Here’s a post for the baseball fans out there.
- Sporting goods maker Mizuno apologized for supplying baseballs to the Japanese professional league that were livelier than league standards
- The company said the juiced-up balls may have added about 60 to 70 centimeters, or at least two feet, to the carry of a fly ball
- “We sincerely apologize for causing distress to Nippon Professional Baseball, the teams, the players and the fans,” Mizuno President Akito Mizuno said during a news conference in Tokyo.
- Mizuno said the moisture content in some of the wool yarn used to wrap the rubber core of the baseballs was too low
- Those created with dry yarn were accidentally wrapped up more tightly than regular ones, giving the stiffer balls a higher “coefficient of restitution” (a measure of bounciness) than the league allows
More at an (ungated) Wall Street Journal article, here