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How A Spartan Revolutionized Baseball
- rmason 7mo agoI was a senior at Michigan State when Coach Litwiller invented the radar gun for measuring pitch speed. Used to attend games primarily to watch our star wide receiver, Kirk Gibson, try another sport. He was so proud of the radar gun that they would display the radar speed on the scoreboard, the first and only time that I have ever seen that in baseball. When they built the new McLane baseball stadium I was happy to see they kept the pitch speed on the new scoreboard.
- sandworm101 7mo agoGiven than scoreboards were updated by hand, and could be seen from the plate, one wonders if the reported pitch speed was ever altered to perhaps confuse a batter. The one person in the stadium not able to see the scoreboard is the pitcher, the one person with input on pitch speed.
- smithcoin 7mo agoWhen the Cubs signed Aroldis Chapman I went to the first game where he came out of the bullpen and I will never forget the entire crowd looking at the scoreboard and reacting every time he hit 100 miles an hour. Now every team has somebody that hits 100. It blows my mind people can throw a baseball faster than I drive on the interstate.
- loloquwowndueo 7mo agoSo drive faster :)
- triceratops 7mo agoThe ball's much smaller than your car though.
- banannaise 7mo agoMost professional stadiums display the pitch speed, albeit usually on one of the auxiliary boards rather than the main video board. Thanks to enhanced pitch tracking in the last few years, they can now display even more information. The Pittsburgh Pirates' first- and third-base ribbon boards show pitch speed, vertical and horizontal break, and IIRC even the name of the pitch (bucketed based on the speed and break characteristics). It's a really neat addition to have in real time.
- loloquwowndueo 7mo agoAn actual spartan? clicks through out of curiosity ah no, refers to a Michigan State University baseball coach : “The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic teams that represent Michigan State University.”
- lukan 7mo agoDid you expect time travel was developed, while no one was looking?
- xhkkffbf 7mo agoTo be fair, many ancient civilizations played ball games. The Pre-Columbian civilizations in Latin America built stadia for ball games. So maybe the ancient Greeks had an effect too.
- Archit3ch 7mo agoSparta is a modern-day town. Not particularly famous for its baseball players.
- zvr 7mo agoPeople are still be born in Sparta, Greece; no time travel needed.
- raldi 7mo agoClickbait antidote: by inventing the pitch speed radar gun after seeing campus police use one in 1974