JUPITER, Fla. • From behind a mask, Andrew Knizner’s widescreen view of the field gives him a great angle on the scoreboard, and a brief glance will tell him how quickly a pitch sped toward his mitt. When the scoreboard is clearly wrong, he knows the pitch was right.
So many scoreboards Knizner spied this past year had only two digits for mph, and they are accustomed to blinking nines on a fastball. But baseball’s overheated speed revolution has outpaced the scoreboards and several times this past year Knizner saw “00” or “01” flash. The scoreboard had surrendered to a triple-digit fastball.