With opening day in baseball less than a week away (April 4th, Sox v Yankees, 1am Irish time – be there!), this is as good a time as any to do a baseball book review. But it’s also sceintific! Moneyball is subtitled “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” and it chronicles the paradigm shift that sabermetrics brought to the game, the transition of baseball from the historical way of scouting players to the new technique which involved statistics, statistics and more statistics.

The knuckleball is an intriguing prospect from the outset. How can something which is sometimes not even thrown at 70mph compare to something thrown at 95+ mph by some fireballers (Jonathan Papelbon, Joba Chmberlain et al)??
Having experienced Tim Wakefield pitch live twice, it really is hilarious. The ball looks like it floats out of his hand towards large burly major leaguers. To see them swing violently and miss at something so slow is amazing. Which begs the question, what is the Science behind the knuckleball? As alluded to in the Ronaldo post, the principles isolated in this pitch are quite similar. The distinct lack of spin imparted to Wakefield’s pitch and Ronaldo’s strike results in the respective balls making erratic movements on the way to their targets due to increased drag, results in the goalkeeper and hitter, respectively, having trouble anticipating where the object ball will be on arrival.

Great article from yesterday’s Sunday Times about the Science behind Ronaldo’s 40 yard screamer on Wednesday vs Porto. We’ll do a few more Sports-related articles over the next few days, starting with the Science behind Tim Wakefield’s timeless knuckleball-pitch in baseball.

-Brian