It's Wednesday, November 20th, and this is the 19 09, the state news's weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week, we're taking a little break from the hard news, and instead, we have a fascinating piece of Michigan State University history. You might know about radar guns in baseball. You might have seen them at your cousin's high school baseball game, measuring the speed of the pitches and whatnot.
Alex:But did you know that that practice was created on accident here at Michigan State? Reporter Hannah is here to tell us all about it.
Hannah:Thank you for having me on.
Alex:Thanks for coming on the show. And this is a great story, and it's fun because it's kind of like a circle. Right? You wrote this story for the state news, but it also is sort of about a state news story. Yeah.
Alex:So why don't you start me off the way your story starts? Tell us about, you know, you have this guy reading the state news and this idea forms.
Hannah:Yeah. So it all started with this small article that was actually the report one of the reporters' very first stories that he wrote.
Alex:Yeah.
Hannah:And it was just this small little piece about this new technology the police department had got to catch people speeding.
Alex:Mhmm. And the MSU baseball coach at the time, Danny Littweiler,
Hannah:was reading the paper and saw the coach at the time, Danny Littweiler, was reading the paper and saw
Alex:this article, and decided to
Hannah:call up MSUPD and see if they could park that cruiser on the field to see if it could measure the speed of pitches. So they brought the they brought the cruiser to the field, parked it between home plate and 1st base, and he had them throw pitches, and it came back with a seemingly accurate response. And then from there, it took off.
Alex:So they're using this technology, like, in the police car to actually read, like, the speed of the pitches that they're throwing with the car parked on
Hannah:the vehicle. The original radar gun was attached to the police cruiser.
Alex:Mhmm. So it
Hannah:wasn't the handheld gun we see today.
Alex:Yeah.
Hannah:You had to have the cruiser there initially.
Alex:Well, what were they doing? Because I think of, like, these radar guns as kinda synonymous with, like, baseball and pitching. Yeah. But it's funny that I guess only 50 years old, baseball is, like, the American pastime. What were they doing before that?
Alex:Did they have a way to measure pitches? How were they, like, scouting and looking at players?
Hannah:Yeah. It was a lot less mathematical and more based almost on superstition. They had a technique back then called the good face, where there was a specific face that you could see, and it would imply that that person would be a good player and be hardworking. So it's kind of almost off looks, but they also kinda had a crazy approach. A lot of coaches would climb up into trees to get different angles of throws and plays to see, how well a player was, So it was definitely more less analytical than it is now with the gun.
Alex:This is the first kind of, like, empirical, like, actual, like, way of measuring baseball players objectively when they're throwing before it was these good faces.
Hannah:Yeah. Which has its pros and cons because the more mathematical approach has brought in way more of an emphasis on speed
Alex:Mhmm. Which
Hannah:has kinda led to players overthrowing their arms. And the radar gun is almost linked to this surgery called Tommy John Tommy John surgery, which is for players to help with their elbows when they overthrow them
Alex:to help
Hannah:repair that so they can get back to that full speed pitch.
Alex:So it's not so much about, like, the good face and everything. It's just about the number on the thing. Yeah. So there are detractors to this invention. Yeah.
Alex:But being in which you actually this one, you know, people listed in the 1909, they probably know about. It's very, like, synonymous with baseball. Yeah. This coach, you have a part of your story. We're talking about he had a bunch of other inventions that were not as popular and, like, well liked, but he was sort of like a serial inventor.
Alex:What else was created at MSU that didn't take off?
Hannah:Yeah. So he's actually responsible for over a 100 inventions. Yeah. But some of his other ones another one is actually pretty prevalent, which is Diamond dust, which was initially started he was at a, I believe, a football game with his neighbor who's a chemical engineer. And they saw how hard it was to dry off a ball when it gets wet in the rain, So they created this dust that would make it easier to put on the ball and it would dry it, and that eventually turned into a dust that could be used for an entire field.
Hannah:And MSU still uses that, and I believe teams in the MLB still use that to dry their fields with rains.
Alex:Because at least they play on, like, the dirt. Mhmm. That's crazy. What were some of his, like, less popular adventures that did The
Hannah:I don't know if this one is super popular. I think they used it at the MSU baseball camp when Littler was coached. It was the bunting bat, and it was a bat that had, I believe, like, the front cut out of it to help practice bunting. So that was a pretty cool one.
Alex:So what about but sort of his his, I guess, most impressive achievement, the radar gun. How does it go from, like, this cop car that he was parking on the field to measure his players to this thing that everybody has?
Hannah:Yeah. So he reached out to the company that created the one that goes into the cruiser, and they were only interested in using it for public safety purposes. So then he reached out to JUGS, and they created their own version. They're a, baseball company.
Alex:I see.
Hannah:I believe they make pitching gloves, like other baseball technologies. And so they created their own handheld version, and then it kinda grew from there where you didn't have to have the cruiser. And also having a well known baseball company Yeah. Selling it also helped.
Alex:And that's, like, the one that it looks like a gun. Like, you hold it by the hand of the wrist.
Hannah:You hold it. And then he also messaged the MLB commissioner at the time to let him know about this invention that this could be done, and that also is what helped it to grow.
Alex:So he's spreading the word, but, like, I came up with this genius.
Hannah:He wasn't just wanting to use it for himself. He was like, let me spread this to the whole community.
Alex:And did they use them at MSU today, like, the coaches
Hannah:Yes. They still very much use them. The the current pitching coach said they bring them to all scouting events, all games, check out competition. I think it's very much a essential
Alex:part
Hannah:of the game now.
Alex:Yeah. Mhmm. Well, this is a great story. It's something that I think you see out in the world. I never knew had this whole history at MSU with this amazing kind of confidence putting the cop car in the field and all that.
Alex:Mhmm. Yeah. Well, Hannah, thank you for uncovering this fun history and for coming on the show. We'll be back next week with more great reporting from the fresh minds here at state news. Until then, you can read Hannah's full story on state news.com.
Alex:Yeah. Thanks again for coming on. Thank you to Taylor, our podcast coordinator, and most of all, thank you for for listening. For the 19:09, I'm Alex Walters.