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Whose fastball’s fastest?

Kelsi Dunne will go down as one of the best softball pitchers in state history. Baseball pitcher Michael Main will likely be a first-round pick in the June draft.

By MICHAEL LEWIS
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
STAFF WRITER

News-Journal illustration/JUSTIN YURKANIN There aren’t flames trailing the fastballs from Spruce Creek’s Kelsi Dunne, left, and DeLand’s Michael Main, but they smoke opposing batters nonetheless.
N-J/CHAD PILSTER DeLand High's Michael Main (16) pitches April 27, 2006, during the Region 1-6A quarterfinal round at Conrad Park in DeLand.		N-J/CHAD PILSTER Spruce Creek's Kelsi Dunne (00) pitches May 12, 2006, during the FHSAA state softball semifinals in Plant City.

It may seem like comparing apples to oranges.

Or in this case, like comparing flame-throwers and fireballers.

Michael Main is a pitcher at DeLand High School. He’s a senior right-hander who throws in the low-to-mid 90s, has four or five equally nasty pitches, hits for power, runs the bases well and is the most highly touted prospect around here since a kid named Chipper Jones.

Main pitched the Bulldogs to the Class 6A Final Four last year, and is almost certain to be a first-round pick in baseball’s amateur draft this June.

About 20 miles away, Main’s female counterpart toils away in equal domination. Kelsi Dunne is a senior softball pitcher at Spruce Creek, and she broke so many school and area records last year it’d be easy to lose count.

Dunne is one of the best pitchers in Florida prep history, with 461 strikeouts last season, and she is on pace to crush batters’ spirits again in 2007.

They’re both nearly untouchable when they’re in top form.

So we got to thinking: Is it harder to hit a 94-miles-per-hour fastball from Main from a baseball mound 60 feet, 6 inches away, or is it more difficult swatting a 65-miles-per-hour heater from Dunne from the softball pitcher’s circle 43 feet away?

At the photo shoot for this story, the two superstars met for the first time and traded opinions. Immediately they hit it off, exchanging MySpace addresses and discussing life under the local microscope.

“I don’t know who’s harder to hit. It’s probably pretty close,” Dunne said.

“I think I could hit you once I got a few swings,” Main said, matter of factly.

“Really? We’ll have to try it some time,” Dunne added. “I don’t know if you could.”

Instead of relying on anecdotal evidence (a few Spruce Creek baseball players have faced both and were more scared of Main), we decided to take a scientific approach.

With the help of Embry-Riddle professor Robert Fleck, the “rate equation” was applied to each.

According to the formula (see accompanying box), a batter has .439 seconds to react to a Main fastball. A batter facing Dunne has .451 seconds to react.

Now, this of course doesn’t take into account the spins and movement of each hurler’s pitches, nor any of their off-speed stuff that moves slower.

But just based on a straight fastball, Dunne’s foes have twelve-hundredths of a second (2.7 percent) more time to react to her throws.

It’s a parlor game, of course, but upon leaving the field last week Main made a tentative plan with Dunne to take some swings off her March 13, when Spruce Creek softball visits DeLand.

Whether anything gets decided then isn’t important. For any fans of sport, you have two more months to catch two of the best ever around here in action.

Unlike the hitters who face each, don’t miss it.

65 mph from 43 feet Spruce Creek's Kelsi Dunne

94 mph from 60 feet, 6 inches DeLand’s Michael Main

0.12 Less time in seconds a batter would get to see Michael Main’s fastball vs. Kelsi Dunne’s fastball.

The Down and Dirty Math Behind the Who's Harder to Hit Debate

The math formula suggested by ERAU professor Robert Fleck is called the "rate equation." We're making distance equal to speed times time:

*Michael Main: *Main throws 94 miles per hour

*To convert that into time, we multiplied 94 by 5,280 feet per mile, to get a result of 496,320 feet per hour.

*That number is then divided by 3,600 (60 seconds in a minute times 60 minutes in a hour). That results in a speed of approximately 138.87 feet per second.

*Then we divided 60 feet, 6 inches (the distance from home plate to the pitcher's rubber) by 138.87, and that equals approximately 0.439 seconds. That's the time the batter has to react to a pitch from Main.

Kelsi Dunne: *Dunne throws underhand at a top speed of 65 miles per hour.

*After doing the same calculations as for Main, we got a speed of approximately 95.33 feet per second.

*Then we divided 43 feet (the distance from the softball pitcher's circle to home plate) by 95.33, and that equals approximately .451 seconds. That's the time the batter has to react to a pitch by Dunne.

Conclusion: Main's fastball arrives 0.12 seconds quicker to home than Dunne's, so Main's fastball is a seemingly insignificant 2.7 percent harder to hit.

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