How to return control to physics

Hi. If I animated a character throwing a ball do I have to animated the balls entire animation? Or can I at some point disengage timeline from controlling the ball and let physics take over?

e.g. I animated a character's throw animation.. I animate the ball going along the same path as the arm, then when throw animation is over I animate the ball flying at a certain direction.

At some point the ball will hit a wall and bound and gravity also should affect it, however animating all that would be a pain, it would be good if I can let physics take complete control after the ball leaves the hand.

How would we do that in Timeline?

 

How about parenting. Let's say I want the ball to be parented to the character's hand for some time.. then when thrown I want it to be unparented. Then later on the character picks up the ball again so I need to parent it again. Would I also write a custom script for the timeline for that?

Thank you.