Posted: 5/2/08 Section: News

Anyone who watches baseball has seen it - an infielder running back and forth, trying to get under a relatively easy infield pop-up, only to lunge back at the last second in order to make a catch.

According to physics professor Alan Nathan, some of these pop-ups may be difficult to catch because of the path they follow in the air.

"These aren't your usual pop-ups," Nathan said as he began talking about the different paths a baseball can take when hit.

And they aren't.

Nathan recently simulated a wide range of trajectories for fly balls and found that some infield pop-ups hit with a lot of backspin may be doing some pretty strange things in the air, and later wrote a paper about his findings with his colleagues.

In his calculations, Nathan highlights three special cases where pop-ups take paths with points or - in extreme cases - loops.

"In order to see these effects, you have to be able to put a lot of spin on the ball, which means you have to the hit the ball pretty hard," said Nathan,

When a baseball is hit, the distance it travels and its path depend not only on how hard the batter hits the ball but also on the angle between the ball and the bat. If the batter hits the center of the ball with the center of his bat, the ball will fly without spin. However, if the batter, especially a strong one, severely undercuts the ball, it will have a considerable amount of backspin and could move in deceptive ways.

The different paths of a baseball are classified by the distance between the center of the ball and the center of the bat. At distances of less than 1.5 inches between the centers, a baseball takes a relativity normal path.

Once the distance between the center of the ball and the center of the bat exceeds 1.5 inches, however, the ball can take paths with points and loops.

Continued...

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