What if a pitcher threw a ball at 90% the speed of light?

The Behind the Black blog links to an amusing scenario called relativistic baseball.

The answer turns out to be “a lot of things”, and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter (or the pitcher). I sat down with some physics books, a Nolan Ryan action figure, and a bunch of videotapes of nuclear tests and tried to sort it all out. What follows is my best guess at a nanosecond-by-nanosecond portrait:

As Carl Sagan would say, It would Buh low Up!