Professional games of softball often display the speed of a pitch during the game. While the odds are that you would like to add this feature to your pick-up game of softball, chances are you don't have a radar gun to easily do this. Luckily, if you have some common objects, you can measure these velocities by doing basic math. With this statistic calculated, you can get a good idea how players perform in relation to each other.
Step 1
Measure the distance between the two points the player or ball travels. For example, if you are measuring the speed of the ball between the pitcher and catcher, you would measure the distance between the pitching mound and home plate. For a runner going to first base, measure the distance between home plate and first.
Step 2
Time the ball or runner as it travels from its point of origin to its destination. In the examples used above, you would begin the timer immediately after the ball leaves the pitcher's glove or the runner leaves home plate. Stop the timer once the ball reaches the catcher or the runner reaches his destination. You should now have the speed of the object in feet per second.
Step 3
Convert your measurement from feet per second into miles per hour. Set up your measurement as a fraction. Multiply that fraction by 1/5280. Multiply that fraction by 3,600/1. This will give you a very large fraction. Divide the fraction to get the miles per hour measurement. For example, if your runner travels 60 feet in 20 seconds you multiply 60/20 by 1/5,280, equaling 60/105,600. Multiplying that by 3,600/1 gives you 216,000/105,600. Dividing that number out give you 2.05 miles per hour.
Tips and Warnings
- Use the same concept to determine the speed between multiple points by adding distances together. For example, if you want to know how fast a ball travels on average over a play from the pitcher to an out at first base, you add the measurements from the pitching mound to home plate and home plate to first together and time the ball as it travels from the pitcher to first base. The math remains the same.
Things You'll Need
- Stopwatch
- Calculator
- Measuring tape
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