no-hit games, the second of which was the rare perfect game, a game where no batter reaches 1st base. Johnson's five Cy Young awards are second only to Roger Clemens in major league history.
Now if there is anyone remotely comparable in the big leagues today to the men discussed above, that man would be Justin Verlander. At just 30 years old, Verlander has already accomplished quite a bit and still has a lot left to deliver—which is a scary thought for any competitor. In , Justin Verlander pitched a no-hitter and finished the season with 18 wins, winning the American League rookie of the year award.
With great years between and , Verlander appears to be a mainstay ace. He has a fastball that can go anywhere from 94 to miles per hour, and a big nasty curve-ball to go along with it. While his skill and attributes remind most fans of Nolan Ryan, his pitching motion along with the outstanding fastball and curve-ball is more reminiscent of another right-handed pitcher who once threw miles per hour, Dwight Gooden.
How good is Verlander? He won a Cy Young award in as well as the triple crown of pitching in the American League; he led the league in strikeouts, in wins, and had the lowest earned run average. If we're discussing who can throw the hardest, then why leave the relievers for last? Relief pitching is now a field all its own. In the days of Walter Johnson, all the way towards the end of Nolan Ryan's career, starting pitchers would start a game with the singular goal in finishing that game, and with a win.
Now, of course, it didn't always happen, that is why there has been relief pitching all along. Pitchers nowadays do not truly expect to finish a game they've started. Nobody in the major leagues has thrown more than pitches in a game since the day Randy Johnson struck out 18 Texas Rangers in When a closer is brought into a game, they are generally brought in during the 9th inning.
They wait to air it out and they don't have to worry about their arms so much since they're not looking at nine innings, just one or two.
So how hard do these guys throw? At the top is Aroldis Chapman, the tall, thin, left-handed Cuban defector, who threw a pitch recorded at Just behind Chapman would be the very large Detroit right-handed closer, Joel Zumaya, who once threw a ball This beat a speed recorded by Mark Wohlers, who tossed one at miles per hour. Last but certainly not least, there is Neftali Feliz, who was clocked more recently in at Now it is pretty obvious, with all the years and thousands of players to have played major league baseball, that I've left out some very relevant names, faces, and statistics.
There is just too much to say and mention, so please accept my apologies for the players you feel were unfairly omitted. Answer: There probably is one, but you would likely need to dig through at least the first 3 pages of Google's search results to find the most comprehensive one. Such a list would be growing in length constantly, as these days MLB scouts are specifically looking to draft the largest men possible, and expectations of high velocity are increasingly thought to be important.
Answer: You need to be more specific. Over the years various ways of measuring velocity have been used. What they use today is not what they used years ago. Nolan Ryan has the record, all in all, and this was from Doppler Radar. His pitch was measured at Answer: I'm sure he could. The competition in Major League Baseball is much tougher today because we've included not just African Americans, but virtually anyone in the world who can make it. But The Babe's stats show he could certainly compete well were he playing in today's era.
Question: How could you not include Sandy Koufax in the list of the hardest throwing pitchers? Answer: While it is possible Koufax could hit mph in his younger years, the fastest pitch he ever threw which was recorded was in the low 90s. Koufax was obviously one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history, but his breaking balls were what was so devastating. Ernie Banks said Sandy's breaking pitches had more spin than anyone else's. Answer: An outstanding intimidating reliever and those thick glasses of his surely had a psychological impact on the scared batters.
I'd be frightened too. Duren surely fits the bill and belongs in the mph club. Waddell struck out players in ?
I face both Ryan and Dalkowski and it wasn't close. Dalkowski threw a lot harder than Ryan. We were playing in Bluefield West Virginia and there was a Coke sign above the press box behind home plate, Dalkowski threw a fast ball through the coke sign. Go ahead and laugh but you weren't standing in the batters box when the pitch went thirty feet over your head. I'm so freaking starved for baseball right now. Holy smoke, are we going to have a sane world again, and there must be baseball! I find it hard to believe that Koufax in his prime only threw 93 mph.
He consistently led the league in strikeouts a then record in , He did have a devastating curve but I think he also threw at least as fast as anyone else in the 's. There are two complete telecast games of him pitching in the world series. They are the best evidence of his speed. Nolan Ryan's next to last start was not at home in Arlington Stadium. It was against the Angels in Anaheim, CA. I know because I was there along with over 60, other fans.
Nice move by Kevin Kennedy when took him out after he threw his warm up pitches in the bottom of the 7th. We gave him a really great ovation as he walked of the mound.
That game is on Youtube. His final start of his career was on the 22nd at Seattle when he blew out his arm in the 1st inning. His final start at home was on Sept. I saw him pitch a few times when he was on the Angels. He took a no-hitter into the 9th but Reggie Jackson got a hit with 1 out. I think I saw him against the Dodgers when he was with Houston early 80s. I was their when the Angels retired his number and also just about every time he pitched against them in Anaheim.
In he pitched 2 3-hit shutouts. In the second one at season's end he took a perfect game into the 8th inning before Brian Downing got a hit. In the 6th inning he struck out the side and from then on everyone was on his side for him to get it.
I believe this might have been the only 9 inning shutout or game even that he didn't walk a batter. The documentary Fastball examined velocities and how different speeds might look if modern technology was used. It ultimately suggested Ryan hit mph. We might begin to see teams place less emphasis on velocity. MLB could explore rules to reduce the number of pitchers allowed on a roster, resulting in starters going longer into games and thus using less max effort on individual pitches.
With that said, there will still be plenty of arms who will blow past mph. Cincinnati Reds prospect Hunter Greene, one of the top pitching prospects in MLB, regularly throws triple-digits and has even hit mph. Matt Johnson facebook twitter.
Also Read: Babe Ruth vs. Josh Gibson: Who was a better hitter? Well, I watched Gibson! If insert modern inferior player here can hit 95 mph, then Gibson was over ! With absolutely no empirical evidence whatsoever, anyone can claim anything they want and they get to be right! Vote to see the results:. How hard was Bob Gibson's fastball? I'll be spending the day calculating the apx. Retweet so others can, too. With over votes cast, the majority of fans believe Gibson threw somewhere between mph.
Using pseudo-science and quasi-math, I think I can estimate how hard Bob Gibson threw his fastball. Gibson shut down the Tigers , recording a record 17 strikeouts in a complete game, five-hit shutout. But it will be fun and I think we can get a result that will leave us satisfied. Statcast can tell us fastball pitch speed down to the tenth of an mph. It conveniently provides high-quality video of these same pitches.
Right there we have velocity and time over a relatively similar distance. What could go wrong? Several things. Video is an imprecise beast.
Finding the exact moment a pitch leaves the hand or the glove closes requires some guesswork. We can somewhat mitigate the subjective nature of this by using multiple samples to set the ratio of frames to miles per hour. We will use three different modern Cardinal hurlers to do this:. Jordan Hicks , — mph 2. Jack Flaherty , —
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