Bats, Balls and the Wind 3
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Hi I'm Bryan Yeaton of The Weather Notebook. I am a die hard weather enthusiast AND a Boston Red Sox fan. The two are not wholly unrelated. In fact, according the retired Yale Professor Robert Adair--who just happened to serve from 1988 to 1990 as the first and only Physicist for the National Leauge--wind speed, air pressure, and humidity are all things that can affect America's favorite game. He explained to me how wind may effect two of baseball's trickiest pitches.

RKA: If you throw the knuckleball right (laughs), it behaves in a way that's impossible to hit no matter where the winds.

BY: But throwing into the wind‹would that have a more positive effect on a curve ball?

RKA: Yeah. It'll break a little more. The force on the ball is proportional, roughly speaking, both to the speed of the ball and to the rate of spin. Now, if the ball goes faster, it takes less time to get there, and so it actually has less time to curve. But if the increase in force is because the air's moving, then the ball even takes a little longer to get there, and so it both curves more because it's slowed down slightly, and curves more because there's more transverse force.

BY: When you watch a game, are you thinking physics, or do you just sit back and enjoy?

RKA: (Laughs) I'm afraid I've been a little spoiled by the physics. I certainly spend more time thinking about the physics of it thanŠ let's sayŠ the ordinary person.

BY: So you get double the enjoyment when you go to the ballpark.

RKA: (Laughs) I enjoy it. It's nice to think about the game. Most serious fans do. The game is still less physics, let's say, than athleticism. I think the thing I still like to see more than anything else is a fast double play, and there's not much physics in that.

That is Robert K. Adair, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Physics at Yale University. From 1987-1990, he served as the first and so far, only Physicist for the National League. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Go to our web page, www.weathernotebook.org to find out more about wind, baseball and weather.