Talk:Curveball

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Picture

I removed the image from the page because it was confusing and/or misleading. If it was to be descriptive of the motion of the baseball, it was obviously all wrong (curveballs don't loop before reaching the catcher). If it was to show the "rotation," it was unclear how the ball was rotating in the image (nor was it explained if it's a top view or side view). Better picture would be either a curveball grip or a comparison of the actual trajectory of a curveball compared to a fastball. --Nuffle (talk) 17:44, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed?

Um, Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson, Paul Molitor, and Rod Carew all claim that Blyleven's curve was the best they'd ever seen. Whenever players from the '70s and '80s talk about Blyleven's curve ball, they all say the same thing. How about we quote, cite and source interviews with each of these players and expand the length of the article another paragraph or two. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SeanNovack (talk • contribs) 04:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Altitude

Maybe some mention should be made of the difficulty of throwing a curve in high-altitude (eg. Coors Field)?

Does it even make a significant difference worth mention? I know the high altitude and thin air are factors, but they affect hits more then pitches. I doubt the ball is THAT significantly impacted from a distance of 60 ft. 6 in. as opposed to the average fly ball that travels anywhere from 120-160 ft.

Maybe who cares?

The effect of altitude on curve balls is brought up on nearly every broadcast I watch when my team visits Coors field. So obviously somebody cares. I am not a physicist so I cant say that it is or is not a large factor, but it is at least made out to be one.

integral/derivative

Position is the second integral of acceleration. Really, it is. For an object with fixed mass, like a baseball, acceleration is proportioal to force. So I wrote

 position is the second integral of force

This isn't strictly correct, but seems reasonable for an article of this length and technical depth. Also, it refers directly to "force", which is the subject of the preceeding two sentences, and avoids discussion of F = ma. If we want to be more precise, we can reword the sentence to get from force to acceleration to position. Swmcd 02:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

structure

The giant lump of text before the ToC needs to go. Someone needs to organize and structure this like woah.

Edited this to clean up. I maintained most of the points, but removed some errant information like the suggestion that Mike Mussina throws a curve (he throws a knuckle curve, which is a different deal). Other minor points as well. Sackpeterson 15:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)sackpeterson[reply]

The break of a curveball may have more to do with perception and how the central and peripheral vision of the batter perceives the trajectory of the ball when he shifts his gaze, rather than an actual abrupt course change of the ball.

There is a demonstration of how this effect may work: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2009/the-break-of-the-curveball/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaznuki (talk • contribs) 00:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History

The history seems way off. Richard Willis was throwing curveballs in 1860. [1] Powers ^T 11:33, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was unable to find any evidence that the curveball had been banned from baseball. I did find a well supported researched article by Richard Herschberger at the Society for Baseball Research site that delves into a statement attributed to Harvard President Charles Eliot that was critical of the curveball. Herschberger finds that the statement was most likely uttered by Charles Eliot Norton at a Yale athletics conference in 1884 that he attended: https://sabr.org/research/deliberate-attempt-deceive-correcting-quotation-misattributed-charles-eliot-president#sdendnote2sym AMSask (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One word or two

Throughout the article, sometimes it says "Curve ball" and sometime "curveball". Should this not be consistent? --TimothyJacobson (talk) 12:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It should. Powers ^T 18:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With one exception, I have now made them all into one word--TimothyJacobson (talk) 14:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bronson Arroyo? I am a Reds fan and can't defend in a list of the past 100 years. (0713) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.7.163 (talk) 02:47, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge with Sweeping curve

This is certainly not enough for its own article. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the article can be heavily expanded, I have no objection to a merger. James500 (talk) 14:49, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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1885 St. Nicholas article

I'm about to correct the main pages's date for the St. Nicholas article. The main page currently says 1884 but the article appeared in the Oct/1885 issue of St. Nicholas. I'll also include the reference and a link to the article in google books, which is https://books.google.com/books?id=dBEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA924 .

The article, "How Science Won The Game," was written by a young George B. M. Harvey, who became famous in his own right.

The same article appeared in an 1886 book, "Boy's Book of Sports," which can be seen at https://books.google.com/books?id=WMAGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA339 .

Over the next 12 months, St. Nicholas printed followup letters spurred by the article. Though St. Nicholas was a children's magazine, these letters appear to have been written by adults. One writer asserts that he was struck out by curved pitches "twelve years ago" at the Naval Academy. A few of the letters discuss the physical reason the ball curves. At least one letter claims the curve is an optical illusion. Here are links to the letters that I've found.

Dec/1885 https://books.google.com/books?id=UWU3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA154

Feb/1886 https://books.google.com/books?id=UWU3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA314

May/1886 https://books.google.com/books?id=txEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA555

Jun/1886 https://books.google.com/books?id=txEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA636

Aug/1886 https://books.google.com/books?id=txEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA796

Oct/1886 https://books.google.com/books?id=txEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA955

DiffuseGoose (talk) 14:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Variations

1 to 5 curve
2 to 8 curve

In the anime Diamond no Ace character Umemiya Seiichi pitches two types of curveball: slow curveball and fast curveball (which he calls power curveball) - both have the same trajectory. Is there such a thing in reality?

rainbow curve (not rainbow pitch which is a different name for eephus pitch) Setenzatsu (talk) 17:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GIF

The gif at the top of the article depicts the ball breaking armside(toward a right hitting batter from a right handed pitcher). A curveball breaks gloveside or straight down. I think it should be removed or replaced with an accurate description.Tommax16 (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]