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Issue Date: May 13, 2007
Sports
The secret to baseball's "miracle" pitch
By Ellen Ruppel Shell
What is the gyroball, the so-called "miracle" pitch supposedly thrown by Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka?
The gyroball, said to be introduced years ago by Japanese physicist Ryutaro Himeno, speeds toward home plate, spinning like a football, then seems to break (drop) straight down as it crosses the plate. But does it really "break"? No.
Pitch physics: With a regular pitch like a fastball or curveball, the Magnus force on the spinning baseball contributes to its trajectory, as does gravity. Put backspin on the ball, and it heads toward the sky; topspin, it goes downward; sidespin, it breaks to the right or the left, depending on whether the ball's spin is clockwise or counterclockwise.
With the gyroball, there isn't any Magnus force, so its vertical drop as it approaches home plate is due purely to gravity, which forces all baseballs to drop 3 to 4 feet as they approach the plate. The beauty of the gyroball is that the way it's thrown cancels all the other forces that counter gravitational pull.
"The gyroball triggers the batter's memory of other pitches he has seen," says University of Illinois physicist Alan Nathan. "He thinks it's coming in waist high, but it comes in knee high, so he swings and misses.
"What makes Matsuzaka so effective is that he has an arsenal of pitches," Nathan says. "The gyroball is just one more of his tools, and he doesn't actually need to throw it. He just has to have the batter think he might. As the old saying goes, 'Hitting is timing, and pitching is upsetting that timing.' "
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