'DUCK!!' MSU research helps give hurlers more time to react

The three-inch white sphere blasts at the blink of an eye toward the pitcher less than 60 feet away.

In college baseball, where balls hit off a typical metal bat can reach "exit" speeds of more than 100 miles per hour, the pitcher has only a split second-literally-to catch it or get out of the way.

The injury potential has become such an issue that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has begun to directly address the issue. The organization recently adopted diameter and weight/length difference specifications for bats to be used as early as this year's end-of-season championship games. Those requirements, plus new batted-ball exit speed standards, will be in effect permanently, beginning with the 2000 regular season.

Aerospace engineering professor Keith Koenig researches bat design at Noble Field. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Mississippi State is one of the places NCAA officials have turned to gather information about exit speeds, as well as reaction times and differences in the "sweet spots" between wood and non-wood bats.

For more than a decade, MSU aerospace engineering professor Keith Koenig has collected baseball-related data. Using a 200 mph air cannon, computers, and laser beams, he has been gauging the performance of baseball and softball bats.

"With aluminum, graphite, and other non-wood bats and better and stronger players, the ball speed leaving the bat is very high," he said. "Infielders and the pitcher in particular have almost no time to react to the ball."

To clock the real-world swings of players, Koenig has taken his laser beam instrumentation to MSU's Dudy Noble Field.

"At Dudy Noble, we can see better how players' swings are affected by changing properties such as the bat weight or the location of the balance point," Koenig said.

"We've found a fairly noticeable difference in the swing speed for heavier bats." Their use could make the game a lot safer for pitchers."

The NCAA currently is testing a variety of bats on a specially designed batting machine located at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. The goal is to drop the exit speed to no more than 93 mph.

Koenig says the new rules likely will be popular with pitchers, but heavy hitters may have some reason for concern. At Dudy Noble, for instance, a ball needs to be traveling at least 105 mph when it leaves the bat to clear the 20-foot center field fence 390 feet from home plate.

And where would a ball traveling at "just" 93 mph end up? "About 20 feet short," he calculated.