StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Baseball - Home Run Physics

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice learn why it’s so hard to hit one out of the park, Guests: Geoff Blum, the Chicago White Sox legend and announcer for the Houston Astros, and Alan M. Nathan, Professor Emeritus of Physics.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on:TuneIn: http://www.tunein.com/playingwithscienceApple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceGooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Today, we take a look at the science behind the moonshot, the kind that's powered by the bat rather than a Saturn V. Yes, and guess what, listeners? Today it's all about the home run. The physics of the bat, the ball, the brain.

And letting fly with the science will be physics professor Alan Nathan from the University of Illinois. But first, you know, if you've ever wondered what it's like. You have. Yeah. Well, you know what, but you haven't wondered, like, too much because you're a professional athlete. Oh, yeah, but there's certain things you want to do in your life.

That's so true. And one of them is probably the hardest thing they say it is to do in all of sports, which is hit a Rome run. Yes. Yeah. Actually, take a bat. You hit it that far, it goes to Italy. Go to Rome.

Find a guy who is jogging, whacking with a bat. That's called a Rome run. Of course, we're talking about a home run. But then take that. Yeah. And then put it in the setting of a World Series. And then put it in the setting of, I don't know, the last inning.

Maybe the 14th inning. What do you get? Well, we're going to find out today. Oh, yeah, because with us in the studio is none other than the Chicago White Sox legend, the man with his own bronze statue. Yes, Jeff Blum. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Good to be here.

Thank you for having me. Did we embarrass you? Not enough. Yeah, well, I got plenty more. All right. Yeah, OK. We're going to lay it on. Yeah, man.

That's just something else. OKenty more. All right. Yeah. Okay. We're going to lay it on. Yeah, man. That's just something else. Okay. So here we go. When you go up on deck, do you know this one is leaving the park or is it just in the hands of the gods? Or do you have a sense? Like, I feel like, like I feel it. I feel really good.

You know what? It's kind of funny that you talk about that because they had me miked up in batting practice before the game. Really? And I know that we're in a National League ballpark where the pitcher's going to hit. I know there's potential double switch, pinch hit, all kinds of issues that'll create, that get me in the game. And they had me mic'd up and I'm taking batting practice and I'm yelling at the batting practice pitcher. I'm like, would you please give me better pitches so I can try and hit them out of the

ballpark? You know, I'm trying for home runs and who would have thought, you know, five and a half, six hours later, I'd have the opportunity and follow through. Yeah. I'm not saying I called it, but I'm saying I had a pretty good feeling about it. So, you know, we're actually making the assumption that those who are listening and those watching us on StarTalk All Access know that we're talking about the fact that Jeff is a former Major League Baseball infielder. He's a current announcer for the Houston Astros. Shit, let me say that again. He is currently the announcer for the Houston Astros

and an analyst for MLB at the plate on TuneIn Radio. But specifically what we're referring to is that as a World Series champion for the Chicago White Sox in 2005, Jeff, in the 14th inning of the longest game in fall classic history, came to the plate and knocked a ball out of the park to win the game. So why don't we take a look at that? Longest game in the World Series history. Blum hits it into right, down the line. It is gone.

Jeff Blum, the former Astro, goes deep. Oh, man. And here at the 15th inning, the White Sox take a 6-5 lead. Yeah, might I add, that doesn't get old. No, it doesn't. And I love the look on a pitcher's face when he's like, Dismal. I don't know if they'll have a clip of it,

but the best part was the manager, Phil Garner, for the Houston Astros literally picked up his bar stool he was sitting on and fired it into the tunnel. So there was a lot of anger and aggression. How slow can you run the bases once you've dinged? What's crazy is I was on

the Astros team two years prior. I mean, a year and a half prior. So I knew a lot of guys on that team. So there was a little bit of, oh, hell yeah. And then at the same time going, oh man, my boys are in the other dugout. So it's kind of ironic that I had to hit it against them. Did you already have the read on the pitcher?

Did you know what he was going to do? I had a pretty good idea. Well, you know what? In knowing that I played for that team, I knew they had the scouting report on me. So I knew what they were going to avoid. And that place where he threw the baseball is the last place you want to pitch me. Because one place where I don't have to think and I can just react is that down and in fastball. Do you think he read that report? Yeah. And I think that's why everybody in the dugout

snapped when I hit that home run because they knew exactly where it was going as soon as I put the ball on it. Right. Whoops. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bad pitch. Yeah. Okay. Here's what's funny. Go ahead. I'm sorry. You made it look so pedestrian. You know, it's a down and in pitch, and the way you just, it was like a day at the office. You literally went down, scooped this ball, and it's like, this is like, it's almost like it was a script for you. I appreciate it. Maybe it was. I didn't write it, but I know somebody out there did, and I'm grateful for it. But no, that's what I mean. It was just a reaction for me. I was actually mentally thinking on the outer third of the plate because I know that's where they wanted to pitch me. Right.

But as soon as I recognized down and in, it was an easy reaction for me to go there. Okay, so you recognize this. It's sub four-tenths of a second, hand to bat. What are you looking for? And as that information transmits itself to you, what are you calculating and what part of the pitch do you get that information before you're into the swing and the connection? There's a lot going on there, but it's also repetition and experience. I've stood in that box thousands of times. I mean,

I hate to bring up all the outlier stuff, but the 10,000 times you've done it before, it becomes a reaction. And as a hitter, you recognize spin, you recognize release point. It's a little bit harder to pick up speed sometimes, but the scouting report and a lot of the tendencies that we have on pitchers and a lot of the video we watch can give us enough information to kind of prepare us for that. And it was a 2-0 count, so I went in there with the intention of taking at least one pitch because I'd never faced Zekiel Astacio.

So I decided to take a pitch so I could recognize ball out of hand, his delivery, the timing, and try and get all that. You played him. Yeah. Well, I mean, you try to. That's what you do. But I took the, in a 2-0 count, and that's another thing, understanding that a 2-0 count is typically a fastball count. So what you're trying to do is narrow down, say the guy has three pitches and you've got, the first pitch, you've got 33% chance of being right. In a 2-0 count, it goes, you know, 80 to 100% chance of being right. So I lucked out in the fact that I got ahead in the count 2-0 and he was going to try and throw me a fastball. It just so happens that he missed his spot. So I had the pitch, but then when I recognized location, it just made it that much easier. So talk about the chess match, because now you're talking about when you're facing a pitcher and the actual count means a great deal to you as a hitter because I think the count gives you the advantage.

You know, when you're ahead in the count as a batter, I think that's very much your advantage. So talk about that as a hitter when you're ahead in the count, what that does to the chess match and what that does to your anticipation. Well, OO counts are a little bit different, but after that first pitch, you kind of get an idea of what's going to happen next, because a lot of guys do have tendencies. And I know in my career, in my personal experience, that's something else you have to take into account. If a pitcher facing me gets into a one ball, no strike count, I know I'm going to get an off speed pitch. Right. Just through experience, because they're anticipating then mentally that I'm sitting on a fastball. So they're anticipating me gearing up for 92, 95 miles an hour and what they want to

do, change speed, change spin, get a little break on the baseball and maybe a swing and miss, or I ground out, pop out, something out, you know, something negative. How does it take you as a major league player to get to that level of data in your own mind to be able to just dial it up and bring it forward? And are you storing that data on each pitcher that you face? Like, are you going to your own mental reservoir? Yeah. You know, what's crazy is, I mean, I'll refer to some things. I remember that AB, you know, pitch by pitch. We had Jeff Bagwell in our booth the other day. He's going to the Hall of Fame, but he hit 449 home runs. And literally, we showed a video of two or three home runs back in 1989, and he recalled the at-bats. So the memory on these guys

is unbelievable. Obviously, it's a positive outcome. Yeah, I was going to say, do you remember the strikeouts as well? No. It's funny. On the other end of this equation is the pitcher. And we did a show with Ron Darling, the former Mets pitcher. He is like an elephant. It is. It's amazing. He just goes through. He broke down several pitches from years back.

And I'm looking at him thinking. Yeah. It's amazing. And is that because of the experience of being in there? Is it such a hypersensitive experience that it's just kind of burned into your mind indelibly? Or is that kind of like a muscle memory type deal where you're so highly focused on what you're doing that it makes it easy to recall those things? I think it's a little of both, but you've got to remember at the same time, this is our job. This is my life. Not my life, but my career is on the line. So in order for me to continue in this career, I've got to remember at the same time, this is our job. This is my life. Not my

life, but my career is on the line. So in order for me to continue in this career, I've got to be pretty good at it. So there's different mechanisms. I know guys that have gone through it, bats, gone back and have a notebook in the dugout. They'll write down pitch by pitch what's going on. You don't have to do that anymore these days because of the technology. You've got a team of analysts to do it for you. Literally, they do. They travel with four or five video guys who are tracking every single pitch, and you can recall it on the computer just like that. So that's kind of nice.

But it is experience. You need that knowledge. So going into the at-bat, obviously, if you're facing a guy for the first time, you have an idea, but you're going to start locking away some of that stuff in your memory bank because you know you will face these guys four to 20 times throughout the course of your career. Supposedly the most difficult single act in sport. Yeah, they say it's the hardest thing to do.

Round ball, round bat, and am I right? You hit it square? Well, that's the phrase. That's the whole phrase. That's the whole thing. Now, is it something that is as difficult once you're on the plate as it looks and we're told it is from way back in the stadium way back at home and tv well it's so hard that you can fail 70 of the

time and be considered a hall of famer jobs out there can you screw up 70 of the time and they pat you on the back and go great job so that gives you an idea right there but yeah that's just getting a hit yeah that's just yeah that's just getting a hit. Yeah, that's just hitting, making contact with the ball. That's actually being safe 30% of the time. Yeah, you're right. You can literally do everything right and hit it right at somebody and get nothing to show for it. Right.

Yeah, so there's a lot going on. But it is one of the hardest things. You talk about the timing. Yeah. I mean, I asked Ron Darling this question. I said, no matter what you threw, was there one guy had your number every time? Every single time. He said, no matter what you threw, was there one guy had your number every single time? He said, yes. So the reverse of that is, was there one pitcher always threw you the kryptonite?

Oh, yeah. No, Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown, for me, was an absolute beast. And it was kind of funny because it was my rookie year, I believe, in 99. And he threw me a sinker about 94, 95 miles an hour. And I hit a bullet at the shortstop. And he lays out and makes a great play on me. And from that A-B on, he threw me nothing but split-fingered fastballs. Oh, my God. And I could not square him up for the life of me. I couldn't figure him out.

Do you know what the DJ was angry about the people in the mound? You say besides the fact he was angry as hell in the mound. Does that actually play into the psychological back and forth when you see— It does a little bit. You know the Randy Johnsons? Yes. There was Darryl Kyle was an extremely angry guy on the mound, but Kevin Brown for me. I mean, he was literally snorting smoke coming out of his ears.

How do you deal with a guy? How do you deal with a guy that brings that temperament to the mound as a hitter? There's a lot of psychology. You've got to step in and kind of trick him into the sense that you're not afraid of what he's bringing. Right. But that sometimes is the hardest part. And when you do that, can you get him maybe to throw a different pitch? Because he's just like, oh, you think you're so damn hot shit? Oh, sorry. I don't know where I just went there. Stuff. Stuff. I don't think you can say hot

on a podcast like this. That's it, yeah. Yeah, but can you get a guy kind of get in his head and he's like, oh, really, Mr. Hot Stuff? Really? Well, watch this. You know, what's funny is you have A-B's against guys that own you and you foul one, you see a guy foul a ball straight back. And the fan at home and some of the analysts, even I do sometimes go, wow, he just missed that. But what they don't realize is I grabbed the middle part of my bat where it hit off the pine tar. And I'm trying to cover up the fact that if I actually would have hit that thing he would have shattered my bat into a thousand pieces right so I'm trying to play it off like man I just missed that right right miss that pitch you know and then the hit then it makes him think makes the catcher think and they're going wow he was on that pitch maybe

we'll go to something else right it actually works out to your favor okay you mentioned the bats and you know the fact that they will split if they're hitting the wrong. Not knowing, and this is a very naive, innocent question on my behalf, when you pick a bat up, will the sweet spot or the balance in the bat be different to the next one you pick up? Are they very, or is it all just standardized? Oh, no, it's completely different from model to model. So not every guy in the lineup, not every guy on every team around the major leagues will swing the same exact model bat. Oh, yeah.

Because the shape of it's different, the weight of it's different, the length is different. Am I correct in this? I've seen actual, just speaking to what you just said right there, and maybe I'm seeing this, but I've seen guys actually take two bats in the same hand, I mean, in different hands, and then put one down and pick the other one up. Is that for show? I mean, what's going on there? That's a sponsorship deal. He throws the one he's not sponsored by and he's like, this one. Exactly. It depends. Am I four for my last 10 or am I O for my last 20?

So, I mean, the psychology gets in there because am I going good? Am I going bad? Because when you're going good, you can pick up a microphone stand and go out there and get a hit. But, uh, you know, there are differences and it's funny because you will order, you know, I was a B392 guy. I had my own bats made. So I P I would pick up two different bats out of the same box and I could tell which one was heavier or lighter. Cool. That for me. So you're never, it's never one of those things because the guy will intuitively go. He knows exactly what he wants. He knows exactly what the play scenario is.

So he's going to choose a bat that gives him a little bit more advantage in that. I mean, was it Babe Ruth had the big, heavy club? All those guys back in the day. It was amazing. Swung lumber. You could hear stories. I mean, literally swinging tree trunks. They were massive. Everybody thought that the bigger the bat, the bigger the hit.

That seemed to be the... You get it going, yeah, you get it going towards the zone. If you get something that large to make contact, it's going to go. It's going to go. Talk about exit velocity, and that's got to come out of the swing. So, you know, from your point of view, what was your asset on hitting this one out the ballpark? You know, what's crazy is when I played, when I played, they didn't talk about launch angles.

They didn't talk about exit velocities. It was how do I get the barrel of the bat to the baseball as fast as I can. It's all about contact. It was everything pre-contact. Now everything is post-contact that creates the home run, supposedly. So the psychology and the thought process

of hitting has completely changed. It's great for me because now I can sit back and not worry about having to do it. I can actually learn and talk to it a little bit. So it's a lot of fun for me. Now that you say that, I definitely want to know, who is it right now that you would hate to face right now who's on the mound, and who is it right now that you would just love to face? I don't know about that. I haven't seen my swing in about four or five years. We're giving you the perfect swing. on the mound, and who is it right now that you would just love to face?

I don't know about that. I haven't seen my swing in about four or five years. We're giving you the perfect swing. I'm saying if there's a guy out there throwing 88 to 92 miles an hour, let me have a shot at him because there's a guy in the bullpen right now for the New York Yankees, Aroldis Chapman, averaging 100-plus miles an hour. I want absolutely no part of that. But he was with the Cubs. Yeah, last year.

The three-digit pitcher, and what is it? They clocked him at 106 when he was in the AAA. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, that does not make any sense to me. So now, do you think that makes somebody unhittable? What makes somebody unhittable? Do you think, like, that sheer speed?

Or is it movement? Well, you can argue the fact that Greg Maddox was one of the greatest pitchers of all time, and he threw 88 miles an hour consistently, but he had unbelievable movement. So if you can create velocity and movement, I think you're going to be one of the few guys in all of baseball. So what about a guy like Mariano? He's retired now, but is that... That was a guy you anticipated, and think about what he did. He's going to the Hall of Fame, but he had one pitch. Yep.

Like, literally, you sat down on the scouting report, and it said he's going to throw a cut fastball 92 to 95 miles an hour. Go get him. Right. And you can't. He would blow me up every time hitting left-handed. I could not get the barrel out fast enough to make good contact on the sweet spot because he created so much good late movement.

Late movement. I couldn't anticipate it. You'd see it in one spot, start your swing, and it would immediately change and blow you up. That's the whole gunslinger. This high noon thing. How about that for intimidation, saying, I can tell you what I'm doing. One pitch, deal with it.

Ever have a favorite ballpark for you in the home runs? Just hitting period. Colorado. I was playing before the humidor was brought into play. Yeah, we'll get into that with our next episode. I'm kind of curious about that, too, because, I mean, there are some questions about how does humidity affect the baseball and things like that.

We're getting into that. Look at you setting us up with awesome segways for the rest of the show. I'm just trying to do my part, man. That's all I'm trying to do. But, no, Colorado had no friction in that thin air. And I mean, there were plenty of times, there were a couple of times I missed getting a sack bunt down

and it was an 0-2 count. And I thought I got jammed on a ball and it went out of the ballpark. Everybody's high-fiving me. And I'm like, you guys have no idea how bad I just hit that ball and it went out of the ballpark. So I loved hitting there. No, that's great.

That's great. Home run by mistake. Yeah, it was the best. Aren't they? Freeze. Free home runs. That's so great. All's great. Home run by mistake. Who's the best? Freeze. Free home runs. That's so great. All right, we will take a break. Up next, oh yeah, the physics behind the home run.

Stick around. As Jeff said, he needs to know. I'm sure you do too. See you shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this, of course, is Playing With Science. Today, we're talking home run science.

And to give us the players' perspective, we have former Major League infielder and White Sox legend Jeff Blum. That's right. And joining us now by video call to help us wrap our heads around the physics is Professor Alan Nathan. Alan, welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm very fine. Thank you.

Glad to be with you. Yes, we're glad to have you. Of course, Alan is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Illinois, and he spent a decade studying the physics of baseball. Check him out at baseball.physics.illinois.edu. So let's just get into the anatomy of a home run and for you alan this is what i want to know are there any parallels between experimental nuclear physics and hitting a home run well back back when i was actually uh on our on the regular faculty i'm now, I used to tell people that because that way I could tell

people that I was studying physics and still really doing my job. So look, there are some analogies in the sense that the ball bat collision is basic physics. I mean, and the same physics applies to the ball bat collision as applies to the collision of subatomic particles. So in that sense, there is some overlap and, you know, the same kinds of laws of physics apply. Of course, the context is very, very different. Jeff, this doesn't mean you're a nuclear weapon, just in case you're worried about it. There you go, put that one to rest. All right, Professor, can you break down the anatomy and the aerodynamics of the before and after of a home run so we can

get some real nitty gritty science? In terms of, you know, what needs to happen, you know, going to the bat towards the plate and then what needs to happen at the plate and then what needs to happen afterwards? Okay, sure. So the ball is coming in. If it's released, let's say for the sake of argument, it's a really good fastball released at maybe 95 miles an hour, 94 or something like that. By the time it gets to home plate, it's going a bit slower. It's probably going more like 85 miles an hour because air drag slows it down. And it's falling. It's descending at maybe, for a fastball, it probably is coming into home plate at maybe a six or seven degree angle. It's descending. Okay. So the batter's job is to get the bat in the right place at the right time, at the right location on the bat itself with a high bat speed. Bat speed is basically the thing that matters most in terms of how hard that ball will be hit. And of course, how hard that ball will be hit along with the launch angle is what determines how far that ball will be hit. And of course, how hard that ball will be hit along with the launch angle

is what determines how far that ball will go and therefore whether it's a home run or not. So the batter's job is a pretty difficult one. At least for me, it would be difficult for major league players is maybe not as difficult because you don't have a lot of time to react. It might take something like four tenths of a second from release until the ball gets to home plate. And not all that time is available to the batter in terms of observing the pitch. I mean, you have to decide by roughly halfway through that, you know, roughly two-tenths of a second, you have to make a decision. Am I going to swing or am I not going to swing? If I swing, how am I going to swing? Is the pitch going to be, you know, on the low side,

high side, inside, outside? The swing itself takes something like 0.15 seconds. I mean, typically, I mean, sort of on average for a major hitter. So, you know, you take, you subtract that 0.15 from the 0.4 that you have altogether. You don't, you know, you take you subtract that point one five from the point four that you have altogether. You don't you know, you get point three. So there's plenty of time. Basically, you've got plenty of time to make up your mind about how you're going to go about this thing. Right. You probably have a cup of coffee, you know, and friends a little bit. And and then, oh, yeah. And here comes the ball. So, you know, you you you really have to process that information very, very quickly.

And basically, I think that's what batters are doing. They see the pitch. They see the pitch at release. They observe it. They essentially transmit that information to their brain, and they have some memory lookup table. to their brain and they have some memory lookup table, they're comparing it to pitches, similar pitches that they've seen before and using that to make their decision about what that pitch is going to do and therefore whether they should swing it. Well, you know what?

Let's hold on for one second because this is fascinating. And we have a major league baseball home run World Series hitter in the room. Legend. Legend. A man who has a bronze statue of himself. They in the room. Legend. Legend. A man who has a bronze statue of himself. They like the idea of that. They liked him very much in Chicago. But, Jeff, can you speak to the things that Professor just told us?

No, I think what he's talking about, and I actually appreciate it. I should have put him on my PR team to try and explain how hard it actually is. But, you know, I have a whole new appreciation now watching what these guys do. But a lot of what Alan is talking about now is actually provided by Major League Baseball for us to actually look at. And they can instantaneously look at, they don't necessarily look at bat speed, but they can give you the exit velocity, launch angle, and they can calculate hit probability, number one, and then they can go ahead and estimate the distance because of adding those two things together. So it's a lot of fun for me to look at. What do you change the launch angle depending on

which park you're playing in? That's what's crazy. You could probably put Alan in a batting cage right now and tell these guys, you want to try and hit a launch angle. And again, the pitch is coming downhill. So you've got to change your bat angle almost into an uppercut to make contact with this. But these guys are talking about how to create a launch angle that will deliver a long fly ball that Alan is talking about. It's incredible. Wow. That's insane. But does the theory translate into the bat in your hands? Does it really work? I don't know because I grew up in an age of swing down on the ball to get the ball in the air. Right. You know, and they're not, they're kind of shifting away from that because of the launch angles that Alan's talking about. So is there more, Alan, uh, professor, maybe if I call

you that, with a lot of the spin? Probably, yeah. All right, Alan. Alan, it is, sir. So now there's a lot of spin going on on a pitch and will a batter like Jeff use that backspin to his advantage to maybe create that that angle that trajectory that we're looking for and does it make a difference uh as you change the spin on a pitch to to what happens to the ball when it comes off the bat yeah that that's actually a very interesting question and something that I've actually spent some effort trying to study. It turns out that when you do careful measurements in the laboratory of ball back collisions and you sort of ask the question, how much does the spin of a batted ball, which is really what matters in terms of the trajectory, the flight of the ball, the carry of the ball. How does that depend on the pitch of the flight of the ball, the carry of the ball. How does that depend on the pitch of the spin of the pitch ball? It turns out not all that much, okay? It turns out not all

that much. So, yeah, it is. And it's in a way, it's a little bit of a surprising result. But when you look into the physics of it, you can sort of make sense of it in terms of collision models and things like that. But it's for sure not an obvious result. OK. And so, you know, for example, it was thought, you know, maybe a decade ago that a, you know, a curveball has topspin, a fastball has backspin, and that would lead to some difference in the spin of a batted ball. And there was speculation about that. People even wrote papers about it, but it was all speculation. There wasn't any data that you could use to verify. But now we have data that seems to suggest that the spin of the batted ball really is not greatly dependent on the spin. So you know what? And please forgive me if what I'm about to say makes no sense at all.

Will it take us off the air? I believe what it will do is just end baseball as we know it, if what I'm about to say is not right. But what just popped into my mind was a point of contact. So where you have the spin on the ball that will change the trajectory in flight as it comes towards the bat, the point of contact is going to just be this one single point of contact on the ball and one single point of contact on the bat. And then it's almost as if that writes an entirely new chapter for the flight of the ball leaving the bat. As a result, the spin of the ball on the way into the bat would not have that much of an effect because

that point of contact is going to be the same no matter what. Am I crazy for making this hypothesis right here on the spot? No, actually, what you said makes a lot of sense. You've explained, you know, in a lot of words, sort of what I have observed experimentally. I wouldn't have tried to say it any better myself. You did a nice job. All right, guess what? Here's the deal. I quit. I'm going off to become a scientist. That's the end. No, I'm joking. Will you want to take my class next week? I would love to take your class. That is something I would pay money to watch.

Oh, teach your class. No, I don't want to do that. You explained it very well. Okay, Alan, we talk about the bats, the batter hitting with the sweet spot, and we've spoken to a couple of batters in Major League, and they tell me when you connect and you hit it on the sweet spot, you't feel any vibration it's almost an invisible hit yeah

all right looking at that from that point of view and this is something remember we spoke to JPR and Sibia yes he said when he hit the seams on the ball not only did it indent into the wood into the bat but he got a harder contact. Yes. So firstly, Alan, if you can talk to that, and then Jeff, I'm going to come back to you and see what you think about the same question. So first, before you get into that, can you just tell us what is the sweet spot? And then answer the question about what Gary just asked.

Yeah. Okay. So the bat is not a rigid body. It can vibrate. And when the ball, so the sweet spot is the location. I mean, the simple way to say it is, it's the location along the length of the bat where when the ball hits there, there's essentially no vibration. You don't feel it in your hands. And you know, it really, if you hit, you know, on the tip of the bat or you hit way on the inside part of the bat, you know that that can sting. I mean, sometimes. And nowadays with high speed.

Jeff, by the way, Jeff, Jeff is in studios shaking his head, like shaking his head and shaking his hand. Like you have no idea. We call it a handful of bees. A handful of bees. I like that. It probably doesn't feel very well. And nowadays in major league games, oftentimes you have high-speed video. And it's dramatic the kind of vibrations that you actually see in the bat when the ball is not hitting on the sweet spot of the bat.

So the sweet spot is, there are many definitions of the sweet spot, but they all amount to about the same thing. It's the place where the vibrations are the least, so it feels best. It also is the location, whenever the bat vibrates, that represents energy that the ball transferred to the bat and therefore less energy for the ball to have on its way out. So it's also the best place in terms of exit speed. To get the highest exit speed, you want the sweet spot. So those two points on the bat or regions of the bat pretty much coincide. That's why it's the sweet spot.

But now you have the science as to why. Right. That's it. So, Jeff, if you hit the seams on a ball as opposed to the leather between, how much of a difference, and for your point of view, why? I'm actually pretty impressed that he knows that he's hitting the seams. I had no idea when I was hitting the seams. I think he looked at his bat and he just saw the indentation.

It is the indentation, but at the moment I have no idea that that's happening. All I'm trying to do is get that barrel to go through the zone as fast as I possibly can. And that's, as a hitter, the idea. You are focused on that sweet spot, and that's how do I get that through the zone as quick as I possibly can. But with the seams hitting the barrel, I know we're going to get it into the maple wood, ash wood. But the grain, if you hit against the grain on an ash bat, you're also going to hit the hard side of the bat. So you're trying to create a connection,

but I like the word collision, of the sweet spot of the bat with the hardest piece of the bat. So along the grain with the seams on the baseball is going to increase your chances. That is fascinating. I mean, just the fact that all these variables are coming together at one single point to create this event is just mind-blowing. You need to be an expert in timber and lumber and grain.

Right. And amazingly enough, ballplayers actually do know a lot about the actual wood itself. Cool. Well, we'll get into that a little later. So let me ask you this, both of you. Okay, Professor Yu and Jeff. There is, and I've heard this myself, there is a certain crack of the bat. I don't know if it happens because you make the association because the ball leaves the park and now you make the association that that was a different sound that you heard because you just saw a home run. But there seems to be a certain sound that the ball and the bat makes that when you're in a ballpark, you're like, oh, snap, that's a home run. See ya, baby.

Like something happened. Am I wrong or can you hear a home run? Absolutely. Oh, snap. I can have my head down up in the booth and you hear it and I immediately know that that ball is well struck. Whether or not it's going to go out of the ballpark depends on launch angles and things like that.

But instantly, even if a guy taking batting practice, I can have my back turned to the batting cage. And if I hear a certain crispness of the ball off the bat, you definitely know that the guy got a hold of one. Wow. So, Professor, is there a reason why there's a certain sound that a home run makes? Yes. And we're done. Like, yes, Chuck. And we're out of time. Thank you. Now, go ahead. hit ball, meaning a high exit velocity. Whether it's, as Jeff pointed out, whether it's a home

run will depend on the launch angle. But certainly a hard hit line drive is going to sound just like, you know, it's not going to sound any different than a hard hit home run. Okay. And so it's partly a signature of the fact that the ball, the bat hit the ball with high speed on the sweet spot of the bat. Okay. When you're, so partly it's the high speed of the bat, which gives rise to a high speed of the high exit speed for the ball. And the fact that it's on the sweet spot is important because when you're off the sweet spot, uh, the sound is really, uh, is different because of that vibration. You get sound, lower frequency sound.

See, this crack that you hear has to do with the collision time. The collision time between the ball and the bat is something like thousands of a second. And the sound that you're hearing has to do with the fact that the air that's between the ball and the bat gets pushed out of the way. And it's that, you know, you're setting up vibrations in the air, and that's what you're hearing. Oh, okay. It's like a little mini thunder. Yeah.

It's like a little mini thunder. God's announcement, this ball is about to leave the stadium. When you're off the sweet spot of the bat, there's two different things that goes on. First, the vibrations of the bat gives you some low-frequency sound that you could hear. And second, because the bat is more flexible when you're off the sweet spot, the collision time is a little bit longer. So that frequency spectrum shifts to a bit lower frequency.

Gotcha. And you don't hear that high frequency crack. Gotcha. don't hear that high frequency crack. So what Jeff is saying is what I think I've heard from other ballplayers that you can tell just from the sound. And I've even been told that if you're an outfielder and you hear that crack, your first step is backwards. Right. Makes sense. Because you, the ball is not high enough off the bat that you can actually see where it's going. So you have to make a,

you have to make an instantaneous reaction. And then when you hear the crack, your first step better be backwards. Nice. Nice. That's fantastic. And they're fabulous. Okay.

We are going to take another commercial break. Professor will be with us. professor will be with us. Jeff will be with us. When we come back, we'll get into balls and bats and their effects on hitting a homer here on Playing With Science. Stick around. We'll be back shortly. We're back, and it's Playing With Science,

and we're looking into the science behind hitting the home run with us in the studio, former Major League Baseball infielder and all-round legend in my book, Jeff Blum. And via video call, we have physics professor Alan Nathan, who spent the past decade studying the physics of baseball. So we couldn't have two better guests, really, could we, Chuck? No, we could not, especially. And this has been a fascinating show, I have to say. And my favorite part so far is the fact that my little theory on point of contact was correct.

Okay, Chuck's got a gold star. Chuck's got a gold star. All right, Professor, before we carry on, you have two photographs above your shoulder in black and white, and they are just wonderful. The one on the top, for people listening, you're just going to have to use your imagination. The one on top is who, sir? It's Ted Williams. All right. And the one on the bottom is?

Ted Williams. But the one on the bottom is a particular special moment in that man's career. Could you explain that to me, please? Yeah. So this is a photo taken September 28, 1960, which was Ted Williams' last game. Right. At Fenway Park. It was against the Orioles.

This was in the, I think it was the eighth or seventh or eighth inning. I don't remember now. But it was his last at bat as a major league ball player. And this is his last swing. And it went into the Red Sox bullpen for a home run. Wow. No wonder you have that, sir. That's a glorious moment to capture.

Right. It totally is. On with the show. All right, bat mass versus bat speed. No Batman at all in there. Who wins this one? Who wins this one? Professor, let's go with you first.

I'm sorry. That's an interesting question, question people have asked a lot you so uh it's and it comes up in lots of different contexts so if you if you have a lighter bat you're going to be able to swing it faster right and all other things being equal you'll be able to hit the ball harder however all other things are not equal because if the bat doesn't weigh as much, then there's less weight, if you like, behind that collision with the ball. Right. Likewise, if you use a heavier bat, you're going to get a lower bat speed. And but you're going to have a higher efficiency in the ball back collision. And so there's an

optimization, which one wins out. So the reason why this comes up in different contexts, for example, this comes up in the context of corking a bat, which as you know, is illegal. I was going to bring that up. Yeah. So batters who cork the bat, they're removing some of the weight in the barrel of the bat and just replacing it with cork. The cork itself doesn't do anything, but it's lighter than the wood. So you're lightening the bat. And you're able to get better bat speed, higher bat speed. However, your collision efficiency suffers as a result. And the net effect, according to all the studies

I've done and I've seen other people done, is that you end up with a lower exit speed altogether for most batters if you do that. So if your goal in life is to hit the ball harder, making the bat lighter will not do it for you. So now, Jeff, why don't you speak to us about, as a hitter in the major leagues, which one is better for you? Do you want a lighter bat? Do you want a heavier bat? And remember that, what was that movie? Was it called The Natural? Robert Redford.

And so he had the lightning bolt. Wonder bat. This wonder bat, you know what I mean? So what does it for you? Is it the heaviness of the bat or is it speed with which you want to swing it? It's kind of an evolution of guys thinking about bat speed, which is what the professor's talking about.

And I think the growing theory in baseball now is the faster the bat, the quicker you are through the zone. That will create a better velocity off the bat. And Babe Ruth swung a big bat. A lot of these guys playing in the 50s and 60s swung big bats. But now currently you're seeing guys go with bigger barrels, thinner handles, and that's why you're seeing the bats break more often. But I swung a bat that had a thicker handle and a thicker barrel because I wanted a more balanced bat

so I could swing a heavier bat, but it wouldn't create it. Stop bragging, Jeff. Stop bragging. But it wouldn't create, you know, not a trampoline effect, but the bat wouldn't bend. I wanted a more firm, denser piece of wood that wouldn't give when the ball made contact with my bat. Oh, okay. Now, speaking of that and the natural, so this mythical bat that was so magical, you know, made out of this incredibly hard wood and— Forged by lightning. and forged by lightning, forged by lightning, the gods themselves delivered this bat. So Professor and Jeff.

Could Robert Redford made it in the majors? Are you going to ask that question? Are you going to ask that question? The answer is yes, because he's just dreamy. So no one would care if he actually got a hit or not. just dreamy so no one would care if he actually got a hit or not but does the which would a softer would or a harder would make that much of a significance uh in terms of hitting the ball and where the ball will end up i believe it would professor fessa um i i look i hate to disagree with a professional but no please do i think i think here's where I think it makes a difference.

Okay. So Jeff talked about using a thicker bat. And, you know, and I think the one reason for using a thicker bat is that if when the ball is does not hit on the sweet spot then you're less likely to have vibrations with a thicker bat okay and with thicker heavier bat so i think i think for balls hit on the sweet spot uh the weight of the bat certainly matters but uh the thickness of the handle probably doesn't matter very much but it does matter for balls hit off the sweet spot for how it feels. So I think a thicker handle bat will be more forgiving for balls hit off the sweet spot. Now, in terms of the hardness of the wood, that's an interesting question.

Again, I think that primarily matters when balls are hit off the sweet spot. The softer wood is going to vibrate more than the harder wood. Nowadays, I think you have ash versus maple. Maple, I think, is harder than ash. Yeah. But people have done really, really careful studies trying to compare the performance of ash to maple ultimately in terms of exit speed. Okay, I'm going to say this. Aluminum.

This is just the most alien thing for me to say. Aluminum. And I'll say it this way. Aluminium. There you go. Which is a nice switch on us. So how about aluminium bats? Aluminium is different.

Okay. Sorry, sorry. Go on. Carry on, Professor. Okay. So the thing about an aluminium bat or a composite bat, which are basically used in amateur baseball, college, high school, whatever, is that they're hollow.

And the fact that they're hollow plays an enormous role. First of all, the weight distribution of the bat. The bat is not as top-heavy. If you took a wood bat and an aluminum bat of the same length and the same overall weight, the wood bat would sort of feel heavier because a larger fraction of that weight is in the barrel. In the barrel, right. You have a different weight distribution.

It would definitely feel different. You would be able to swing the aluminum bat faster because less of the weight is in the barrel. But you also suffer the same problem, okay, that you would, you know, by reducing the weight in the barrel. But the really key to how an aluminum bat performs is, Jeff alluded to it very briefly before, the so-called trampoline effect. Right. And to appreciate what that is, you have to realize that that ball bat collision is very, very violent.

And when the ball hits something that's sort of hard and rigid, sort of like a wood bat, that ball gets squished. If you look at high speed video, that ball gets really compressed. And that compression, you know, the fibers of the wool that's inside the ball are rubbing together and creating heat. And that represents energy that's lost. It's a very inefficient collision. Now, what's different about an aluminum bat is that when the ball hits an aluminum bat, since the wall of the bat is thin, okay, the follow, that bat can compress a little bit, okay? And so not all of the compression is taken up by compressing the ball, which is very inefficient. Some of it is taken up by compressing the ball, which is very inefficient. Some of it is taken up by compressing the wall of the bat, which is very effectively returned back to the ball.

So it's more like a, it's more like a slap shot than it is because the, the bat itself is kind of like in a hockey stick, the hockey, the hockey stick bends and becomes more like a catapult. So the bat, the bat actually acts like that in an aluminum bat. Yeah. In fact, with a slap shot in hockey, what you do is the hockey stick hits the ice first and bends it. And then it springs back to give an extra little push to that. A little kick point.

So an aluminum bat. It's like a trampoline. That's a trampoline. That's a trampoline effect in hockey. So you kind of get the same thing with an aluminum bat. That's a trampoline effect in hockey. So you kind of get the same thing with an aluminum bat. So, Jeff, would you rather hit with an aluminum bat? Yeah. Yeah.

It would be a lot more fun conversations about home runs if I was using an aluminum bat, but I would not want to be a pitcher and I would not want to be a third baseman because that ball would get on you so quick. I want to watch that game. That's the game I want to see. Okay. So, Jeff, you hear this term about the baseballs. Are they juiced?

So what can you do? Am I right in thinking that the height of the seams have altered on a baseball over years? Yeah, they have. I think they have, and I know they're different between amateur baseball and Major League Baseball, but it's because everybody gets better so they're trying to even the playing field and I know that the seams are flatter on a major league baseball it's not necessarily how it affects off the bat I think it's more or less how the seams react in

the air to create a slider or a curveball or you know have your fastball playing out so to speak but I know that in a saying a baseball, it means it's wound tighter. I'm not sure how they judge that, but that was my impression of why a baseball is juiced. It's just wound tighter. Professor, that would mean what in terms of physics? So, yeah, it has to do with there's a property of the ball that has the fancy name coefficient of restitution, which is. We like that. Yeah, it's a technical term, but it's essentially the bounciness of a ball.

OK, you know, a ball is really bouncy. A baseball is not. OK. And so and when when people talk about a juice baseball, this property of the ball is actually regulated. I mean, there were major league rules, there are NCAA rules and whatever about the bounciness as a measurement you can do in the laboratory and test it. And when the ball is juiced, then it has a coefficient of restitution, which is higher than it ought to be. And as a result, it's bouncier and the ball comes off the bat faster. Right. And every now and then there is speculation. Is the ball juiced? In fact, there's

literally in the last few days, there's been a lot of discussion about that because there's been some articles written and my name is associated with some of those articles at least i'm quoted in them because there was a big increase in home runs uh in the 2016 season and uh actually interestingly it sort of began around mid-season in 2015 and this so there's been rampant rampant speculation home run epidemic right yeah a home run epidemic. Right. Yeah. A home run epidemic. Yeah. And so there's speculation about it. But Major League Baseball

uses a laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Mm-hmm. And that laboratory employed by Major League Baseball. And all I want to know is this,

does Tom Brady run that lab? Because if he does, you cannot help yourself, can you? I'm just saying, we're not even talking about juice balls here. We're talking about UMass. Is Tom Brady involved with this lab in any way? We're not even talking football

and you brought your Brady hate here. Then you got your Brady hate hat on and you're off again all right forget that one professor jeff was interested in the use of whom humid humidors no that's something else humidors uh core park colorado um you got to talk me through that one because it sounds as if it's wrong, but there's definitely science involved. Oh, there's a lot of science involved. I'm directly in the, in the, in the bullseye on that one.

Um, so, uh, yeah. So the, the, the basic physics is the following. When a baseball absorbs water,

right. From the humidity, it's coefficient of restitution. It's bounciness, if you will, decreases. It becomes less bouncy. It won't be hit as hard. So back, I think it was in beginning in 2002 or 2003, I don't remember the year, they decided to store the baseballs in a humidor at Coors Field in Denver. Now, Denver, you know, it's a mile high. The air is thin. Balls carry much better there. So part of the reason for doing that was to sort of

by redo. So let me back up a second. Denver is very dry in the summertime. It's got a relative humidity, maybe 30 percent relative humidity. OK. And so by storing the baseballs at 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 50% relative humidity, you're actually decreasing this bounciness. And it has an effect. It had an effect on home run. Home run production dropped by something like 25% as a result of that. Now, I took it upon myself back in, I think it was 2010, I and my colleagues did some measurements of the laboratory measurements of the effect of humidity on this bounciness factor. And then use that to see if I could, I shouldn't say predict, I should say post-dict, predict what happened at the core. And basically, you could account for it perfectly.

I mean, it all hung together very, very well. Now, the reason why this has come up fairly recently is that now Chase Field in Phoenix is doing the same thing. In fact, they may already have done it. There was an article that came out a month ago that they are now going to store their baseballs in a humidor. And so I wrote an article that just appeared maybe two or three weeks ago, coming up using the same calculations that I did earlier, predicting a large decrease in home runs at Chase Field. So here, it's not a post-diction, it's a pre-diction. So I'm way out on that one.

Okay. So I predict somewhere between a 25% and a 50% reduction in home runs. Okay, the human can usually choose. All I can say is, how old are you right now? You have me at post-diction. How old are you? Stand next to me. What age are you?

I'm sorry. Sorry, professor. I'm like 17. I can't help it. There's a naughty step over there. Go and sit with it. Take five.

Every time he said post-dick, I was dying. All right. So, is this humidor available for both teams or is it only just

for the benefit of the home side? Oh, no, no, no. It's all baseball's usual. Okay, fine. Because that sounded like a lot of cheating going on there. That never happens in sports.

Yeah, in principle, there could be some abuses going on. But in fact, this is looked over very carefully by Major League Baseball. Tim Lincecum complained a few years ago that in Colorado they were using different baseballs for the home team than they were for the away team. But there was nothing to that. Nothing to it. Not another conspiracy theory. Professor Alan Nathan,

you are an absolute pleasure to have on. Yes. Such an incredible reservoir of physics and baseball knowledge. We certainly appreciate you, and we cannot wait to have you back for more of your post-matches. Oh, yes, please, sir. Would you grace us with your presence again?

If you invite me, I'll be here. Fantastic. I enjoy talking with you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. That really was great. Thank you, Professor. And Jeff, man, this was great. It was great. This was fun.

You were at the sharp end. With what the professor sort of opened up for you, does it kind of connect? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, physics and science is what baseball is all about. And these guys are just trying to create ways to get better at hitting the baseball. And I think understanding what he's talking about is going to help these guys hopefully get a little bit better because the athletes are getting better. And then you add the science to these guys. Who knows? So you talked about you coming out of the game and all of this tech, all of this big data coming in. Where do you see baseball evolving? Is it

materials? Is it athletes? Is it the data? What do you see being the thing that pushes out and forward the most? It's going to be interesting. I know a lot of the, if I say data or technology in baseball, everybody's going to talk about the umpires of if I say data or technology in baseball everybody's going to talk about the umpires and strike zones so I want to avoid that because there has to be a certain human element

and I'm with you I never ever so we when we talk to JPR and CB about what happens between a batter and a catcher

at the plate and what happens between the batter and the umpire at the plate and how there's politics involved and there's human emotions involved. Past experience and relationships involved.

And I said, I will never, ever again advocate for a computer calling balls and strikes once I found that out. I mean, it's fascinating. I think it's great. Well, you don't want to take the gamesmanship out of it because there's still a part of that involved in baseball, and that's what JP's talking about because there will be a conversation. I've told plenty of catchers to shut the hell up. I'm like, that ball's off the plate.

Don't argue with the umpire. He made a great call. Leave him alone. Of course. There's a lot of that going on. The other thing is if you take the human element out, what are guys like us going to talk about? What are guys in bars, what are guys at home, what are guys in the stadium going to talk about?

If it becomes, it's a 100% definitive decision, we can't say, well, that guy got it wrong. Yeah. So you lose a lot of really what binds everybody together on the non-playing side of the sport. Well, we'll see you in the post-it to find out if you're right. I'm not sure I want to see that. See, that's what I'm talking about. All right. See, this is what I have to work with.

And it's great fun, by the way. I think we have to end the show now. Thank you, Jeff Blum. Great being here. Wow, brilliant guest. Thank you so much. Thank you to my young friend, Chuck Nice. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

I'm Chuck Nice. And this has been'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this has been Playing With Science. We'll see you all soon.