Rise ball young pitcher

[Coach]

oh boy

There is a difference between baseball pitching and fastpitch.One is a flat pitch and baseball being a downward pitch.I would agree you can't make a baseball pitcher throw a ball that will rise everytime a fastpitch pitcher can make a ball rise everytime.The ball surface is also bigger on a softball than baseball so the air will affect it differently.I have seen major league pitchers on tv that every now and then throw a pitch that rises a little bit and tails off.

I suggest you go to Rettingers post #56 that has a link to the Mythbusters story about Roger Clemens' fastball and that there is no way any pitcher can create enough lift force (backspin) on the pitch to overcome the balls weight to make it "rise".

Is it possible that ball players have been conditioned for years, starting at an early age, to catch a ball and swing at pitches that have a parabolic arc so they anticipate the natural drop of the ball by the time the ball reaches them. What happens now when they have to catch or hit a ball that has a lower parabolic arc (flatter trajectory) i.e. rise ball; it appears to them to actually be above the point where they anticipated the ball to be by the time it reaches their glove/bat. The ball didn't "hop" above their glove/bat they just mis-judged the spot where most thrown balls would be.

But than again, you can dismiss science and the laws of physics and believe what you want.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Greenmonsters, I agree that the riseball does not stay on its original trajectory. But the ball still goes up. Up is up. Not "falling down slower" as some people suggest. If you follow the film on a riseball you can see that each point closer to the plate is higher than the position immediately before it. The spin makes it not deviate as much from its original trajectory.

Good - as we agree on the first part, the second part is just a matter of disagreement involving semantics! Regardless, if you can identify it and lay off it, it usually will be called a ball, and, if you identify it and square it up, it will go far unless you miss it.

 

[SoCalSoftballdad]

Greenmonsters, I agree that the riseball does not stay on its original trajectory. But the ball still goes up. Up is up. Not "falling down slower" as some people suggest. If you follow the film on a riseball you can see that each point closer to the plate is higher than the position immediately before it. The spin makes it not deviate as much from its original trajectory.

The easiest way to explain it is to draw a straight line from pitcher's release of the ball (3 feet off the ground) to a point at the cathers glove (5 feet off of the ground). First pitch is a four-seam fastball that is released on this same initial straight line trajectory, it will end up somewhere around 8 inches below the 5 foot mark (i.e. 4 feet, 4 inches above the ground). Second pitch is a riseball thrown at the same velcoity of the fastball and is also started out on the same trajectory. Because the ball has backspin it will fall slower than the fastball which has forward spin and end up at the glove somewhere slightly less than 5 feet and greater than 4 feet, 4 inches.

Both pitches "went up" in relation to the release of the ball at 3 feet, but never can the riseball be higher than that 5 feet (i.e. cannot rise, hop, jump) by the time the ball reaches the glove. Never has and never will. It's really that simple.

My last comment on this subject is that we should all challenge what we think to be softball "truisms" and do our own independent investigation on whether or not the advice and information being offered makes sense, is logical, and scientifically sound. You might actually learn something new.

 

[CoachFP]

SoCal, we agree on the concept. Your wording in the past about it not falling as fast makes one think it starts to go down, when it would not start to go down until sometime farther past the catcher.

 

[redhawkridge]

The earth is flat. Joan of Arc was a witch. Curveballs in Baseball don't curve. Lindsay Lohan is being unfairly persecuted. Arnold Schwartzenader is a Conservative Republican. Aaron Rodgers is a flash-in-the-pan. And.... Riseballs don't rise.
Respectfully,
Jim

 

[CoachFP]

Attaboy Jim

 

[tojo]

Would someone please tell me when on Model Pitch thread where Angela Tincher's rise starts it's downward trajectory in Post # 41? I'm sure Bustos would like to know as well.

 

[CoachFP]

Tojo, you make too much sense. Video proof will not change people's thinking. That ball was "falling" in the strike zone, that's why Bustos missed it. She thought it would keep on rising.

 

[Renntiger]

I think this "debate" keeps going in circles because everyone continues to use different definitions for the words "rising" and "falling". Most in the 'yes' camp define these terms according to whether the ball is on an upward or downward trajectory relative to the ground. While the 'no' camp has always defined the terms relative to the ball's initial path at the point of release. This is not a semantics issue, it's an apples and oranges issue!

If we used ball path relative to the ground as our frame of reference, then what exactly would be the qualitative difference between a riseball and a high fast ball that has not yet reached its apex when it crossed the plate? Both pitches would still be "rising" as they reached the catcher, neither would have "fallen".

There are many posts in this thread and in countless old threads that already explained what "rising" and "falling" mean relative to the initial ball path, there is no point repeating them again here, but I would like to re-emphasize one thing: The "rising" and "falling" in this context do not refer to the path of the ball relative to the ground, they refer to the direction of acceleration only.

Gravity is an acceleration. Any non-self-propelled object launched in the air would start "falling" (accelerating towards the earth) the moment it is detached from the launch vehicle, if it doesn't have some aerodynamic characteristics (i.e., lift producing features) that would allow it to overcome the earth-bound acceleration. For example, a cannon ball shot towards the sky will maintain an upward trajectory relative to the ground over a very long distance, but it has actually been falling from the get-go - away from the spot in the sky where the muzzle was aimed, because as soon as the shot left the muzzle, it has been subject to one significant acceleration only in the vertical axis - that of gravity. So using the definition that the 'no' camp has been using all along, the canon ball would not qualify as a riseball, just a high fast ball, even though it would be 'rising' for a long time past the 43 ft between the rubber and the plate.

The 'no' camp does recognize that back spin produces lift, which partially overcomes gravity. What they do not accept (and science backs them up on this) is that the lift created by a back-spinning softball (at the speed and spin rate generated by a human pitcher under normal circumstances) can ever come close to exceeding gravity, and produce a net acceleration away from the ground, which is a necessary condition for the ball to "rise" above its initial trajectory. It's completely immaterial what the angle of the ball trajectory is as it crosses the plate. Yes, Tincher's pitch maintained an upward angle all the way to the catcher's mitt (all this means is that the ball trajectory had not yet reached its apex), but if anyone had bothered to trace the actual ball path, they would have seen that the ball had gradually fallen away from its initial path, as defined at the moment of release. Bustos chased this pitch because she overestimated both the amount of drop in Tincher's riser and her own ability to make contact this far above the zone. It's really not that complicated or mysterious. To put it another way: if it's possible to create enough lift to overcome gravity through the backspin, the 'no' camp would accept as 'riseball' one that is pitched on a downward angle, that ends up in the dirt, so long as the ball is shown 'rising' from its initial trajectory, i.e., accelerating away from the direction of gravity. The fact that most risers are thrown high and tend to stay up is not in dispute!

The pitches in the video below would qualify as 'true' risers per the definitions used by the 'no' camp (they are made possible by the lightness of the ball and the tremendous lift afforded by the ball's asymmetrically vented surface):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZPPMIY0Yd4
Note that here too, lift is at its maximum at release - the ball is pitched down, but it is "rising" away from its initial path (which terminates in a spot in the ground a few feet in front of the pitcher) from the start. If the pitcher miscalculates and dumps the ball in the ground before it can clear the low point in its trajectory, it would not change the fact that it is still a bona fide riser based on the definitions mentioned above; it would just be a very low riser, missed short.

Anyway, this is a lot more than I wanted to say initially. But if there is any hope for a breakthrough in this 'debate', we really should at least make an effort to use the same definitions for the terms used.

Just to summarize: "falling" for the 'no' camp is defined as ball acceleration in the direction of the earth, relative to the initial ball path at release, and "rising" means the opposite. It is the contention of this camp (and of the scientific community) that a riseball thrown by a human pitcher does not have enough lift to overcome gravity and "rise" above its initial path, but there would be enough lift to reduce the rate at which the ball "falls" from the said path. The angle at which the actual ball path crosses the plate is irrelevant in this context, as it is not a direct function of the ball spin direction (i.e., you can throw a high ball with up, down or side spin and it will cross the plate at an upward angle as long as you throw it hard enough, high enough, and from a low enough release point).

Not sure if I've helped to clarify anything here, but I am quite certain this 'debate' will flare up again soon enough, whether here or somewhere else, and rage on long after we are all dead and gone, if we continue to use the same terms to mean different things.

 

[Renntiger]

Of course none of this is necessary to teach a riser, but what's so 'hopeless' about understanding the truth behind a physical phenomenon? There was a time when people thought the Earth was the center of the universe (after all, everyone could see with their own eyes that the stars revolved around us), then some 'science whackos' came along and ruined it for everyone with their stupid experiments and data analysis. History is full of similar 'downers', where nerdy science whackos just couldn't leave our cherished myths well enough alone. However, in the long run, are we better off relying on scientific observations to go about our business or should we stick to our instincts and gut feelings?

A riser thrown with a 6-12 backspin will take the same path to the batter no matter what the pitcher, or the batter, or the coach might believe. It's not any easier to throw or to hit just because you know it can't actually overcome gravity! However, some of these young ladies pitching and batting today may grow up to be science whackos themselves (or maybe they already are), and they may or may not look back and find the endless argument in support of a physically rising softball (i.e., one that has a net acceleration in the opposite direction of gravity) a bit... quaint. I don't presume to speak for SoCalSoftballdad, but I suspect he had this group of girls in mind when he wrote the quoted passage.

Nevertheless, I still think this debate persists mainly because many debaters continue to use completely different frames of reference to make their argument, not because they disagree on the science necessarily. Science whackos are part of the competitive sports scene and they are here to stay (equipment and training wouldn't be where they are today without science). Has science made our sports less enjoyable through its relentless demystification campaign? Perhaps, but it has also made the athletes perform better, in a much safer environment, so it has contributed a lot of positive changes in this context to balance out the handful of downers. Overall, I believe we are better off embracing science than to ignore or reject it, but everyone is free to make his/her own choice in this regard.