CATCHING A GRAPE IN YOUR MOUTH DROPPED FROM 101 FEET HIGH.

CATCHING A GRAPE IN YOUR MOUTH DROPPED FROM 101 FEET HIGH. Tyler Cowan on the Marginal Revolution site reports here on the feat of catching a grape dropped from 101 feet high in your mouth. The grapes were walnut sized and dropped from a hot air balloon. Here is a report by Maggie Cassidy in a local newspaper, the Valley News in Vermont. There is also a video. There were a lot of misses and Brent Fraser, who caught the grape, wound up with most of his face covered with purple juice. There is a discussion of the physics involved in the comments on Marginal Revolution. Apparently, it felt like being punched in the face.

I was interested in this effort because it reminded me of an old baseball story I posted on here. Wilbert Robertson, who played in the majors in the early 1900’s, tried to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, and “…someone (many say it was Casey Stengel) substituted a grapefruit, which exploded on impact. With his eyes shut and his chest wringing wet, Robinson believed himself covered with his own blood until he heard his team laughing.”