calbb;315034 said:

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Agreed. My point is this- I like Oak but my guess is that he doesn't really break down all the different nuances that happen in the middle of a game. Unless you do, you can't appreciate the pressure of 120 pitches or so in a game- pitch by pitch.

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How many pitchers in major league baseball? Now how many QBs? Would be interesting if players could charge the mound while the pitcher winds up. :p

BTW seems to me that in baseball, all the pressure is on the batter, right? After all he's going to fail more often than the pitcher in an at bat.

LethalFang;315045 said:

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The original question is about "motor skills," so you need to take away things like reflex and and hand-eye coordination, so batting (hitting a baseball) doesn't count.
In that sense, the forward pass is pretty tough. It took me about 5 seconds to learn the proper rotation on a basketball, about 5 days to get the proper rotation on a football.
But I would think throwing a breaking ball is more difficult than the forward pass. I still can't do it (although I've never learned to do it).

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Throwing a curveball 60 feet isn't that hard. Throwing a sideline pass 30 yards is much harder.

No badminton people, anyone?

All the strategy of placement of tennis, plus a shuttlecock faster than a baseball pitch (up to 180 mph), plus having to figure out the effects of drag, and trying to hit it with a racket far smaller than a tennis racket? Serious badminton, not that backyard stuff everyone mocks.

NoExtraPoint;315098 said:

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On the note of pitching a curve requiring more motor skill, I would say pitching a knuckle ball is the most complex motor skill, since it is a weird amalgamation of an intent to move the least coupled with the necessity to pitch fast enough for a ball to reach the plate.

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Aw c'mon, some Japanese chick throwing a knuckleball just signed a minor league contract. How hard can it be? :p

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/news/story?id=5071066

Quote:

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Yoshida learned how to throw a knuckleball by watching video of Tim Wakefield and recently got a few tips from the Boston Red Sox pitcher at the team's spring training facility in Fort Myers, Fla.

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A video?

buster99;315239 said:

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How many pitchers in major league baseball? Now how many QBs?

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That doesn't mean anything. You're likely to only need one QB per football game, while in MLB you're likely to need many pitchers per game, and you also have to play every day.

elpbear;315235 said:

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Then hitting a fast-pitch softball must be even harder, because the average is a lot lower. Right?

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Well for women yes...it is..and a great softball pitcher can strike out a major leaguer.... I think softball also factors in proximity of mound to plate which is closer and women batting....who in their own right are awesome...as much as softballs can "move", they in no way have the awesome trajectories of hardballs..

I would add diving. A twisting pike triple somersault off a platform requires perfect alignment of multiple muscle groups, timing, and sheer courage. Miss it badly enough and you can die.

Sorry, but while I agree that throwing a tight spiral under game conditions may be difficult (legs, hips, arm, etc.), comparing it with boxing (and not just the danger element, but the coordination under stress), batting, returning a tennis serve, diving, playing goalie in hockey, is silly.

sycasey;315245 said:

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That doesn't mean anything. You're likely to only need one QB per football game, while in MLB you're likely to need many pitchers per game, and you also have to play every day.

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As to difficulty, you are right, the total number isn't definitive. But to be a QB in the NFL is much harder then pitching in MLB, just from a supply and demand standpoint. And if you are a lefty relief pitcher, heck anyone can do that.:bluecarrot:

buster99;315248 said:

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As to difficulty, you are right, the total number isn't definitive. But to be a QB in the NFL is much harder then pitching in MLB, just from a supply and demand standpoint.

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From a supply and demand standpoint, then, it's also way harder to be an NFL kicker than a QB.

sycasey;315279 said:

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From a supply and demand standpoint, then, it's also way harder to be an NFL kicker than a QB.

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I don't believe that is true, how many kids want to be an kicker vs a QB? Way smaller supply.

I've thrown a curveball and a football. I can throw a curveball from sixty feet. I cannot throw a 30 yard out on a line. I doubt many can.

UrsaMajor;315247 said:

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I would add diving. A twisting pike triple somersault off a platform requires perfect alignment of multiple muscle groups, timing, and sheer courage. Miss it badly enough and you can die.

Sorry, but while I agree that throwing a tight spiral under game conditions may be difficult (legs, hips, arm, etc.), comparing it with boxing (and not just the danger element, but the coordination under stress), batting, returning a tennis serve, diving, playing goalie in hockey, is silly.

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We're talking about the "motor skills" required to execute one single task. We're not talking about reflexes, hand-eye coordination, courage, pressure, etc.
Punching someone isn't that yard. Even a 3-year-old knows how to do it.
Returning a hard tennis service requires only sticking the racquet at the right spot.

Perhaps, but now we're getting so specific in the criteria (only the motor skill, not the coordination, aiming, etc.) that the comparison is meaningless. And you're wrong about returning a serve, unless you mean merely making contact with the ball (by that criterion, throwing a spiral should not include having it go anywhere, in which case, my son was able to accomplish it at 3, also).

6bear6;315095 said:

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Sinkers, sliders and curveballs that just drop are amazing, but hitting a speeding fastball thrown at 99 mph with a piece of wood approx. 4 inches wide has to be the ultimate test of anyone's hand/eye coordination.

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Not to mention the fact that you have to deal with the fear of getting beaned by said 99 mph ball.

buster99;315313 said:

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I've thrown a curveball and a football. I can throw a curveball from sixty feet. I cannot throw a 30 yard out on a line. I doubt many can.

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Can you throw a curveball 60 feet at 80 mph? I doubt many can.

TorBear;315401 said:

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Can you throw a curveball 60 feet at 80 mph? I doubt many can.

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A lot of major league pitchers don't throw their curveballs 80 miles per hour. The more specific and quantitative these "difficult actions" get the more this discussion veers away from its initial premise. It's not hard to throw a football ten yards to a stationary target, but it is hard to throw a sideline pattern to the wide side of the field. It's not hard to throw a curveball, but it's hard to throw one at a given velocity - velocity isn't even the most important part of a good curveball.

The fact that very few people can do something doesn't mean that it's the most difficult "motor skill" in sports. I can throw a baseball just fine - some would even say I can do it well. I don't think throwing a baseball where I want to with a decent velocity is difficult at all. But I can't throw it 100 mph. No amount of practice or improvement in mechanics will allow me to do that.

When I think of a motor skill as it relates to sports, I think of a repeatable successful action in its most general terms. Throwing a strike, hitting a baseball, hitting a golf ball straight, making a jump shot, dribbling a ball, ground strokes or a serve in tennis, catching a pass, etc.

This has been posted before, but if you haven't seen it, it's interesting -- the "sports science" show on Drew Brees and the physics and biomechanics of throwing a spiral. Apparently there are an optimal number of rotations that maintain the correct flight path, and a good throw needs to generate this precise rotation.



(I think one fault with the show is that they pit Brees, one of the most accurate QBs in the NFL, against Olympic archers -- although I don't think they ever mention that the archery target is almost four times as far away as what Brees is aiming at.)

is hitting a baseball.

If you're really, really good you only fail about two thirds of the time. If you're a little below average you fail 3/4 of the time.

Off da' Heezy Marsheezy;315434 said:

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A lot of major league pitchers don't throw their curveballs 80 miles per hour. The more specific and quantitative these "difficult actions" get the more this discussion veers away from its initial premise. It's not hard to throw a football ten yards to a stationary target, but it is hard to throw a sideline pattern to the wide side of the field. It's not hard to throw a curveball, but it's hard to throw one at a given velocity - velocity isn't even the most important part of a good curveball.

The fact that very few people can do something doesn't mean that it's the most difficult "motor skill" in sports. I can throw a baseball just fine - some would even say I can do it well. I don't think throwing a baseball where I want to with a decent velocity is difficult at all. But I can't throw it 100 mph. No amount of practice or improvement in mechanics will allow me to do that.

When I think of a motor skill as it relates to sports, I think of a repeatable successful action in its most general terms. Throwing a strike, hitting a baseball, hitting a golf ball straight, making a jump shot, dribbling a ball, ground strokes or a serve in tennis, catching a pass, etc.

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I don't know how fast exactly a major league curveball is. I just know that it's slower than a fastball, and I'm pretty sure that a major leaguer can make it go much faster than the average person can. (BTW, very few major leaguers can throw a 100 mph fastball, either). I asked the question as a rhetorical response to buster99, who changed the discussion at hand from the relative difficulty of throwing a spiral to throwing curveball to one of throwing a curveball to throwing a "thirty yard out on a line." Obviously it's a lot harder to throw that pass than it is to throw a baseball and make it curve, but it's also a lot harder to throw a curveball at major league speeds than it is to just throw a spiral an unspecified distance.