Physics of Baseball

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Baseball is a fascinating sport that is exceptionally fun to play. This assignment is all about understanding the physics of a few key aspects of this sport. One might ask what physics could have to do with baseball? Like most sports baseball involves physical motion. Baseball encompasses all three planes of motion through throwing, hitting, and fielding. All of the classical laws of mechanics can be applied to understand the physics of this game.

Baseball is not a difficult game to comprehend, but it can a very long time to achieve a high level of performance. Usually one starts playing this game at a very young age and the first thing they start out with is throwing. Throwing a baseball involves exploiting all major muscle groups in the body to generate a large torque on the arm that will in turn create a high potential for speed when it is released.

Throwing

Throwing is a fairly natural activity for a person. Everyone at some point in time has thrown some object at a person. In baseball throwing becomes an art. Throwing a baseball is a relatively easy task, but throwing it accurately and with a high speed is difficult. People who play this sport spend a very long time perfecting their throw.

When one throws a baseball properly they are using there entire body to generate a large force to propel the baseball. A general throwing position starts with a person rotated 90 degrees from there target with there throwing arm 180 degrees from the target and parallel to the ground. The person then starts rotating their body back towards their target while there throwing arm starts bending until it is almost 90 degrees to their elbow, while the arm is bending at the elbow the throwing arm is rotating such that the arm rotates back almost 180 degrees from the target. Meanwhile the person is leaping forward with the leg that was initially pointed at the target while there other leg is planted into the ground. The person is bending at their waist and the other arm is rotating into their body. Around the point where the driving leg strikes the ground the throwing arm is rotating foreword at a tremendous angular speed and the person lets go of the ball. At the point where the ball is let go the persons body pulls the planted leg forward and the throwing arm finishes its motion towards the driving leg.

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