The Fastest Pitch Ever Thrown

Catching the speed of a pitch at a big league game seems almost given, as modern day stadiums broadcast velocity on the screen as soon as the baseball is thrown. But the history of baseball did not always have such precise techniques to catch pitch speed. Can you imagine a time where you just had to imagine how many miles per hour a hurler was tossing the ball?

 

Luckily for us modern-day observers of the national pastime, every park is outfitted with state of the art pitch tracking technology. We know exactly how hard our current big league pitchers deliver the ball.

 

Even better, some of the best minds have been able to analyze the data that we do have from the great pitchers of the past and estimate how those legends stack up against today’s players.

 

Let's find out (if we can) who threw the fastest pitch ever!

Before we dive into the history of high-velocity throwers, everyone must be introduced to professional baseball's current high-profile flame thrower, Ben Joyce! On September 3rd, 2024, Ben hurled a pitch from the Los Angeles mound at 105.5 miles per hour. Watch below...

 

 

That pitch cemented Ben Joyce's name in pro baseball's Hall of Speed. It's a finicky list though.

 

Baseball has had radar guns present in stadiums with some consistency since the late 70's, but they've only been recording velocity and pitch tracking data since 2008. And only since 2015, have they been using the exceptionally reliable Statcast system to record those pitches.

 

(Believe it or not, but Ben Joyce actaully threw a pitch that was measured at 105.5 mph while in college at the University of Tennessee. Typically though, the highest college velocities don't get the same notoriety as the professional velocities.)

 

The current list of top 5 pitches ever recorded in American professional baseball are as follows:

You'll notice that Aroldis Chapman dominates that list and if you keep reading, you'll be able to further understand the wide shadow he casts when it comes to talking about the fastest pitches of all time!

 

The 2016 docu-film, Fastball, chronicled baseball's fastest pitches and broke down the timeline of flamethrowers into 4 chapters spanning the entire 20th century up until now!

 

The first chapter began with Walter Johnson. The Kansas-born and California-grown pitcher was the ultimate nice guy, who would worry about hitting batters with his whistling heater. Using what was thought of as state of the art in 1917, "The Big Train" went to a military laboratory for his velocity to be recorded. The results produced an underwhelming reading that said Johnson was only bringing it at just over 83 miles per hour.

 

Chapter 2 was headlined by none other than Bob Feller. The Van Meter, Iowa native happened to own one of the greatest nicknames ever: "The Heater From Van Meter".

 

At one point, Feller's speed was measured by having his pitched ball race a motorcycle. That idea was fine marketing, but it didn't yield the most accurate speed measurement. The testing of Feller's pitches did get more sophosticated though. The best readings gave him a mark in the upper 90's.

 

Feller retired in 1956, but chapter three of pitch speed didn't start until 10 seasons later when Nolan Ryan arrived. At the height of Nolan's powers in the mid-1970's, he was clocked at just over 100 mph on a national broadcast.

 

Nolan hung it up in the early 1990's and no man could definitively claim the title of baseball's hardest thrower until Aroldis Chapman broke into baseball's highest ranks in 2010. In that first season, he threw a pitch that registered a speed of 105.8 mph. That is the fastest officially recorded pitch of all time and still stands to this day. 

 

However, even though Chapman's 105.8 mph throw is the highest pitch velocity ever officially recorded, two of the other men previously mentioned most likely have thrown harder pitches.

 

The location at which velocity was measured for Walter Johnson, Bob Feller and Nolan Ryan differed slightly and all three had their speed measurements taken close to homeplate. 

 

Chapman's velocity was measured at 50 feet from homeplate. This is very close to where he released the ball. And taking a reading closer to the release point obviously results in a higher measurement for velocity.

 

The Fastball documentary highlights a Carnegie Mellon professor who made adjustments to all of the speed recordings made for Walter Johnson, Bob Feller and Nolan Ryan. Since all of these three men's velocities were taken at locations closer to homeplate, they knew the velocity readings at 50 feet were much higher.

 

The math was done and the results suggested that Nolan Ryan probably threw a pitch at 108.5 mph (likely the fastest of all time) and Feller most likely tossed a pitch at 107.6 mph. Johnson's adjusted readings only resulted in a velocity of just over 93 miles per hour. However, due to the testimony of those who faced him, it is believed that he most likely threw harder than that mark in his career.

 

Still though, Chapman's throws are the only ones that go down as official since professional baseball is certain of the methods used to make his pitch recordings.

 

Typically, we talk about the top velocities of all time coming from the pitching mound.

 

But we should definitely think of all the quality athletes that have played the outfield in professional baseball over the years. Combine those outfielders' athleticism with the running starts that they often get before releasing a ball and one can't help but think that some of the hardest thrown baseballs have come from outfielders.

 

Eric Lang from The Hardball Times has written some pretty interesting articles surrounding great throws that have been made by outfielders over the years. He even added in quite a bit of data to back up the legendary qualities of some iconic throws. 

 

From his findings, Dave Parker (a.k.a. The Cobra), uncorked a throw in the 1979 All Star game to toss out a runner at home that very possibly could have come out of his hand at 109.6 miles per hour. Watch it below:

 

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It's our hope that you've enjoyed learning a little bit about the great history and mystique that surrounds the topic of the hardest pitches of all time! But if you've gotten to this point and still just want to know the perfect glove to give to the pitcher in your life, consider LIVE CHATTING WITH AN EXPERT. Or take a look at the list of popular pitcher gloves below...