Measuring your pitching speed allows you to record your progress as a pitcher. You also need a measurement of your pitching speed if you plan to pitch at the college level or above. As of the 2010 season, the fastest recorded pitch in baseball history was 105.1 mph by Cincinnati Reds pitcher Aroldis Chapman. You can record your pitching speed using a radar gun. However, you also can use simple math to calculate your pitching speed.
Step 1
Measure the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate. A major league pitcher's mound is 60 feet 6 inches from home plate.
Step 2
Give the stopwatch to a friend, and have him record the time it takes for the ball to reach home plate once it leaves your hand.
Step 3
Measure the distance from the pitching rubber to where your hand was when you released the pitch. Subtract that distance from the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate to find the distance the ball traveled.
Step 4
Convert the distance from feet into miles and the time from seconds to hours. For distance, take the distance in feet and divide it by 5,280, which is the number of feet in a mile. Divide your time by 60, and then divide that number by 60 again because there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.
Step 5
Place your figures into the equation Speed = Distance / Time. Divide the distance in miles by the time in hours it took to reach the plate. The answer is the speed of your pitch in miles per hour.
Things You'll Need
- Measuring tape
- Stopwatch
- Calculator
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