JETHAWKS IN SCIENCE PROJECT BBC CREW ARRIVES IN A.V. TO EXAMINE PHYSICS OF THE GAME.

Byline: Gideon Rubin Staff Writer

LANCASTER - It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to understand the game of baseball, right?

Actually, it doesn't hurt.

Over the weekend, a British Broadcasting Company crew was in the Antelope Valley filming a documentary on projectile motion that it hopes will help viewers appreciate the game from the science angle.

``We're looking at the whole range of projectiles,'' said BBC producer Peter Brown. ``What happens from early humans living in caves learning to throw rocks and spears to catch mammoths, right through the most advanced projectiles, things like Cassini, the spacecraft which is going up to Saturn right now.''

The hourlong program, expected to be titled: ``Boomerangs to Ballistics: The Search for the Ultimate Projectiles,'' will appear on The Learning Channel at the end of the year, Brown said.

Videotaped interviews with JetHawks manager Mark Parent, pitching coach Scott Budner and pitchers Jeff Heaverlo and Chris Mears, as well as footage of Saturday night's game between the JetHawks and San Bernardino, will likely appear on the program, Brown said.

Pay attention, hitters. In looking at the science of baseball, Brown said he was focusing on explaining how pitchers create ball movement.

``We're looking at what happens when a baseball flies through the air,'' he said. ``Just for that split second between the pitch and the bat, what actually happens.''

To better understand ball movement, Brown and his team put baseballs in the wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center in the Bay Area.

Although Brown, a native of England, said he doesn't understand why the game of cricket hasn't caught on in the United States, he is impressed with what pitchers do, and with the game itself.

``The sheer skill that's required to make those minor little bits of movement either way to make it unpredictable for the batter. I think the subtleties of that are fantastic,'' he said. ``It's an amazingly spectacular game.''

The program also focuses on projectile motion in other sports, including tennis and golf, and features a segment on the English Long Bow, in which a camera is placed at the end of the arrow and the arch is seen disappearing into the distance, Brown said.

Although the focus of their work is on science, the process of selecting Lancaster Municipal Stadium as the site to examine projectile motion in baseball was altogether unscientific.

``We put a pin on the map and went for a baseball team,'' Brown said.

He said the decision to use minor-league players as the subjects in the documentary was based in part because he thought seeing up-and-coming players would be more interesting, and because he didn't believe a more-high-profile, major-league team would be as cooperative, in terms of providing his crew access to the field and to players and coaches, as were the JetHawks.

Brown said he hopes the program will contribute to a better appreciation of the game.

``I think the viewers will start to understand a bit more about what's actually happening - the actual physics about what's happening in the game - which hopefully will add a new dimension to their enjoyment of it,'' he said, noting that in addition to actually seeing the players in action, ``we can add to this the science because we've been talking to the aerodynamics experts at places like NASA Ames who can look at the actual physics of baseball.

``When the ball spins in the air, we explain what that actually does to the trajectory of the ball and how that can be applied to the game.''

--Breaks mark: It wasn't a matter of if, the only question was when Juan Silvestre would break Jesus Marquez's franchise record of 106 RBI in a single season.

For Silvestre - whose spectacular performance at the plate has made him a contender to win the triple crown - his 107th RBI of the year came in unspectacular fashion on a run-scoring grounder in the sixth inning during what amounted to garbage time in a 21-10 pasting of the Mudville Nine at Lancaster.

``I'm excited about the record. (Now) I just have to keep going,'' Silvestre said.

The single-season record for RBI in the California League is 172, a mark established by Harry ``Bud'' Haslet in 1956.

--Borrowed bat: It had been a long week for JetHawks catcher Scott Maynard.

After catching all 12 innings of Thursday night's 13-9 win at Rancho Cucamonga - a game that lasted four hours and 17 minutes - and a full game on Friday night, he admitted that toward the latter stages of Saturday night's 12-inning contest with San Bernardino he was starting to feel fatigued.

Before he came to the plate in the bottom of the 12th with a runner at third and two outs, he noticed that his bat felt like an anchor, and asked teammate Bo Robinson, who uses a bat that weighs about 1 1/2 ounces lighter, if he could borrow his.

The lighter bat seemed to help, as Maynard stroked a line drive over the outstretched arms of leaping San Bernardino shortstop Joe Thurston for a game-ending single in a 6-5 win.

Saturday's game lasted three hours and 42 minutes.

--Quint-essential: Wilfredo Quintana, the newest JetHawk, was 0 for 5 in his first game at Lancaster on Saturday night.

But on Sunday he had a two-run double in a six-run third inning, and was 2 for 6 with two doubles and three RBI on the day.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

JetHawks catcher Scott Maynard (pictured) borrowed Bo Robinson's lighter bat to deliver the game-winning hit in the 12th inning Saturday.

David Crane/Staff Photographer