The History of the Baseball Pitching Machine
Today, every major league baseball team, virtually every college baseball team, and many high school teams own a baseball pitching machine. And while the sport of baseball goes back a very long time, the pitching machine wasn’t always around to help with batting practice. At the same time, it’s not exactly a new invention either.
The pitching machine was invented in 1897, a few years before the turn of the century. Credit for the device is given to a Mr. Charles Howard Hinton, a science fiction author and professor of mathematics at Princeton University. Hinton developed the machine, the original model of which was actually powered by gunpowder, to help the Princeton baseball team practice. That first model was dangerous though, and may have caused some injuries to players on the team. Fortunately, the technology has gotten much better over the past one hundred plus years. Modern pitching machines don’t run on gunpowder, and when used carefully, they are far safer, as well.
What that first baseball pitching machine did share with modern machines was that it was incredibly versatile. As a mathematician, Hinton was more than a simple tinkerer. He designed the pitching machine to propel balls at speeds and distances similar to those that would be thrown by a pitcher. The particularly innovative feature of Hinton’s machine, which is shared by today’s mechanical pitchers, was that it was capable of throwing at various speeds, not just one.
That speed adjustment is what makes the baseball pitching machine such an advantage to modern players (and even players who used that first machine, except the ones who were injured, of course). In a real game of baseball, the pitcher will throw a variety of pitches, at different speeds and with different releases that cause the ball to behave in a variety of ways over its trajectory from mound to plate.
By throwing out balls at various speeds, the baseball pitching machine allows batters to practice responding to a variety of pitches, much like they will need to do in an actual game. Yet it does so without requiring an actual person to throw the ball. This makes it easier for batters to get in more practice without wearing down the arm of an actual pitcher.
Tags: Charles Howard Hinton