Some of these may not mean a lot to lay persons. I’m putting this here so I can keep my eye on the ball and in case anyone like-minded wanders by. As these questions are answered, I’ll change them to italics and link the answer to the Yes or No.
- What effects baseball drag?
- Seam height
- Center of gravity
- Roundness
- Leather
- Can a spinning baseball have an asymmetric transition to turbulent flow resulting in an asymmetric wake and a sideways force on the ball unrelated to the Magnus effect (i.e. the laminar express)?
- Or can the seams on the rear of a 2-seam fastball pin the locations of wake formation and make an asymmetric wake?
- For a 4-seam fastball with a horizontal spin axis, where does the flow transition from laminar to turbulent flow and how is that location impacted by passing seams.
- For a 4-seam fastball with a horizontal spin axis, does the location where the pressure gradient changes from favorable to unfavorable depend on spin rate?
- What does the “hiss” of a baseball tell us?
- If a knuckleball could be thrown with no spin, will it start spinning as it travels?
And, the grand question posed by Rob Friedman (@pitchingninja), If God is really all powerful, could he throw a slider so filthy that he couldn’t hit it?