"Fastball” To Premiere in Pittsburgh

"Fastball,” the baseball documentary that celebrates the sport's signature pitch and aims to answer the question of who threw the fastest fastball of all-time, will premiere in Pittsburgh with several screenings scheduled. Narrated by Kevin Costner and directed by nine-time Emmy-Award winner Jonathan Hock , the film includes's with more than 20 Hall of Fame players, including Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Goose Gossage and Bob Gibson. It also has several connections to Pittsburgh, a.k.a The City of Champions. Three Carnegie Mellon scientists - physicist Gregg Franklin and neuroscientists Michael J. Tarr and Timothy Verstynen - are prominently featured; CMU Trustee and Steelers minority owner Thomas Tull produced the documentary; and the Pittsburgh Pirates' superstar centerfielder Andrew McCutcheon appears in it. Fastball speeds can reach close to - and sometimes over - 100 miles per hour, requiring baseball players to make split-second decisions. Tarr and Verstynen talk about how a batter's brain races to process an incoming fastball. "Baseball is perhaps the ultimate test of neural abilities,” said Verstynen, assistant professor of psychology and member of CMU's BrainHub neuroscience initiative. "A fastball can travel so fast that the batter's brain may not even have the time to make a decision based on what he sees. Franklin talks about the physics of the fastball, addressing some of the most controversial questions in baseball: Is there such thing as a rising fastball, and who really threw the fastest pitch?