I agree that no baseball pitcher can throw a lead ball faster than a standard weight ball. However, as I point out in my quote, speed isn't the only thing that is important with a break cue. What is important is cue momentum at impact, because cue momentum is what determines the cue ball speed. Cue ball speed is what we are striving for (in addition to accuracy) with a break. Cue momentum is the product of cue speed and and cue mass. For a given cue speed, if the cue has more mass, the CB will go faster; and for a given cue weight, if the cue has more speed, the CB will go faster. Both factors (cue speed and cue weight) are important.
That's right. And I'd like to offer this as well -- if a major league pitcher threw that lead ball with all his might, I'd like to see a batter -- any human batter -- try to slug that one out of the park. As mentioned, speed and mass contribute to the energy of the moving object; in this case, the lead ball is indeed moving slower than a standard weight ball, but try and apply a bat to that traveling lead ball. I'd take a gander that the bat would shatter, or the batter would seriously hurt himself (i.e. pull his shoulder out of its socket).
A better baseball analogy would be bat weight. A lighter bat can be swung faster, but a heavier bat has more mass. Some players can generate more bat momentum and ball speed (and distance) with a heavier bat (e.g., Babe Ruth), and some do better with a much lighter bat (e.g., Barry Bonds).
BTW, an excellent webpage dealing with baseball bat weight effects can be found here:
I enjoyed that! It's very, very interesting that the past greats like the Babe and Ty Cobb used such heavy bats (54 and 42oz respectively). I would love to know the weight of the bat that Mickey Mantle used when he put that famous dent in the top-most bar of the center-field high fence just above the top bleachers in the old Yankee stadium!
(For those that don't know, that is widely recognized as the longest long ball ever hit in the old Yankee stadium; there's rumor that, when the stadium first opened, the Babe hit one out of the stadium out onto Jerome Avenue, but there's no physical record of it. Mickey's crushing blow to dent the center-field top bar actually left physical evidence, that later the dent itself was painted black [the fence was white] to remind people of this achievement. I remember growing up as young boy, a serious baseball enthusiast, who, when at a Yankee game, would point up at that black dot and describe the account of that mighty smash Mickey made into that fence "way up there.")
I know some people don't like it when I provide links, but I think this one is well worth the effort of a click. :grin-square:
Regards,
Dave
No Dave, it's not that "some folks" "don't like" when you provide links. It's when you, in the span of, say, only two
consecutive posts, link to the exact same video. Or, when you link to the same page on your site multiple times in a
single post. Or when you do a combination of the two within a slight nudge of the scrollbar on the same page of a thread. It's like you're trying to drive traffic to your site, at the direct expense of a reader's experience here at AZB.
That is parasitic linking.
On the other hand, judicious use of linking is a good thing. The link you provided above is an example. However, if, say, two posts later, you provide the link again, with pretty much the same couching language
(especially when the first post you provided the link to is still immediately visible on the same page -- the thread hasn't progressed onto another page yet), I think we can agree that much of the readership would probably say to themselves, "didn't we just see that?"
I know you're going for eyeballership (to your site), but there's a fine line between being helpful, and being exploitative. I know you're (justifiably) proud of the dense collection of information on your site. It took a very long time to collect all that great stuff. But by the same token, you've also been "doing the Internet thing" for quite a while, and you're aware of what constitutes good judgment -- i.e. good "netiquette".
Respectfully,
-Sean