Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: The Gyroball Mystery, 12/20/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec06/gyroball_12-20.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Who is Daisuke Matsuzaka?

2. What kinds of baseball pitches are there?

3. What do you think happens to balls that spin in flight?

4. What forces act on an airborne ball?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Why is Daisuke Matsuzaka in the news right now?

The Boston Red Sox have signed star Japanese pitcher Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsuzaka to a six-year, $100 million contract, with many fans hoping he will throw the fabled "gyroball," possibly the first new pitch since 1976.

2. What is the name of the pitch that has the attention of fans?

But it's another of his pitches that has the attention of fans: the gyroball...

3. What was the last new pitch introduced to major meague baseball?

...it would be the first new pitch to reach the big leagues since Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter's split-finger fastball in 1976.

4. What are the three forces acting on airborne baseballs?

All airborne baseballs have three forces acting on them: gravity, which pulls the ball down; air resistance, which slows the ball; and lift, which can nudge the ball up, down, left or right, depending on the spin on the ball.

5. What force do pitchers manipulate when they throw a baseball?

Most pitchers manipulate the lift force as they throw the ball.

6. What spin is applied to a fastball, curveball and slider?

A fastball, thrown primarily with backspin, appears to rise. A curveball, thrown with topspin, sinks more than it would with just gravity. A slider, thrown with sidespin, on a second axis, moves or "breaks" horizontally.

7. What makes the spin on the gyroball different?

Himeno's pitch creates a primary spin along a third axis. From a batter's perspective, the ball spins clockwise or counterclockwise like a football.

8. In a "perfect" gyroball, which force is canceled?

...Nathan argues that only two of the three forces, gravity and air resistance, should affect the ball's trajectory. The third force, lift, should cancel itself out.

9. Why does a knuckleball have an unpredictable path?

The knuckleball takes an unpredictable flight path because asymmetric air resistance forces, caused by the baseball's raised stitching, can push the ball in almost any direction.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. After the 1968 season, "the year of the pitcher," the pitcher's mound was lowered to even the balance of power between the pitcher and the batter. If a new pitch creates a significant advantage for pitchers, should Major League Baseball lower the pitcher's mound again? If you think it should, by how much would you lower it? In answering this question, be sure to consider the impact of lowering the mound on game play and the business of baseball.

2. Using the information in the table below, calculate the time (in seconds) it takes a baseball thrown at 90 mph to travel the distance from the pitcher's mound to the plate (60.5 feet).

3. Using the answer to the previous question and infomation in the table below, calculate the vertical drop in a baseball (in meters) due to gravity when it is thrown 60.5 feet at 90 miles per hour. Convert the vertical drop to feet.

4. Draw force diagrams illustrating the direction of four forces -- gravity, drag, lift and thrust -- for the following objects:

(Some forces may not be applicable to some objects.)

• A fastball (with backspin) in flight
• A bullet (with spiral spin) shot out of a rifle
• An Olympic diver about to enter the water
• A rocket taking off
• A motionless ball sitting on the ground

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of the topics in this exercise providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.