Fastest Pitch in the history of baseball.

[Deity Dude]

I don't know if anyone watched the Tigers/Yankees game on ESPN this afternoon. In the top of the 8th the Tigers bring in Joel Zumaya. After throwing a couple of 102mph fastballs he threw a 107mph fastball.

107mph fastball!!!!

Has anyone ever seen a pitch close to this speed? The fastest I had ever seen before this was Zumaya throwing a 104mph last year.

It'll probably be replayed tonight on ESPN if you don't believe me.

Funny thing is after the batter, Leyland pulled Zumaya. I think he was worried he was gonna hurt himself. As he walked off he got a semi-standing ovation.

[Imran Siddiqui]

IIRC, Nolan Ryan threw a 106 mph pitch in a regular season game.

[-Jrabbit]

Fastest on speed guns, according to Baseball Almanac:

Mark Wohlers - 103.0 mph - 1995, Spring Training
Joel Zumaya - 103.0 mph - 07-04-2006, McAfee Coliseum
Armando Benitez - 102.0 mph - 05-24-2002, Shea Stadium
Bobby Jenks - 102.0 mph - 08-27-2005, Safeco Field
Randy Johnson - 102.0 mph - 07-09-2004, Pacific Bell Park
Robb Nen - 102.0 mph - 10-23-1997, Jacobs Field

101 Club
A.J. Burnett, 05-31-2005
Rob Dibble, 06-08-1992
Kyle Farnsworth, 05-26-2004
Eric Gagne, 04-16-2004
Jose Mesa, 05-01-1993
Guillermo Mota, 07-24-2002
Justin Verlander, 05-10-2006
Billy Wagner, 06-11-2003

No word on how many of these were "fast gun" and no claim that the list is comprehensive. Prior to the speed gun, the most commonly acknowledged candidates were Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, and Lefty Grove. Attempts to measure their speed were in lab conditions and thus unlikely to correspond to adrenaline-laced game conditions.

So how fast was Feller? The "Meter to Record Feller's Speed" article mentioned it was specifically going to examine his pitching speed. Satchel Paige, who could bring on the heat himself, believed Feller was the fastest and told teammates, "If anybody threw that ball any harder than Rapid Robert, then the human eye couldn't follow it." Feller once mentioned that he was clocked at 104 mph at Lincoln Park in Chicago. He also claimed he was clocked at 107.9 mph in a demonstration in 1946 at Griffith Stadium. At the Aberdeen Proving Grounds he was measured using the ever-popular speeding motorcycle test, once used in 1914 with Walter Johnson who reached 99.7 mph, and Feller reached 98.6 mph. The results of the test from the "new meter" were reported the day...

Anecdotal evidence from the old days:

Early comments about fastball pitchers can be found in many old newspapers and offer some interesting insight into who was considered fastest during this early era:

"He (Lefty Grove) was the fastest pitcher who ever lived."
- Ford Frick

"Smokey Joe (Williams) could throw harder than all of them."
- Satchel Paige in Blackball Stars (1988)

"You can talk about the speed of Walter Johnson or Amos Rusie, but I doubt that either had any more speed than (Chief) Bender when he was at his best. He was not physically as strong as some others, but he had long, tapering fingers and a peculiar whip to his arm that certainly drove that baseball through the air."
- Eddie Collins

"You can't hit what you can't see."
- Joe Tinker talking about Rube Marquard.

then there's the Nuke LaLoosh character from the movie Bull Durham, which was based on legendary minor leaguer steve Dalkowski.

The fastest pitcher ever may have been 1950s phenom and flameout Steve Dalkowski. Dalkowski signed with the Orioles in 1957 at age 21. After nine years of erratic pitching he was released in 1966, never having made it to the Major Leagues. Despite his failure, he has been described as the fastest pitcher ever.

Ted Williams once stood in a spring training batting cage and took one pitch from Dalkowski. Williams swore he never saw the ball and claimed that Dalkowski probably was the fastest pitcher who ever lived. Others who claimed he was the fastest ever were Paul Richards, Harry Brecheen and Earl Weaver. They all thought he was faster than Bob Feller and Walter Johnson, though none of them probably saw Johnson pitch.

It was estimated that Dalkowski’s fastball at times reached 105 mph. Dalkowski was not physically imposing, standing only 5'8" and wearing thick glasses. He had legendary wildness, which kept him out of the Major Leagues. In 995 minor league innings, he walked 1,354 batters and struck out 1,396. He walked 21 in one minor league game and struck out 21 in another. In high school he pitched a no-hitter while walking 18 and striking out 18.

During spring training in 1964, Dalkowski was with the Major League club. After fielding a sacrifice bunt by pitcher Jim Bouton in spring training, Dalkowski’s arm went dead and he never recovered. He drifted to various jobs and landed in Bakersfield, California, where he was arrested many times for fighting.

He once threw a ball at least 450 feet on a bet. He was supposed to throw the ball from the outfield wall to home plate, but he threw it well above the plate into the press box. He once threw a pitch so hard that the catcher missed the ball and it shattered an umpire’s mask.

Source: The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, 1997.

Season starts in two days...

[SlowwHand]

Those lists are wrong if Ryan isn't on it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Facts are nothing to Slowwhand .

[The Emperor Fabulous]

His knowledge comes from the gut, not the head.

[Asher]

That's fast, but people have hit pucks harder.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Those lists are wrong if Ryan isn't on it.

I remember anticdotally when I was a kid that Nolan Ryan could throw a 100mph. They portrayed it as the only modern pitcher who could hit 100mph. Then I was told Walter Johnson, Bob Feller and Lefty Grove were always assumed to flirt with the 100's mph. I remember a film of Bob Feller throwing a baseball and a car driving by it. Not quite scientific but really cool when you are 12.

No one will ever know how fast those guys threw but this is ridiculous.

Nowadays 100mph - is probably 98 percentile amongst major leaguers.

But 107!!! That is a whole different level.

I remember last year before the playoffs, they interviewed Gates Brown who was his minor league manager. At the time I thought what he said was total BS but now I am not so sure. He said Zumaya would throw around 108-109 consistantly in the minors but they kept having to tell him to slow down, get more accurate and take care of his arm.

Maybe it is true.

BTW his 15 yr old brother has been clocked at 98 mph in High School.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Facts are nothing to Slowwhand .

Nolan Ryan
100.9 mph
08-20-1974
Anaheim Stadium

Same source. He didn't post the whole list.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/fastest-pitcher-in-baseball.shtml

Facts are a lot more to me than you think.

[Imran Siddiqui]

But he wasn't on the Top 6 or on the 101 club was he?

Like I said, facts are nothing to Slowwhand . Ryan wasn't on the 'list' as -Jrabbit posted. His best was slower than 101 mph.

Hey, I'm sure if you made that entire list go down to 80 mph, some Little Leaguers could be on the list as well .

[snoopy369]

Don't forget radar guns are notoriously unreliable and often adjusted to favor the pitcher on teams with speed pitchers. Spring training in particular I would expect to be that way Creating a story and all that...

At one point Joe Buck and co. were bored and had nothing to talk about (last year) and they compared their gun to the one the stadium used to the one some other person used, and there was like a 5mph difference (the stadium using the highest, IIRC, theirs 3mph lower, and a third gun 2mph lower than that).

[snoopy369]

I'll agree with Sloww btw... those lists are wrong if Ryan's not on them Ryan pitched in the day where i'd suggest speed guns weren't as tweaked for speed, or at least not as likely to. I bet he could outthrow Zumaya in his youth.

[-Jrabbit]

The list I posted makes no claims to being either complete or accurate. It's basically a compendium of SportCenter, newspaper reports, and history. My guess is the fastest pitchers of this century kick the butts of all the old timers. Today we know kinesiology, and the athletes are bigger, stronger, and better trained.

My candidate for MIA: Ryne Duren

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yep... I mean if advances in weight training and supplements have helped all hitters (not everyone has taken illegal supplements, I'm sure), why can't advances help pitchers?

[rah]

Yeah you never know with speed guns.
We were at Wrigley last year and had seats behind two rows of scouts. There were proably over a dozen speed guns being used. After a pitch I'd take a quick glance and 3 guns would be showing one speed, three others showing a different speed and another three showed an even different one.
I could see a 5 mph swing. It was funny because while it was usually consistent (the slower speed always showing on the same guns) sometimes it wasn't. On one pitch the gun that had generally been the slowest one actually clocked the fastest.