What I really need here Posted on March 15, 2024 at 03:21:07 PM by Craig G
Is accurate measurement of the distances between the line markers. If MC has 13, then we could consider the front wall as lm-0 and the back as lm-14, which makes for 14 sections. Is 8.57 feet the true distance between lines? How about Dania? Actually, if I had a good unobstructed side view pic of each whole court, I could use video editing to get pixel coords and work it all out wrt the true length of the court. Being certain of those distances is essential.
have posited that the shorter court gives you less reaction time and therefore the game is faster. But I do not know that for a fact. And so I have stopped claiming it.
Wise move, IMO. I like your use of the word 'posited' because to just assume it is awfully superficial.
First of all, we have to define what we mean by reaction. How much of it takes place before the pelota reaches the front wall? As an analogy, there are online web sites to test your reaction speed via mouse clicks. If we padded the random lead-in time by 25%, would that improve your average score? Nope.
Obviously we have to do some categorization and measurement. Eg: back-courter catching the ball aire right-side within 2 lines of the back wall. Like that. Compare ball speed incoming and error rate.
FWIW, my prelim assessment looks like at MC the pelota is often traveling at about 20-22 mph at the time the receiver catches the serve. OTOH, in one case, I saw a Goixerri blast from the 6-line reaching the front wall with an average speed of 88 mph.
Another consideration is that if a shorter court leads to more rebo's, then the total time between throw and catch will end up being over 4 seconds, which will be longer than Dania plays without rebo.
So now we are in histogram country where we need analyze the various frequencies of specific situations. Just consider how much more front court play occurs at Dania. If that's true, and we think of reaction time as beginning with the pelota coming off the frontis to the front-courter, then in those cases Dania is faster.
As an aside, if the the pelota is traveling at 100 mph, then at 30 fps that works out to almost 5 feet change in horizontal position per frame. FWIW, I don't see that happening in any of the replays.
Another observation is that this guy, Robert K. Adair, Professor of Physics, claims that a fastball is slowing down at a rate of 1 mph per 7 feet of travel. Could that crudely approximate a pelota shot? If so, then we can use our distance and time measurements plus the average speed to approx the initial and final speeds.
At any rate, this is a very complex subject, hampered by far from ideal camera angles and frame rates. But even so, the working with what we have would allow for a ton of worthwhile observations.
So step 1 is verifying those line marker distances. That, plus some Jai-Alai beer, and I'm good to go.
