Fastball Fastball The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. "Power pitchers," such as former American major leaguers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, rely on speed to prevent the ball from being hit, and have thrown fastballs at speeds of (officially) and up to (unofficially). Pitchers who throw more slowly can put movement on the ball, or throw it on the outside of home plate where batters can't easily reach it. The appearance of a faster pitch can sometimes be achieved by minimizing the batter's vision of the ball before its release. The
Speed speed in everyday usage is the kilometre per hour or, in the US and the UK, miles per hour. For air and marine travel the knot is commonly used. The fastest possible speed at which energy or information can travel, according to special relativity, is the speed of light in a vacuum "c" = metres per second (approximately or ). Matter cannot quite reach the speed of light, as this would require an infinite amount of energy. In relativity physics, the concept of rapidity replaces the classical idea of speed. Italian physicist Galileo Galilei is usually credited with being the