Musings
 Reaction Time

The other weekend I found myself watching not only some Major League Beaseball (MLB) but also some NCAA Women's Fastpitch Softball. The game I watched was University of Oklahoma vs. University of Missouri. I used to play fastpitch softball from 8th grade clear through club softball during undergrad at University of Miami. I played against some tough pitchers that could really hurl the ball. At the age group and the level I played the best pitchers threw the ball in the 60 mph range.

Baseball and softball are quite similar but in that same breath they are quite different. One of the more obvious differences, and most relevant to the topic at hand, is the distance from the pitcher's rubber to home plate. In baseball this distance is 60 feet. In softball this distance is 43 feet, just recently increased from 40 feet. Another difference, that is quite obvious, is that in baseball a pitcher throws the ball overhand. In softball the pitch is delivered underhand. Your general MLB pitcher will throw the ball around 90 mph. At the NCAA level, a fastpitch pitcher will deliver the ball around 70 mph.

Let's examine these numbers to make sense of them.

• Baseball: 60 ft; 90 mph
• Softball: 43 ft; 70 mph

We have a speed and a distance. If we do some quick unit conversions we can determine just how much time a batter has to judge a pitch and react to it from the instant the ball leaves the pitcher's hand till when the ball crosses the plate.

Baseball:

Softball:

What this boils down to is that softball and baseball batters alike have less than a half-second to make a judgement on a ball being pitched to them. What I find even more revealing is that while they are very very close, a softball player actually has even less time than a baseball player to make her decision.

Next time you come across an NCAA Women's Fastpitch Softball game on TV you may not think much of it. But take a moment to think about this comparison. Consider Roy Halladay throwing a perfect game and getting paid millions every year. Between Halladay and that no-name 20 year old female in the pitching circle, who do you think it would be tougher to get a hit off of?! Which pitcher do you think would require you to have a faster reaction time? Most people would pick Halladay - the speed, the money, the fame. But with some basic math it has been shown that when accounting for different speeds and distances, the pony-tailed collegiate softball player would be just as hard to hit ... if not harder!