I have been meaning to start this thread for some time now. I figured it would start some discussion or debate. The hardest SINGLE thing to do in any professional sport is hit a baseball. A better has about .4 of a second to figure how fast the pitch is coming, what kind of pitch it is, where the pitch is located and to make his decision whether or not to swing. Furthermore…he needs to hit a round ball with a round bat “squarely” on the “sweet spot” which is about an inch in diameter in order to be successful and hit a homerun 400 feet. Shit…if a batter FAILS 7 times out of 10…he is considered a phenomenal hitter! Now before, I get all those people who say…what about football, what about hockey, what about soccer?? I didnt say baseball players were the best athletes or in the best shape. All I said was that the SINGLE hardest thing to do in any professional sport is hit a baseball. Any one agree? Disagree? (which I think is absurd)
Hey Goldberg,
Whats up my man. I was a college pitcher, so in all honesty…I dont know much from a hiitters stand point. But all I know, is that hitting a baseball on a consistent basis…let alone 400 feet is simply amazing and by far the most difficult thing to do in any sport. I would have to disagree with you on your statement that hitting a golf ball is harder. Granted, I am not belittleing the fact that putting top spin or hitting a ball out of a sandtrap is hard. But when was the last time you had a golf ball coming at you at 95MPH…or better yet…coming at your head and then all of a sudden curving 4-6 inches? (I put that in cause you said you couldnt hit a curveball…wink). Wanna know the answer???..NEVER! The golf ball stands still!! Or, when was the last time you watched gold on tv and there were 40,000 screaming fans yelling at the top of thier lungs while a golfer was trying to concentrate and hit a stationary golf ball?? Answer…NEVER. A hitter must keep his concentration and try to hit a ball travelling at 95MPH (sometimes aimed at his head) at the same time a stadium is screaming for him to miss. Golf just doesnt compare!!! Again, I am not saying hitting a golf ball is easy…but to compare it to hitting a baseball is just ridiculous!
Goldberg, while you make excellent points on why hitting a golf ball is possibly more difficult than hitting a baseball, you forgot a very important detail - golf is not a sport. Sorry, thought I’d hijack the thread by getting all the golfers out there to flame me.
Curling in the Squat rack…no matter how hard I try, I just can’t do it and I been training for years! I see some people do it with ease. I think it’s because they wear a weight belt. I’m gonna have to go and get me one.
In hockey, one timing a shot, skating at full speed, to a corner.
I’ve actually been told that hitting a fast-pitch softball is more difficult because of the shorter distance between the mound and the plate.
I don’t know how you can really quantify though what the “hardest” skill in sports really is. It could be said that just hitting a baseball is actually quite easy (nothing was said about the ball velocity), but since a number was attached to it you have to do the same with whatever you are comparing it with. It could be argued that hitting a golf ball 500 yards is more difficult than hitting a 90 MPH fastball because less people can do it. Hitting a golf ball; easy. Hitting a golf ball 500 yards; hard. Hitting a baseball; easy. Hitting a 95 MPH fastball 400 feet; hard. The same comparison could be done with about any sport.
I don’t think it’s hard to hit a baseball, but it IS hard to hit it well. I would be more apt to say that it is harder to throw a ball 100 mph. To my knowledge there are only about 4-5 pitchers who could ever throw upper 90s on a consistent basis.
Is hitting a baseball more difficult than hitting a tennis ball? Both are coming at speeds of more than 90 mph. I think tennis could ultimately be more difficult.
The crowd thing never bothered me. I have always been able to shut out everything that was going on around me and do what i had to do. Like now ive had to toss a girl up having her spin around once and catch her with one hand over my head, all with 3,000 people looking at yelling just at me. crowds never really bothered me. but my point was that hitting draws and fades was harder than hitting a fastball(not all the possible pitches, just a fastball). Now when you put in curves and changeups and the like the discussion changes tremendously.
Oh yeah. The 100 mph clockers: Only a few of them.
Here’s one guy that could bring the heat:
Phil Niekro~Man, you never saw his stuff coming and before you knew it…gassed. Grab some bench!
I guess you could define what is “hardest” by simply the frequency which it is performed. Like you mentioned, a hitter who misses “only” 7 out of 10 at-bats is phenomenal.
Probably the least frequently achieved thing I can think of is a soccer goalie actually blocking an 11-meter penalty shot. That’s about a 35 foot distance, and some of those guys can kick as fast as a pitcher can throw, not to mention the goal is pretty damn big.
Another thing to consider in activities like that is how much of it is really “reaction time”? Hitters often (usually?) know whether or not to swing before the pitch is thrown, like on a 3-2 count with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out I’m going to… whatever. And the goalies probably decide which direction to dive before the ball is kicked…
Another pretty hard thing to do, at least on a professional level, is when playing tennis to hit the other guy with the ball. I hardly ever see that, even though they hit the ball like 130 mph. Line judges get hit, but not the other player.
Well I’m 5-10 and white so the hardest thing to me is to dunk a basketball 
Ice Hockey without a doubt, skate down the ice on blades about 1/8" think with 2 200Lb defense hanging and holding you. Turn on a dime and fire an off balance wrist shot at 80+ MPH.
As an example JAGR shot Pct is 12.5%, showing that it is harder then a batter hitting .333
It all depends on how you define “hardest.” Is it the most skill required? The greatest strength? The greatest endurance? The most focus? Is it performance or mastery? Many things are easy to perform, but near impossible to master (golf being one, putting aside the sport vs. activity debate). I’ve seen this debate around several boards, and it varies around “What’s the most difficult sporting event?” to “What requires the most skill?” I suppose one way to pare it down would be to answer the question “What’s the ratio of people who participate on a “mastery” level vs participate on a recreational level?”
Um, there’s NOBODY that can hit a golf ball 500 yards. Watch the Long Drive Championships where they rarely break 400.
Yes, the occasional freak thing happens, and I’m sure the world record is 600 yards or something, but we’re talking about consistency.
pshawww…everyone agrees, that the hardest thing in all of sports is being a goalie in hockey, I know Chris Magano will agree…
All I know, is that hitting that little golf ball and actually making it go where the hell I want on a consistent basis is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted! God only knows why I keep trying to do it.
As an example JAGR shot Pct is 12.5%,
showing that it is harder then a
batter hitting .333
Whoa, Jagr only hits the puck 1 out of every 8 times he swings at it? That shit MUST be hard…
Do you mean he actually scores 1 out of every 8 shots? I would think the defense and goalies would be better than that…
DocT, the 500 yards was just an arbitrary number. Make it 400 then, but the point was that a sport is only as hard as the level you perform it at. That is unless we can define EXACTLY what is meant by “hardest.”
With my athletic background in track and field throwing events I never mastered the intricacies of shot put and discus technique, despite 12 years of training. Did I throw at a pretty high level, yes, but there was always room for improvement. So I could make the argument that the throwing events are the hardest because even world and olympic champions don’t have perfect technique. Most people don’t appreciate the technical level of these events and just think it requires brute strength, far from it, sometimes just a couple inch placement of the foot can mean many feet on a throw.
Having played damn near every sport that’s been mentioned on this thread, I can honestly say that hitting a baseball is by far the most difficult task I’ve ever performed in a sport (figures that I would then choose it to be the sport I go to college for). Like Goldberg, I’ve faced guys who’ve thrown 90+ mph, and things can get ugly (as in me breaking things in the dugout after looking at strike three). I also agree with Goldberg that when you add to the equation that a guy might also have an 85-90mph slider, 80mph changeup, and 80mph “12 to 6” curveball, the challenge is greatly compounded.