Home Run measurement ???

[rincewind]

Didn't want this to get lost in another stupid Bonds thread.

How exactly do they measure home runs? Is it from where ever it hits something? Or do they project how far it would have gone? If they do project how far it would have gone, how? I mean do they have to have a camera on the base line so that they can see the trajectory?

Come on math people help me out here...

[twenty-eight]

you wouldnt understand:)

[zoony]

They ask me and I tell them.

.....

[rincewind]

you wouldnt understand:)

They ask me and I tell them.

.....

You guys are very helpful. Thanks. :finger:

And a little something extra for Famine - :nutkick:

[twenty-eight]

You guys are very helpful. Thanks. :finger:

And a little something extra for Famine - :nutkick:

I like you too buddy!

[SkinsOrlando]

It's based off of projections, there's a guy I can't remember his name but he came up with a formula based on a few factors and what the ball hit(bleachers, sign etc.) and thats how the gauge the distance.

[rincewind]

It's based off of projections, there's a guy I can't remember his name but he came up with a formula based on a few factors and what the ball hit(bleachers, sign etc.) and thats how the gauge the distance.

That's what i don't get - wouldn't the trajectory come into play? I mean - you could it the same spot with a towering fly or a line drive, but that doesn't mean they would LAND in the same spot.

[The Evil Genius]

According to the Major League Baseball system, a high fly will descend at an angle whose cotangent is 0.6. In trigonometry-for-dummies terms, what that means is that for every foot the ball would have continued to drop vertically, it would have traveled another 0.6 feet horizontally.

http://www.slate.com/id/2095 - The myth of the 500 ft home run

A home run that is hit say, 439 ft and hits seats 59 feet high, would travel 474 feet.

Here's the math: 439 feet + (59 feet x 0.6) = 474 feet.

Of course, this is then multiplied by the air speed of an unladen swallow to get what people claim how far their long balls were.

[rincewind]

Of course, this is then multiplied by the air speed of an unladen swallow to get what people claim how far their long balls were.

African or European?

[SkinsOrlando]

African or European?

Do you mean to tell me a swallow can carry a coconut?

[rincewind]

http://www.slate.com/id/2095 - The myth of the 500 ft home run

A home run that is hit say, 439 ft and hits seats 59 feet high, would travel 474 feet.

Here's the math: 439 feet + (59 feet x 0.6) = 474 feet.

That doesn't seem right to me. Like I said - one could be a line drive and one could be a towering fly. They wouldn't land in the same spot, though their paths would cross twice.

[The Evil Genius]

That doesn't seem right to me. Like I said - one could be a line drive and one could be a towering fly. They wouldn't land in the same spot, though their paths would cross twice.

There are different multipliers for line drives...according to the article.

The article also mentions that Mantle's famed 565 ft bash at a windy Griffith Stadium was really closer to 510 ft.

[DjTj]

Didn't want this to get lost in another stupid Bonds thread.

How exactly do they measure home runs? Is it from where ever it hits something? Or do they project how far it would have gone? If they do project how far it would have gone, how? I mean do they have to have a camera on the base line so that they can see the trajectory?

Come on math people help me out here...

The answer is that every team does it somewhat differently, and there several ways of estimating the distance.

Here's a good article:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05245/564674.stm

In 1988, the league, in partnership with IBM, launched a program called "Tale of the Tape" where survey crews were sent to map the outfield dimensions of every ballpark and make charts teams could use for reference. Though the system was inexact, it gave measurements a modicum of credibility for about 10 years. But since the program ended, teams have been left to fend for themselves. While some have taken pains to be as accurate as possible -- the Chicago White Sox, for one, enlisted a team of engineering students from the Illinois Institute of Technology to survey their ballpark in 2002 -- most of their improvisations fall short of what could be considered scientifically rigorous.

On the rare occasions when the Anaheim Angels decide to announce a measurement, they turn to a survey chart that was prepared before an extensive ballpark renovation. Unlike most teams, the Baltimore Orioles count the distance only to the point where the ball was stopped by some object in the outfield, rather than how far the ball would have flown if it hadn't been impeded. And the Minnesota Twins still use a chart prepared two decades ago by a graduate student from the University of Minnesota math department, even though they've lost the specially designed calculator they were given to factor in the arc of the ball.

This June, when Cincinnati's Wily Mo Pena hit a majestic bomb off the centerfield "batter's eye" at Busch Stadium, the St. Louis Cardinals dug out their official yardstick: a photocopy of a photocopy (of a photocopy) of the original IBM survey from 17 years ago.

Back then, the farthest distance the surveyors thought to measure was the base of the batter's eye in centerfield, which was 470 feet. So to make the estimate, team officials took that number, added 18 feet to approximate the extra height and four more to account for the distance the ball might have flown if it landed on flat ground. The result? A thoroughly unscientific 492. "We like to joke that it's accurate to plus or minus 20 feet," says a Cardinals spokesman.

[rincewind]

Thanks T.E.G. and DjTj!

[fight_on_til_you_have_won]

The answer is that every team does it somewhat differently, and there several ways of estimating the distance.

That makes sense, because I know that the Cubs, for instance, will say a home run that barely makes the bleachers in left center (368') will be a 370-foot home run. (Although I wonder what the measurement for this monster was.)

[The Sir]

Ryan Howard hit a home run in that same park a couple weeks ago and it went about 50 feet further, but he's Ryan Howard and not Barry Bonds.

[MisterPinstripe]

Do you mean to tell me a swallow can carry a coconut?

It could grab it by the husk. :whoknows:

[Major Harris]

djtj beat me to it.

it's done differently at different parks, at least that's what i've always heard.

[skinsn24]

no idea, but im sure it is not an exact science