Fox, ESPN radar guns average 3 mph difference--NY Times

• If it's a game of inches, they should all have the same measuring sticks, but they don't.

"But on Tuesday night during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya unleashed two fastballs in the eighth inning that were measured at 103 m.p.h., and a third that was clocked at 102.

Or maybe he didn’t. The triple-digit readings were cited by Fox Sports, with its FoxTrax system, which uses a system of three cameras and computers to determine the flight and break of a ball and its speed.

At ESPN Radio, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan spoke of the same Zumaya fastballs, coming in 3 m.p.h. slower than FoxTrax said they did. ESPN’s readings came from a Jugs radar gun positioned behind the plate at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. The readings were posted on the scoreboard. In fact, all pitches were generally 3 m.p.h. faster on Fox.

• “We look at the stadium speed, but if there’s a disparity with what our colleagues have on TV, we mention it,” said John Martin, the executive producer of remote broadcasts for ESPN Radio. “If the disparity is 93 to 96, we don’t mention it, but when somebody hits the stadium gun at 100 and Fox has it at 103, then it becomes a discussion point.”

Zumaya is fast, but is he really triple-digit fast? It might not matter to the batters; they still must react to maximum speed however it is measured.

But breaking the triple-digit barrier conveys amazement. Some swear that Steve Dalkowski, a minor league legend, could throw 110 m.p.h or faster.

• The Guinness Book of World Records credits Nolan Ryan with the fastest pitch, clocking him at 100.9 during a game in 1974. With modern means, what speeds would Bob Feller, Walter Johnson or Sandy Koufax attain?

Marv White, the chief technical officer for SportVision, which uses its Pitch f/x technology for FoxTrax, said the pitch speed that it generated was a byproduct of its measurement of the direction and break of the ball. The technology recognizes where the ball is at any moment in its short and rapid flight, but picks up the speed of the ball when it is 55 feet from the plate. The final speed reading, White said, was accurate to within 1 mile an hour.

“I’m confident that our system is very accurate,” he said.

• The information from Pitch f/x during the league championship series and World Series is also being routed to Major League Baseball Advanced Media to use in the Enhanced Gameday portion of mlb.com’s coverage.

Still, radar guns made by Jugs and Stalker remain the primary way to measure pitch speed. Some stadiums have radar guns permanently installed somewhere behind the plate. Fox and ESPN sometimes use their own. The optimum position for the gun is in a direct line with the pitcher. The farther the camera is from that alignment, the less accurate the reading.

The radar gun technologies appear to have small differences. Jugs guns pick up the ball one foot out of a pitcher’s hand, said Jim Speciale, head of the company’s radar gun department. Stalkers pick up a signal immediately after the ball leaves the hand, said Paul Hataway, a company salesman.

Fox had an unintended Sidd Finch moment 10 years ago. During a game at Dodger Stadium, the radar gun measured one pitch at about 150 m.p.h., and the figure popped onto the screen. Rich Flanagan, director of sports applications for the Fox Network’s engineering and operations department, said, “We didn’t think we’d get erroneous readings, but it spit out garbage.”

After that, Fox imposed upper and lower speed limits on radar readings to make sure that pitches below 70 m.p.h. and above 103 m.p.h. were blocked and could not reach an unsuspecting public. “It’s a threshold of believability,” Flanagan said. “Anything under or over is inaccurate or misleading.”

• (Where do they get these ideas? sm)

The threshold can be adjusted; the occasional appearance by a knuckleballer requires one of 60 m.p.h.

At Shea Stadium for the National League Championship Series between the Mets and the Cardinals, the FoxTrax system will be in operation. But fans in the stadium will see a reading conveyed from a Jugs gun attached to the screen behind the plate. No doubt, Dan Shulman and Dave Campbell of ESPN Radio will notice who pitches Jugs-fast and who pitches Fox-fast."

Article by Richard Sandomir, NY Times, Oct. 13, 2006

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