View Full Version : What is the life of a baseball?
BiZmaRK
05-31-2009, 11:20 PM
What is the average life of a baseball? I mean what is the average number of pitches a baseball sees in a game before it is scrapped or goes into the stands?
AutographCollector
05-31-2009, 11:35 PM
Usually around 6 pitches.
LouGehrig
06-02-2009, 02:54 PM
When Pujols hits, usually one pitch.
SABR Matt
06-02-2009, 03:53 PM
A typical major league game today consumes roughly 30 balls and requires 240 to 280 pitches to complete. That would be about 8-9 pitches per ball.
ipitch
06-02-2009, 04:05 PM
A typical major league game today consumes roughly 30 balls and requires 240 to 280 pitches to complete. That would be about 8-9 pitches per ball.
It says here that about 119 balls are used per game.
MLB: The true life story of baseballs
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05142/508138.stm#ixzz0HJh8VpHz&A
In the May 13 contest, on a velvety cool Friday evening at PNC Park, the Pirates and Brewers used 104 balls, which is about 15 fewer than in a typical home game, according to Pirates equipment manager Roger Wilson.
Foul balls, 32
foul tips, 24
balls exchanged by the home plate umpire, 19
balls tossed into the stands by players, 13
balls carried off by fielders as their half inning ended, 8
balls exchanged at the pitcher's request, 4
home runs, 1
wild pitches, 1
flukes, 2, (once when an errant pitch hit Cota and once when Brewers catcher Chad Moeller plinked Daryle Ward's bat trying to throw the ball back to the pitcher.)
TOTAL 104
There were 289 pitches in this game, which comes to 2.78 pitches per ball used.
DaClyde
06-07-2009, 06:50 PM
The higher numbers sound more realistic to me, since every time the ball hits the dirt or nearly every time the bat makes contact, they swap it out.
SABR Matt
06-07-2009, 07:47 PM
Wow...I'd never actually seen the statistics on ball usage...my 30 guess was based on the number of times balls were fouled into the stands...I did not account for the other ways balls are lost. Interesting stuff.
Bulldog19
06-07-2009, 10:52 PM
The higher numbers sound more realistic to me, since every time the ball hits the dirt or nearly every time the bat makes contact, they swap it out.
But do they really get rid of it? Or do they just take it and clean it up a little bit before putting it back? You'll see an umpire do that sometimes.. pitcher will want a new ball and the umpire will put the ball he didn't want back into the ball pouch for later.
I had always heard roughly 7 pitches too..