I remember reading an article about Walter Johnson, a Hall of Fame pitcher from that era. He was considered the hardest-throwing pitcher of his time, and legend had him compared to more modern counterparts like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. This article was a combination of a historical retrospect and a scientific analysis of Johnson's windup on grainy videotapes, and the experts who conducted the study figured out that he probably threw a baseball around 80-85 miles per hour.
I suspect The Big Train was faster than that. (That’s another thing — where are the great nicknames?)
Walter Johnson may be the greatest pitcher of all time.
(BTW, there is a high school in Bethesda named after him. Most of the students have no idea who he was.)
But back then, they didn’t place so much emphasis on velocity. Pitcher were pitchers, not speed machines. Gaylord Perry got to the Hall of Fame on junkballs. So did a lot of other pitchers. Carl Hubbell got there on ba screwball, which he threw so often that in pictures,, you can see his left hand (his throwing hand) facing teh “wrong” way.