Hitting 52/300 ball in high humidity

ryanclink

goes hard your way catch
So yesterday was like 75% humidity/ 65 degrees around 8pm and I had 2 balls I hit just die. Hit what I thought were no doubters and the ball hit the wall both times. Couldn't believe it. I have hit enough balls out to know when I got them and wow.

yes - i looked like an idiot felt worse.

I now open up the forum to your scorn and commentary about how 52/300 sucks in humidity.:biggthumpup:
 
we hit the .52/275s for league and all NSA tournaments here and they blow...but it does separate the men from the lesser men so i like that
 

MarlSrSoftball

Into Semi-Retirement Still activebut not League
Depends on the brand of ball. All 52/300's perform the same. There are good ones and inferior ones
 

eviladams

All hail Megatron.....
So yesterday was like 75% humidity/ 65 degrees around 8pm and I had 2 balls I hit just die. Hit what I thought were no doubters and the ball hit the wall both times. Couldn't believe it. I have hit enough balls out to know when I got them and wow.

yes - i looked like an idiot felt worse.

I now open up the forum to your scorn and commentary about how 52/300 sucks in humidity.:biggthumpup:

Maybe stating the obvious here but.... They obviously fly better in cooler temps. I have seen guys complain that they feel like they are getting a hold of a ball and it doesn't travel like you just said. I'm a bigger dude with a lot of power and I haven't exactly noticed a difference offensively in terms of the ball not traveling. I haven't experienced that moment where I thought it was gone and it wasn't. But I probably have hit some that should have gone further. These ****ter balls though maybe turning some guys from home run hitters into warning track guys. Any way you slice it, the 52/300 suck and are dangerous when playing defense.
 

ogsoftballplaye

Active Member
We've yet to have a bad hop with the Nx3s, which is good for the defense we play against, they fly though. It was in the 80s last night and bombs were hit.
 

EdFred

every day I'm shovelin'
The Worth Hot Socks always hit like mush. Especially when the league keeps them in a 100+ degree hotbox next to the field all summer.
 

eviladams

All hail Megatron.....
Curious as to why you think they make it dangerous to play defense.

I've seen hot dots, dudleys, and evils take bad hops and almost hit ppl in the face. This is an occurrence every game. Didn't occur as much when we hit 44/375s years ago.

Like OG said. I mention it in another subsection, I've just seen so many bad hops. Balls skipping along in the infield then jump up and smack a SS fight in the face. I was in the OF last year and had a ball one hop directly over my head. I'm 6'3" and it cleared my head without me ducking. 6" lower and it would have knocked out my ****ing teeth. I've also seen them bounce over the OF fence for ground rule doubles. On the same diamonds, on different nights, we use .40/325 and you don't see those things happen. Just a couple of my experiences.
 

Legend 94

Addicted to Softballfans
The Worth Hot Socks always hit like mush. Especially when the league keeps them in a 100+ degree hotbox next to the field all summer.

This is the biggest issue I find with the 52/300 ball. We hit Worth Hots regularly and they seem to fly well even on the humid days but I keep them in an air conditioned area of my basement. We do have one association here that is notorious for storing the balls in a storage room that's ridiculously hot and it turns the balls to mush. You can spin the ball as much as you want and it simply doesn't go...
 

lcky3

Addicted to Softballfans
Saw the high bounce more last night, but our fields were really dry. I can say they have a little more bounce to them for sure, but still beats being clocked by a 44. The NX3 is definitely the way to go.
 

boonebigdog

Addicted to Softballfans
We started using the 52-300 in my local leagues last year and have noticed significantly higher bounces, like over your head high on occasion. Any call can take a bad hop but these seem to do so much more often. However I have not seen a drop in HRs across the league.
 
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single wally

Professional Amateur
The Worth Hot Socks always hit like mush. Especially when the league keeps them in a 100+ degree hotbox next to the field all summer.

Lol @ "Hot Socks" so true they suck. Hitting hot dots is never fun.

Cue the "but if you just CUT the hot dots they fly..." people chiming in. :rolleyes:
 

fuzzy2651

Extra Hitter
We use the Trump Stote's and I personally like them. I think they hit well on our hot humid days in Michigan and they outperform the Worth Hot Dot's imo
 

ogsoftballplaye

Active Member
Any ball will bounce erratically. This is hardly unique to .52s. On the other hand, if a .52 hits you it will do FAR less damage than a .44 or classic M.

I've used them for years and I don't think they bounce any more erratically than any other ball.

Seen more injuries since we've switched to 52s then when we had 44s. However the injuries aren't as severe. With the exclusion of the person having surgery to the nose and face from taking a shot to the face while playing 3b last year. That was a 52. Worse facial injury I've ever seen in ball. I've never witnessed so much blood before and I've seen quite a few motorcycle wrecks.
 

Muscles220

Addicted to Softballfans
Any ball will bounce erratically. This is hardly unique to .52s. On the other hand, if a .52 hits you it will do FAR less damage than a .44 or classic M.

I've used them for years and I don't think they bounce any more erratically than any other ball.

They don't bounce more erratically, but they bounce higher and harder.
 

Muscles220

Addicted to Softballfans
The .52/275's favor bat speed more than harder balls do. A big strong guy swinging a heavy endloaded bat at average speeds is going to loose more distance than any guy swinging any bat at very high speeds. A small guy swinging a light balanced bat at average speeds wasn't hitting many HR's anyway. I still like a heavy bat when I hit .52's, but my heaviest bats stay in the closet. Some guys notice a big difference, some guys notice none, and some guys even like the .52's.
 

ETDave

Old School
Hmmm...I play in an over fifty league that uses 52/300 and we have guys hitting them over pretty regular. It's fairly humid here in east Texas and almost always hot.
 

jbo911

Super Moderator
Staff member
Maybe stating the obvious here but.... They obviously fly better in cooler temps. I have seen guys complain that they feel like they are getting a hold of a ball and it doesn't travel like you just said. I'm a bigger dude with a lot of power and I haven't exactly noticed a difference offensively in terms of the ball not traveling. I haven't experienced that moment where I thought it was gone and it wasn't. But I probably have hit some that should have gone further. These ****ter balls though maybe turning some guys from home run hitters into warning track guys. Any way you slice it, the 52/300 suck and are dangerous when playing defense.

65 degrees is fairly cool.

They don't bounce any higher, or harder (not really sure what that actually means) than the 47s we used to play with. I think people are used to playing with the dead 40 cors and they still try to field them the same way. I have seen way more Classic M's skip along the ground and then jump up over the fielders head than the Pluses. The Pluses at least normally bounce the whole way so you can try and time a hop.
 
The infields we play on are so uneven and choppy anyway it doesn't matter what ball you're using. You're going to get some bad hops.

That's the same around here and that's what I've always credited the bad hoops to, never thought it had anything to do with the ball.
 

Zarkoff500

Addicted to Softballfans
I haven't noticed a huge performance difference with 52's depending on the temperature. I've hit them from freezing temps to 90+ and although the synthetic covers on the Dudley's get softer when hot, they balls still travel well.
 

Hiltz

Built for comfort
If anything I hit slightly MORE HRs during the hottest months of the year now because the .52s don't lose as much carry in the heat as the .44s did.

Same here. We switched to .52's from .40/400 Gray Dots, those things were dismal in the dead of summer. And bat-breakers in the fall.

I've found that guys with a level/slight uppercut had zero issues when we switched. It was the guys that had the big uppercuts and muscled balls out that had problems.
 

EdFred

every day I'm shovelin'
But until they are priced as cheap as the Worth's no league around here is going to buy them. Hell, even ASA here in MI is the "Worth Power Series" Guess which balls we get to hit in that.
 

pj3p

Senior Power Hitter :-)
Is this how you win a poll? :rolleyes:
It would seem that from reading the actual posts that two other balls seem more popular. And no I didn't vote in the poll.

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