RevFire First to Measure Spin Rate on Baseball and Softball Pitches

As pitchers fiercely compete for a spot on the team roster in spring training, new technology is announced that can shed light on their performance. The newly released RevFire is the first product that can measure the spin rate of a pitched ball.

Boulder, Colorado (PRWEB) March 22, 2007 -- As pitchers fiercely compete for a spot on the team roster in spring training, new technology is announced that can shed light on their performance. The newly released RevFire is the first product that can measure the spin rate of a pitched ball. The handheld RevFire displays the spin rate of a pitch in revolutions per second (RPS) as well as the speed in miles per hour (MPH). Strong spin is required to put 'movement' on a fastball or to throw an effective curveball, slider, sinker, or screwball. Until now pitchers and coaches lacked the benefit of performance feedback in hard numbers.
   
Putting movement on a pitch and throwing effective breaking balls are fundamental in the major leagues. But even highly paid professional pitchers can lose their edge. Sometimes a lack of effectiveness of their breaking ball pitches may be to blame. In the January 26, 2007 issue of Collegiate Baseball, Coach John Pinkman, director of the Pinkman Baseball Academy in Virginia, noted that with the RevFire "Coaches can utilize the hard numbers to indicate a pitcher tiring or 'losing' his curve." Coach Pinkman also stated that with the RevFire, "Pitchers get instant feedback for more effective training."
   
According to Mike White, a member of the USA National Men's Fastpitch Softball team, "Before the RevFire, I had to rely on visual determination of the amount of spin in analyzing my students. Now coaches have a tool that can measure spin rate, which directly corresponds to the amount of movement possible for each pitch."
   
The deceptive curveball pitch has been studied and mathematically described by many scientists over the last half century. Their mathematical equations are consistent; more spin creates more curve. NASA has a website where visitors can see the calculated trajectory of a pitch from pitcher rubber to home plate for user-selected spin rates (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/foil2b.html). The NASA website demonstrates the dramatic impact an increase in spin rate has on the curvature of a ball's flight.    

Since the advent of radar gun technology, speed statistics on pitchers have been widely available and are key to athlete evaluation and advancement. The RevFire's patented technology makes possible the collection of spin data on pitchers at all levels of play, creating a new metric for the measurement and improvement of performance. Coach Mike White predicts, "I can envision RPS being as common in judging pitchers in the future as MPH is today."
   
RevFire Corporation is an electronics design and manufacturing company specializing in sporting goods products. More information about the company and its products is available at www.RevFire.com.

Contact:
David Marinelli
President
RevFire Corporation
www.RevFire.com
(866)414-3040

Press Contact: David Marinelli
Company Name: RevFire Corporation
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: 866-414-3040
Website: www.RevFire.com

Press Release Source: EMediaWire