彭蒙惠英语：The Ultimate Pitching Machine（在线收听）

The Ultimate Pitching Machine

By Tom McNichol /

Originally published in WIRED

Hardware and hard science are turning big-league ballplayers into precision-guided flamethrowers

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It’s the fastest human movement ever measured in a laboratory: the violent forward rotation of a baseball pitcher’s shoulder as he whips the ball toward home plate. To the batter, or anyone watching on TV, the motion is merely a blur. But not to biomechanical engineer Glenn Fleisig. He notes that the arm flips forward at the shoulder joint with such high-speed velocity that if a pitcher’s arm kept it up for a full second, it would make 20 full revolutions.

Fleisig is the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI) in Birmingham, Alabama, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving athletic performance and preventing sports-related injuries. Every winter, major-league pitchers head to ASMI in droves to be picked apart by the unblinking eyes of the lab’s high-speed cameras and infrared, 3-D, optical motioncapture system. It’s all about finding that little something extra that could mean the difference between playing in the next World Series and watching it on TV.

Developing sound mechanics

Pitching, it’s often said, is 90 percent of the game. By identifying a mechanically unsound motion in his delivery, a pitcher can add several miles an hour to his fastball or put more snap on his slider—and increase his team’s chances of winning more games.

The Institute also helps keep pitchers healthy. Pitching injuries cost major-league teams $148 million a year. Many of those injuries aren’t caused by a single trauma, as in other sports, but by the slow wear and tear of repeating a slightly inefficient motion. By helping pitchers maximize efficiency, ASMI has emerged at the vanguard of a new wave of sports medicine. Rather than rehabilitating after an injury, a pitcher can prevent that injury with sound mechanics.

Vocabulary Focus

pick apart (idiom) to separate various factors and analyze them

sound (adj) [saund] free from flaws; healthy; in good condition

wear and tear (n phr) the damage that happens to an object in ordinary use over a period of time

vanguard (n) [5vAn^B:d] a leading position in the development of something

Specialized Terms

flamethrower (n) 球速又快又强的投手 a pitcher who throws very hard and fast

biomechanical engineer (n phr) 生物力学工程师 a person who studies body movements, especially the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on the skeletal structure, and analyzes objects or machines that can enhance body movements

velocity (n) 速度 the speed at which an object is traveling

revolution (n) 旋转 one complete circular movement around a fixed point or line

infrared (adj) 红外线的 a type of light that feels warm but cannot be seen

mechanics (n pl) 运作方式 the way something works or happens

slider (n) 滑行曲线球 a fast pitch in baseball that curves slightly away from the side from which it was thrown