Grumpy pointed out this YouTube vid, in which a swordsman cuts a flying BB in half.  Drawing from the scabbard, no less.

For those of you who play airsoft, you're aware that over a distance of 50 feet, the flight of a BB varies up-and-down by a foot or more, and it's curving quite a bit at the end, in unpredictable directions (no rifling of the barrel).

Am sure it took the swordsman quite a few takes :- ) but I could do that for a year and never come close...

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Heard of some NPB star who used to hang a piece of paper, or somesuch, from the ceiling and then practice hitting the edge of it with a katana. 

If you've never tried doing this, you might be surprised at how tough it is to get the edge of the katana (from the scabbard especially) to a horizontal area even 1/2 inch tall, much less 1/32, etc.  The hand-eye coordination is much, MUCH tougher than it looks.  At least for me it is :- )

So, on Japanese baseball chat boards, you often see reference to "Fukudome being able to cut a mosquito in half," etc.  That's how a lot of fans watch the swing.

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Edgar was amazing, but Ichiro's even a little better than Edgar was, IMHO.  If American observers had been watching for this particular capacity -- the ability to deliver the blade to 1/8 inch -- Ichiro wouldn't have had any skeptics in 2001.

And Ichiro does this, taking a verr-rr-y long swing with his default AB.  He's not using a pepper swing to "cover" the baseball.  That may be why it seems like he hits an HR every time he tries.  The sheer ability to catch the ball at just the right spot, is extra class with him.

My vote for the MLB hitters who would fare best at such a contest -- delivering a katana to a hair's width -- would be Ichiro, Manny, and Pujols.  Not sure that fans realize just how good Manny's pure swordsmanship :- ) is.

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The guy from history that I'd like to see would be Joe DiMaggio.  He hit 361 homers and struck out 389 times, and if he'd played somewhere other than Yankee, he'd have hit more HR's than he had K's.  This in an era when the strike zone was shoulders to knees.

He took a huge, back-leg rip at the ball, lined XBH's all over the park ... imagine what it must have looked like, pitching to him.  It must have felt like trying to throw the ball past the catcher.

I guess we know why he retired at age 36.  Check his HR/K ratio that year.   From age 21 to 35 he slugged .600, and then all of a sudden at age 36 he slugged .400.   There isn't always a transition year for guys mid-30's and past.

Oddly, at age 36, the Clipper became Franklin Gutierrez, and retired in shame.  :- )  Literally.  (No disrespect to Guti.  DiMag would have retired if he'd become Ichiro, too.)

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My fave DiMag year:  1941.   He walked 76 times, fanned 13, and had 84 extra-base hits.   Mull that season over, and then check Teddy Ballgame's stats in 1941. 

How did guys hit for that kind of power without striking out?  Teddy worked super deep counts, hit 500-foot tape-measure shots like this one, and fanned only 40-50 times a year. 

When Teddy was 41 years old, he hit 29 homers, fanned 41 times, and posted a 190 OPS+.  People who were around him swore that at 50 years old, Teddy was better than most major leaguers.  Why did he retire?  In My Turn At Bat, he wrote about his power going.  He was leaving a few balls on the warning track.

The 1941 MVP call went to DiMag.   Ages 36-41 went the other way.

Thanks Grump,

Dr D