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95 miles in one hour
all depends on how long the ball is in the air
plus you have to include height off the ground, arc, etc.
its too complicated to give a definite answer to It depends greatly on the trajectory the ball is thrown, including the height of the release point. It will also vary depending upon what kind of a plane the pitcher is throwing across. I'll assume it occurs at sea level, but the altitude would be another consideration.
Without that information, I can't accurately give you more information.
brettj is, I believe, a little off, as I don't believe a baseball has/can be thrown 601 feet. I mean, think about this. A well hit homerun off a fastball generally travels faster than the pitch. And yet those HRs don't travel 601 ft (including ones that have been measured based on trajectory to determine where they would land if not obstructed). Now granted, those aren't all hit at an ideal angle, but I think it's safe to say that one of the reasons some travel farther is because they are hit at a more ideal angle, meaning man big HRs have probably been hit at or statistically near an optimum angle.
Now, take an outfielder. Even one with a canon of an arm will have trouble hitting homeplate on the fly from the outfield wall. There are a few guys who can do it, but not many. That's half the distance. Again, they aren't necessarily throwing at the optimum angle, but it's something to consider at face value.
I think, just at a quick glance, that the reason he is off is due to not taking into effect the drag coefficient. Rather than typing a lenghty explanation on the topic, I found an article that deals with this topic. It is from a physics problem from MIT based around building an ideal baseball robot that would hit for maximum distance/power and also be able to throw far. The math, again, is a little complicated to try and type out here, but you can look for yourself.
Oh, as an aside, they do it first for hitting, but in practice, it doesn't matter, as long as the initial force imparted on the ball is equal to 95mph. All the way to Uranus! The optimal angle to throw anything is 45 degrees.
If someone throws 95 mph, (which would be the hypotenuse of the triangle), that would be the equivilent of 139.3 ft/second
The vertical lift of that fastball would then be 98.5 ft/sec. However, gravity is 32 ft/sec^2.
Since gravity affects the ball right away, we will count intervals at half seconds. In the first second, the ball will travel 82.5 ft (98.5 - 16).
In the 2nd second, it travels 50.5ft (82.5-32)
In the 3rd second, it travels 18.5 ft (50.5-32)
It will peak before the 4th second ends, probably about .6 seconds.
So, the ball will take about 3.6 seconds to rise before it hits it peaks.
It would have gone about 354.7 ft (horizontally) prior to reaching it's vertical peak.
If you don't take into account air resistance, the ball would travel (horizontally) at the same speed during the vertical deceleration.
It should take about 2.5 more seconds to hit the ground, but would still be moving horizontally.
So, I would say, at a 45 degree angle, if you throw a ball 95mph, it will land 601 ft away.
Second Avg Vert Speed (ft/sec) Alt Horizontal distance
1 82 82 98.5
2 50.5 132.5 197.0
3 18.5 151 295.6
4 -13.5 137.5 394.1
5 -45.5 92 492.6
6 -77.5 14.5 591.1
6.1 -80.7 0 601.0 Rob Dibble of the Cincinnati Reds could throw 95+ and one night threw the baseball from the mound over the outfield fence. So it's safe to say 350-feet is very reachable for someone who can throw that hard. You can find your answer in this book
"The Physics of Baseball" - Dr. Robert K. Adair
120mph = 450ft "under normal circumstances"
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