What is the fastest pitch ever thrown in MLB by a pitcher?
At the Minnesota Twins Metrodome on july 3rd 2009, the Detroit Tigers Joel Zumaya threw a pitch that was registered at 105. It was in the bottom of the 10th inning i believe (although it may have been the bottom of the 11th, the innings tend to blend into each other in a 16 inning game). It has yet to be “officially” verified (and thus placed among the record books). He registered 1 other pitch at 104 and several more at 103. I personally watched the game and as a Tigers fan, have seen him pitch in about 85% of his games. On a side note, I was at the TIgers-Astros game on 06-27-06 when Zumaya threw 103 in the top of the 8th 3 times. Interestingly, Roger “The Rocket” Clemens started for Astros, and hit 97 mph once, but that pitch looked like a change up in comparison to Zumaya’s fastballs. Seeing a fast pitch on TV does NO justice to witnessing that speed in person. It should be noted though that the Metrodome is one of the the most notorious fields for the ball moving significantly qui
ive heard that satchel paige threw the fastest pitch ever in baseball by just looking at how fast he pitched but back then there were no such things as radar guns and he was in the negroe leagus which at the time didnt matter the only reason they had negroe leagus was because of the war and it amused people .
The fastest pitch[es] ever thrown by a major league pitcher were thrown by Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians. His pitches were clocked and recorded by an US Army Ballistic Ordnance Chronograph Instrument in the 1950’s. His pitched baseballs were officially timed at 106 to 108 mph!!! (These measurements were done before the advent of modern hand-held radar units.) References: History of the Cleveland Indians; Live interviews with Bob Feller[w/Bob Costas]; and, the US Army Ordinance archives.
