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NCAA BASEBALL

Ben Joyce can’t stop setting records

One month after throwing the fastest pitch ever recorded in NCAA baseball, Tennessee Volunteers ace Ben Joyce looks to have done it again.

Jeffrey May
Update:
One month after throwing the fastest pitch ever recorded in NCAA baseball, Tennessee Volunteers ace Ben Joyce looks to have done it again.
Steven BranscombeUSA TODAY Sports

At the end of March, Tennessee Volunteers fireball ace Ben Joyce set an NCAA record for the fastest pitch ever thrown in a college baseball game when he blew a 104.1 mph fastball past South Carolina’s Jalen Vasquez. Now it would appear that he has topped that with a 105.5 mph blazer.

Tennessee’s data has not been verified by the NCAA, but if true, this would set not only a new college record, but would be the second-fastest pitch thrown in baseball, period.

MLB legend Bob Feller was rumored to have thrown a 108 mph pitch, but in an era before the radar gun, it was impossible to verify. He was filmed throwing against a moving motorcycle but it required complicated mathematical formula to adjust the known elements into a pitch speed.

Nolan Ryan was the first pitcher to have a radar gun used on his pitches during the 1970s and is held by many to be the fastest pitcher ever. He threw an eleven-inning complete game in 1974 and one pitch in the ninth inning was clocked at 100.9 mph. The radar gun technology used at the time took a speed measurement from ten feet in front of the plate, so adjusting it to match modern standards, that pitch is reckoned to have reached 108.5 mph.

But the fastest that can be verified using modern technology and methods was thrown by Aroldis Chapman in 2014 when he threw a 106 mph steam train to Andrew McCutchen.

In any era, at any level, what Tennessee’s Ben Joyce did demands to be marvelled at. His right arm is an absolute rocket launcher. If he can stay healthy, this young man will one day be referred to in the hushed tones reserved for the greatest in the game.