Robert Kemp Adair

You can read the full review here:

https://thebeerthrillers.com/2021/04/24/book-review-the-physics-of-baseball-robe...

Excerpt:

"...The other segments were interesting as well. The flight of the ball was impressive, and is kind of funny in retrospect how he mentions if they ever play in Denver that they would have to change the balls they use. (Spoiler alert – the Colorado Rockies were founded in 1991, and they do not change the balls when playing there.)

The last segment about properties of bats is also interesting, especially as it discusses the various ways of cheating and tampering with bats. He claims (through his equations and physics) that corking bats actually doesn’t provide any benefits to the player and that there is no real benefit to cheating this way. He mentions several other ways in the past they cheated – hammering nails into the bat, cutting the bats, slicing the bats, different things other than corking, etc."… (mais)

There is a review of this book on-site that says 'If the title sounds like something you would like, then it probably is." I agree. The nice thing about it is the fact that the modeling of physical systems involved in pitching and hitting is pretty imprecise. A lot of slack is used in the discussions, but the limits of how far a ball can be hit are good solid estimates. The question of how far a ball can be hit is answered logically and sequentially considering the elasticity of the ball and bat, swing and pitch speeds, air resistance, humidity and the Magnus force. It adds up to about 545-550 feet as you keep adding in more and more ideal situations. The fact most people miss is that there is a point where the wood will start to deform and crush instead of transferring energy to the ball. The Magnus force is the force that makes a golf ball rise from its backspin creating vortices of high pressure under the ball and low pressure above it. If that was a scary sentence then this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if a detailed analysis of the nodes and antinodes of a vibrating bat or the angles, spin, air pressure differences and velocities of the different pitches sounds like fun, then its meat and potatoes time.… (mais)