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
Gabardini G.9 Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), King of Italy (1900-1946), visited Cameri airfield, where he observed a demonstration of the G.9"bis". Flown by Lodovico Zanibelli, the G.9"bis" achieved a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour) during the demonstration. However, the "Regia Aeronautica" was no more interested in the G.9"bis" version of the aircraft than it had been in the G.9 version, and no production order resulted. Gabardini G.9 The Gabardini G.9 was an Italian single-seat biplane fighter prototype produced by Gabardini in 1923. Gabardini designed the G.9 in parallel with its work on its first fighter design,