Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/804369
14 PLAY BALL BAY AREA NEWS GROUP In2008,thePITCHf/xsystemwasinstalledinall30ballparks,allowing anyone to see the precise mph readings on the scoreboard. It wasn't always so easy. Documenting the likes of the Big Train, Rapid Robert and The Ryan Express relied on the ingenious, the bizarre and (mostly) the inaccurate. Here's are some key moments in the evolution of measuring devices. WALTER JOHNSON LikeaSpeedingBullet Howtheydidit: To measure a pair of rifle-arms, Baseball Magazine editor F.C. Lane arranged for a speed test in 1912 at the Remington Arms Co., a bullet-testing range in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Walter Johnson and Nap Rucker both took aim at a special chronograph that had been built by the army to measure the speed of small- arm projectiles. The pitchers threw toward a tunnel of copper wires that dead-ended into a steel plate. The timing device started when the ball entered the tunnel and ended when it struck the plate. Johnson was clocked at 83 mph and Rucker at 77 mph, but the test was measuring their pitches at the end of their flight. A better bet is that Johnson was throwing around 90-93 mph at the time of his release. BOB FELLER Pitching for the Cycle Howtheydidit:In the summer of 1940,police closed off a street running through Chicago's Lincoln Park to pit man vs.machine.Bob Feller waited with a baseball in hand as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle roared up from behind at 86 mph.The motorcycle had a 10-foot head start by the time Feller let the ball fly.But the fastball beat the motorcycle to the paper bull's-eye targets by a good 3 feet.There are speeds ascribed to the test that range as high as 117,but the most common mph estimate is 103.But even Feller said it was inaccurate at best and off by 10 mph either way at worst.As such,the future Hall of Famer arranged for a more scientific test using a lumiline chronograph for artillery shells.That test happened Aug.20,1946,and was captured on cameras (see link).The U.S.Army relied on ballistic data to determine Feller's pitch traveled at 98.6 mph,the unofficial record until Ryan came along. NOLAN RYAN A Guinness World Record Howtheydidit:What we know now as the modern radar gun reading was big news on Aug. 20, 1974. That's when the Angels faced the Detroit Tigers and Ryan starred in the first speed test during a live game. As the Los Angeles Times put it at the time, an "infrared beam from a low-power transmitter is aimed at a spot 9 or 10 feet in front of home plate." (They were worried about aiming the beam directly at Ryan.) The device tracked only strikes at the time, but four Rockwell International scientists concluded that Ryan hit 100.8 mph in the ninth inning, a mark recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. —DanielBrown Beforetherewere radar guns, there were pitchers racing motorcycles ASSOCIATED PRESS THE LEAGUE