How to Calculate the Speed of a Baseball Without a Radar Gun

Radar is a system used to detect the speed and motion of an object using electromagnetic waves. The waves are bounced from the radar gun off the object and back to the gun, which measures features of the returning wave to determine speed, range, direction and other attributes of the target object. To measure speed, a radar gun calculates the length of time it takes a short radio signal to travel between the source of the signal and the target object. This procedure is also useful for manual calculation of speed, albeit resulting in a less accurate measurement.

Things You'll Need

  • Stopwatch
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Instructions

    • 1

      Measure the distance between the pitcher and the catcher. For pitching, where ball speed is of high importance, the standard distance between pitcher and catcher is 60 feet 6 inches for leagues consisting of players 13 years of age and older, and 46 feet for leagues consisting of players 12 years and younger.

    • 2

      Start the stopwatch at the moment the ball leaves the pitcher's hand.

    • 3

      Stop the stopwatch at the moment you hear the sound of the ball hitting the catcher's glove.

    • 4

      Divide the measured distance between the pitcher and the catcher by the number of seconds the ball took to fly from the thrower to the catcher. For example, if a ball takes 0.9 seconds to travel a distance of 60 feet 6 inches (60.5 feet) the equation is: (60.5 feet / 0.9 seconds) = 67.2 feet per second. For miles per hour, multiply this figure by by 0.68. For example, 67.2 feet per second multiplied by 0.68 equals 45.8 mph.