Jamie Moyer not cracking 80 miles per hour with any of his pitches last night was noteworthy enough for me to write about it earlier today, but then I started thinking about his velocity as it relates to my own weak arm.
Which brought me to this question: What percentage of adult males can throw harder than 80 miles per hour? My initial reaction is “very, very few.”
Sure, if you count only former high school pitchers or good athletes the percentage will be much higher, but for the overall male population of, say, ages 20 to 60? And that’s including all the guys who’ve never played baseball, which is a significant percentage in itself.
After all, if you go to an MLB game where they have a booth set up with a radar gun someone throwing 80 mph would be met with amazement and would then be followed by dozens of guys blowing out their arms trying to duplicate the feat while actually topping out in the 60s.
So, my guess is one percent or fewer. What say you, HBT’ers?
