StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI: Baseball: Physics at the Plate (Part 1) (Repeat)

Episode Date: June 22, 2017

During off-season, Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly went to SXSW for a few “exhibition games” with the folks at TuneIn. First up, the science of pitching, hitting, and catching with Toronto Blue Jays catcher JP Arencibia, astrophysicist Charles Liu and Holden Kushner, host of MLB on TuneIn.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe on:iTunes Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceTuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/Playing-with-Science-p952100/SoundCloud: 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. I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice and this is Playing With Science. Woo! Yes! Yeah! Yes! And today sports and science are colliding here in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. We are so, yes, give it up. Great place to be, great festival, and we have some superb guests. One guy has basically done it all. Another has just simply seen it all.

What are you talking about? And another who knows it all. And then there's Chuck and myself. Right, let's get to the host. What are you talking about? And another who knows it all. And then there's Chuck and myself. Right, let's get to the business. The gentleman on the lovely Regency sofa, Holden Kushner. Absolutely. Holden. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, Holden Kushner. Host of our Major League on TuneIn 90 programs. And I will be JP's interpreter today because he only speaks Spanish in public. Sweet! This is going to be a lot of fun.

Oh my God. This just got so interesting. So now Holden, you are the host of, please. MLB on TuneIn Live. We talk baseball, but science is really

colliding with baseball now. So it's kind of cool that we're here doing this. Very cool. Very cool. All right. And so the other guy sitting here who does not speak any

English, Gary, who is this? Because he couldn't understand what I just said. I think there are people here that know already who this guy is. J.P. Arancibia. Yes! J.P. Well deserved. A man who was just

in the last couple of months retired from Major League Baseball. A catcher. A man who has just, in the last couple of months, retired from Major League Baseball. A catcher. A man whose records still stand. You walk away from professional sport and you're forgotten very quickly. This man, that will not be the case. Just so you can make JP very comfortable,

you can interpret this, mucho gusto. He says, thank you very much, I think. Gracias. No problemo. This is going you very much, I think. Gracias. No problemo. This is going to take an awful lot longer, isn't it? Exactly. Right, and joining us via video call is the one, the only,

Charles Liu, astrophysicist extraordinaire. Give it up, please. As always, a tremendous pleasure to be here with you guys. Chuck Liu, my friend. How are you? Hey there. Life is very good, thank you. Waiting for baseball season to start. I know you're a big fan, Chuck. You're like a huge baseball fan, aren't you? Love the sport.

It's great stuff. And it really is true that the JP and other people who are at that highest level of performance in professional sports, their brains are working all the time to optimize things like angles, forces, accelerations, decelerations, a little bit of everything. Looking forward to talking about it. Very nice, man. Very nice. JP, did you know this about your own brain? Were you aware that your brain is always optimizing information?

I know that my brain is more like a squirrel's brain. I can optimize. I'm here one second, I'm there the other. So I don't know. I have a very ADD-like mind, but I guess that I optimize it pretty quickly because baseball comes pretty fast, so you've got to be able to do it.

Right on. Did you, during your career, JP, feel that science had any role to play? Or was it a case of that, you know what, this is what I do, I do it? Yeah, I never thought about it scientifically until I started sucking. And then I had to start really looking into why, other than just mechanics and understanding physics side of it, now obviously in baseball there's a lot of spin rate and trajectory,

how you launch the ball, home runs, all these different things. So I think I was a little late to the party. That's why I'm 31, and I was – I called it a quit. But it was still – I mean, now it's, like you said, the worlds are colliding, baseball and science and just sports and science in general. Okay, Chuck, let's bring Charles in and kind of break down exactly what J.P. would have gone through in his 9-to-5, right?

Sitting there, hunched behind the plate. Charles? Yeah, here's the deal. Fastball, talk me through it. Spin rates, everything. Fastball, 90 miles an hour. How many miles per hour, Chuck? Let's say 90.

Okay. Nice round number. Nice round number. That's a nice fastball. Although I understand, JP, you threw about 75, right? I threw about 75, yeah, when we were getting killed by the Tampa Bay Rays. Okay, so now you guys are talking inside baseball right now. No, no, no.

JP's one of the few privileged Major League Baseball players in history, both to pitch and to hit and to catch. Yeah. All in the same game. Pitch and catch in the same game. Did anyone in our audience know this about JP? Did they? Yeah.

Actually, quite a few people do know this. This is a cool thing. Holden. Yeah. Did he do it well? No, he. Holden, did he do it well? No, he was horrible. How did you do in your inning? In all seriousness, I did not.

I knew that you would. I kind of knew you'd pitch. How did you do in that inning? Because 75 miles an hour, I'm going to get it done. No, actually, it gets it done because no one's used to that speed. If you're under the speed, that's what works. So actually, it was after the game, they're like, JP, so you were throwing knuckleballs?

And I was like, no, that wasn't my fastball. I just didn't want to. But I gave up one hit. And then it's funny, ironically, the last guy that I faced, he was a guy that I played with my entire life through Little League, through the whole thing. And now all of a sudden I'm laughing because this guy that I'm about to throw a ball that I'm praying, like, please don't just hit me. That was the only thing I was scared. I'm used to wearing equipment. I'm like, cover it up. I didn't want, I was like, please just don't

hit the ball back at me. And I got out of the inning. And then of course, after everyone's like interviewing me about how'd you get these guys out? the inning. And then, of course, after everyone's interviewing me about, how did you get these guys out? I'm like, dude, it's because the hitters wanted to get out. Whenever I faced a position player, I was like, okay, this is a lose-lose situation. You hit a homer, everyone's like, dude, you're a D-bag. Like, you just took this guy.

And then if you strike out, everybody makes fun of you. So the only way that you can do anything good is kind of walk. So when I used to face position players, I would just try to put the ball in play and get out because i was like just get it over with just give the bat away nice that's so sweet that means your career era is 0.00 isn't it that is correct that is good for you man way to go okay i'm sorry where were we okay jp's crouched he's crouched behind the plate 90 mile-mile-an-hour fastball coming toward him, 60 feet, 6 inches away. That's 0.46 seconds for him to react. Okay?

Now, he's got to set up a target, but if something happens, if the guy throws low when he was expecting high, if he throws inside when he was expecting outside, he has less than half a second to jump in front of this ball. And the first question I have for you, JP, something that I've wanted to ask catchers for a really long time, how important actually is the target? Does it actually matter where you put your glove in order to stop the ball or in order for the pitcher actually to pitch a good pitch? Does it matter at all, scientifically speaking?

Shoot, that's the question. You're the scientist. I don't know. So what Chuck, and it's a very good question, Chuck. When you see a pitcher, I mean, sorry, a catcher, after he makes the call, so you're in that crouch, and I know what Chuck is talking about. You're in that crouch, and then you make the call, right? You give your little finger sign, but then you shift position after you give that sign.

Yeah. Does that mean anything? Or is that some kind of like, I don't know, Peyton Manning, like Omaha, Omaha. What is that? I mean, there is part of it that's not real. There's certain things that you're trying to mask. Obviously, in baseball, you're trying to get. And if I'm setting up in and there's a guy in the dugout to mask. Obviously, in baseball, you're trying to get – if I'm setting up in

and there's a guy in the dugout that sees me set up in early, most of the time setting up in is going to be a fastball, and they may be relaying that. So there's a lot of different things that you try to do to mask that. But to his question about the target, yeah, I mean, you try to give a guy a visual. That's what they – you know, supposedly. Some guys, you talk to some pitchers and they'll say that on a breaking ball they're not aiming at my mitt they're aiming at my mask because

is that because they don't like you is that that's because they want to start it there because if it's breaking ball starts at my mask then it's going to be probably in the strike zone when it gets to me so um different things i think the biggest one is we know how when guys stand up in the fastball up i think that's the biggest target that that know how when guys stand up and the fastball up, I think that's the biggest target that guys, because you're always taught to throw down, throw down. So when the count's late, what we try to do is we try to throw the fastball up because if the fastball is on the same plane, and I'm sure you could speak to this too,

is if the fastball is on the same plane, if I throw a breaking ball, I want to try to make the breaking ball look to our eyes like it's going to stay straight the entire time so if there was a side view the fastball would be straight and then you'd want the breaking ball to come right off of that

so once you're later in the count and there's most of the time it's breaking balls, they throw fastballs up for that reason because you want them to think that it's a breaking ball or whatever, and they chase it, and it's an easy out. But sometimes if you don't put the target up there, they're so used to throwing down that all of a sudden,

if I'm like this, if I don't do this, the thing that sucks about a catcher is that anything that goes wrong, it's my fault. So it's like, JP, why didn't you have your glove up i'm like dude the dude's making 20 million bucks he can throw the ball where he needs to throw the ball but it's my fault so that's that i mean yeah there's certain times and again there's certain times we're all pretend like i'm gonna throw a ball in the dirt just show that i'm throwing and i know that it's going to be a fastball up because again you're always trying to hide things that you're doing

because the other team is trying to relay it. All about camouflage. Hey, Chuck, so can you do a favor? Because JP just mentioned two things. Okay. Fastball up. Oh, yeah. And he mentioned breaking ball.

So from a physics standpoint, how do those two things happen? One, how do you get a fastball to go up, and how do you get the breaking ball to break and drop? And what forces are in play? Yeah, we'll start with the breaking ball first. Yeah, what forces are in play? A baseball, as you know, has got the laces on it, right? And so the raised laces theoretically allow for when a ball is coming through and you're holding it in just a certain way and you spin it as you are throwing it, what's going to happen is you're going to create airflow that goes on one side of the ball different from the other side of the ball. And your goal is to make it so that it'll push the ball away from a straight line and go sideways, right? A simple example, if you've all played wiffle ball before, you notice that the

ball's got holes in it, right? It's a plastic thing. And so you hit the thing and the ball just kind of floats up and does weird stuff back and forth, left and right. And it makes it nice and soft so the kids can catch it without hurting themselves. But in the major leagues, you have the real ball and actually hurts if it hits your face, right? And you have these little laces that are causing the break to happen. There have been actually a number of master's theses, not quite PhD as far as I know, but master's theses trying to explain why the ball actually moves. Because if you just do a first order physics calculation, those laces aren't high enough to affect the smooth flow of air over a ball to cause it to break. But it does break. Breaking balls do break, right, JP? It's not just an illusion? Yeah, and to bring up to that point too, and I'm sure you can answer this,

is are there quite a bit of like people who watch baseball here? Is there anybody that watches baseball for the most part? Baseball fans? Yeah. You guys ever realize, let's say when a ball hits the dirt, do you guys realize we always throw it out? You guys ever notice that? Or a ground ball, they throw it out. I just thought Major League Baseball was extremely wasteful. No, we are economical. But so what happens is, is scuffs on the ball, right?

So if I get a ball in the dirt, right? Pitchers used to tell me, like, don't throw it out until the umpire is like, throw it out. Because what happens is, and you could speak to this, is if the ball's scuffed, which scuffed means on the ball there's a scratch on it, or some guys scratch it themselves, which is also known as cheating. Wait, who was the guy who used to have a little piece of sandpaper in his glove? Phil Negros. Phil? Why you got to be black, man? What's up? Yeah, hey, that's messed up. No, I'm joking. Wait, who was the guy who used to have a little piece of sandpaper in his glove? Phil Negros. Phil Negros.

Why you got to be black, man? What's up? Yeah, hey, that's messed up, man. No, I'm joking. Phil Negros. He's quite white. I know. But that's.

So, no, really. But, yeah, and so he was actually caught, like, taking a little sandpaper and. Well, so what happens is, there's some pitchers that know how to use that. And what they do is they put the scratched part of the ball a certain way depending on which way they want it to move. So there was pitchers that I knew if there was a ground ball or if I was throwing a ball down a second, if I could skip it and get it to be scuffed, I would call a pitch

and I could tell instantaneously that the ball, without looking at it, that it was scuffed because I knew the ball wouldn't move. His normal fastball wouldn't move or his normal cutter wouldn't move the same amount. That's insane. So that's why when you guys watch the game and you're like, dude, why are they always throwing all these balls out? It's because literally these guys are so good, and you can speak about the physics,

but as soon as you get a ball that's scuffed and all of a sudden the ball moves two inches if it's scuffed it goes four inches yeah which is wow that's a lot of movement that's a that's a big that's a big difference yeah it's like kicking the valve on a penalty shot uh in soccer right you're just causing the ball and the air to interact in an unpredictable way based on the fact that the ball is not perfectly spherical. Now, the rising fastball, Chuck and Gary, that's the question I want to ask JP also because physically you're not supposed to be able to throw a rising fastball. Now, wait a minute. Are you saying this as an actual physicist? Yeah. From a physics perspective, when you are throwing a fastball,

see the mound is a little bit higher than home plate. OK. So when you're throwing from the pitcher to the batter, into the batter's box, well, not the batter's box, hopefully just in the strike zone, right, you're actually throwing the ball downhill a little tiny bit. There is literally no way to cause the ball to go upward. So a rising fastball, most physicists are quite certain is actually an illusion. It's just a fastball that doesn't go downward. And so it looks like it goes upward. And, and I would love to ask a major league player who has experience, if actually a ball to his knowledge, JP has ever actually dipped down and back up again, purposely. Uh, no. Uh, yes, we're right yeah you can't so he's he's right he's right in the

sense because what happens is and like and you can correct me if i'm wrong i think from when the guy releases the ball to when it gets to the catcher the ball drops eight inches okay okay so what the misnomer is that it's a rise fastball, but it's not rising. It just doesn't drop as much. I got you. And so that's the biggest thing. And so our whole career, if I have done as a kid everything, you're used to the ball coming down. If I can find somebody that spins the ball at a high enough rate

that the ball doesn't drop necessarily as much. As much as it would normally drop. Yeah, because the eyes, your eyes, I'm just used to, again, and like you said, we have.4 seconds to make a decision. So literally when I was hitting, I mean, you have to trust your eyes. So as soon as this ball comes out, what's coming to your head, other than the squirrel stuff, what's coming to my head is like what the ball, what it's doing, what the ball, what it's doing,

what the ball, where the ball is going to be when I swing, how am I going to make contact. Right. So what these guys do, and this is why guys that are throwing 90 miles an hour, they blow guys away compared to a guy that's throwing 98, because the guy that's throwing 91, out of his hand, you might think is going to end up here when it's necessarily, it's ending up here.

So really the rising fastball is just a not-dropping fastball. That's the real name of it, the not-dropping fastball. That's what we're going to start calling it. There you go. And that's all down to the spin rate that a pitcher will – Charles, we're up. Charles, can you tell us why is the spin rate so important to support what JP is talking about in the not dropping fastball, which it shall forever now be known as? A spin rate of a ball is the most important thing that determines whether or not it will interact with the air smoothly or unsmoothly,

right? JP was saying also, after the spin, there's a nicks in the ball, you know, scuffs, or say the laces and things like that can make the difference. If you want to have something not move, you've got to try to make it spin as little as possible. Excuse me. In some cases, as fast as possible, right? The faster you go, the less likely it is that the ball's motion will be influenced by random air activity. You want it to spin in a strange and unusual way in order to make it work and create breaks in the thing. So we could ask JP from the batting point of view. And let me say, while I have a moment,

I still remember hearing in the news in your debut with the Toronto Blue Jays when you hit a home run in your first at-bat and then went on to hit another home run the same day, four hits on your opening day, including two home runs. I don't know if anyone else has done that before, but I remember hearing that on the news. That was pretty amazing. I want you to know that, JP. I set the bar too high. I set't know if anyone else has done that before, but I remember hearing that on the news. That was pretty amazing. I want you to know that, JP. So it's a real pleasure talking to you.

I set the bar too high. Thank you. Yeah. Nice stuff. All right, Charles. So let me get back to the hitting stuff. Okay. Just real quick. Oh, sorry. Yes. So you watching the ball coming in when you're about to hit it, if you see the ball spinning fast, you literally can't see the spin, right? When it's slower, that's when you can see the spin and go, uh-oh, this is a knuckler coming in. You have to be careful with it. If you can't see the spin, that means it's spinning so quickly that it's likely not to break,

and therefore you can probably predict where the ball is going to be when it gets over the plate, right? Wow. Yeah, exactly. You want to see out of the hand. If you see any kind of laces, any kind of red, usually it's an off speed pitch or as opposed to if you see more of a cue ball, you know that it's going to be a fastball when you're not doing well. It all looks like a cue ball. So then you're really in trouble. That's what it is. Then that's how you know your eyes aren't working. I know your eyes aren't working, but, yeah, not to your point.

I mean, you'll see it because now I'm learning because of the amount of spin out of the hand. I could tell, okay, that was something that's not a fastball. It would compute in my head. Cool, man. Very cool. Well, we've got to take a break. Yeah, we have, I think, ball-eye coordination. Wow, that sounds very gay. Didn't it just?

That's got Chuck's interest. I like it a lot. Certainly so. I am so into this right now. I am so into ball eye coordination. Yeah, so while Chuck works with that, and he might have to work on that on his own, we'll take a break and when we come back

we will be speaking to Colton. He's been very patient, so stick with us. Back in a second. Welcome back. Thank you, yes. Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And you've heard it all before, haven't you?

Yes, this is Playing With Science. And we are here at South by Southwest, and we are privileged to be here with some really rather special guests. Holden Kushner from iTunes, and J.P. Arancibia, former Major League Baseball player, and, as I said before, the one and only Charles Liu. Right, talk about pitching, Charles. I think JP's got a little bit of an interest in batting. 80 home runs,

by the way. This man here. Total envy. Total envy. 80. But holds the record. Still holds the record for what? 23 home runs for the Toronto Blue Jays as a catcher? Yeah.

That still stands, right? Still stands. 23 in one season. Incredible. And as Charles alluded to before the break, on his major league debut, first ball home run. Wow. Wow.

What do you think when that happens? Like, okay, so it's your major league debut. It's your first at bat. You get up there and you pop a home run. Do you just say to yourself, like, damn, it is all downhill from here? Yeah. No, I remember I was not really nervous. I was just ready for the opportunity.

Yeah, because it's been a long road to get to a major league game. Yeah, I mean, the minor leagues and all these different stops that we have in baseball that, unfortunately, people only see the majors. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats springs to mind. Yeah, let's talk about, well, let's not talk about, but Las Vegas was where I was at the longest, and that's where I almost died a few times, but it was worth it. It was pretty fun. Long journey. What about that? Anyone have that dream? First ball, home run, Major League? Because if I was a baseball player, hand up, I would have had that dream. That's the reality.

It's incredible. Now, you talked to us during the break about density of woods. Yeah. And, all right, pitch that question. No pun intended, it was really. To Charles, go for it. All right, well, when I went through my struggles, I started struggling a little bit, and I actually thought that I would use a lighter, smaller bat, that it would help me.

And a hitting coach told me, you're a power hitter. The bigger, harder, heavier, more dense wood would be more useful for you. That's what I'm saying. I knew that was coming. Of course. I knew that was coming. You can't say all those words together and not expect me to do something with it.

And so, honestly, I started using it. But mentally, I couldn't adjust and say, man, if I use a heavier bat, I always thought it was going to slow down my hands. So you're thinking, let me get around on the swing quicker, and a lighter bat will help me do that. I'll get around on the swing quicker. I can meet the ball faster. But then your pitching coach is saying, no. Hitting coach.

Hitting coach, sorry. See how much I know about this sport. He's saying, you need a heavier bat because you're a power hitter. Yeah, so what happens is he said, lighter bat, since it's lighter, your body, you try more. When it's a heavier bat, you try to do less. But also, when a heavier, and this is my question, is when a heavier billet of wood, so when they start making a wood bat, it's a piece of lumber and they move it down. So there's heavier billets, there's denser wood, there's harder wood.

So if you use a heavier bat, when it hits the ball, the ball's going to go further. And so I got convinced when I started struggling, started using this bat. First game I used a bat, I hit two home runs. And I was like, all right, this is pretty cool. And then when I would hit balls on not the sweet spot part of the bat, they were still leaving the park. And I was like, complete sold. And nowadays and older times, guys used to use much heavier bats.

And it was a big difference. Now everyone wants to use a lighter bat, and it was a big difference. Now everyone wants to use a lighter bat, and I still try to convince guys like, dude, you should go with the heavier bat. The bigger, heavier bat. The bigger, heavier bat. Everybody knows once you go bigger, heavier bat. Okay, so that's our question. Chuck.

Okay. Tell us your feelings about big, heavy wood. It's just got weird. You couldn't resist it, could you? Well, look, Chuck, you are the expert here on good wood, but I can tell you a little bit about the wood that goes in a baseball bat. The thing is, of course, the major leagues have the rules, right? Just like the NFL requires you to inflate your balls to a certain pressure whether or not you want to.

The same is true with baseball bats. You can only have a certain length, certain width, certain amount of pine tar, certain density, things like that. OK. And you may remember there was a controversy some years ago about people putting cork in your bats. Right. You open it up. You put some spongy stuff inside, and you cap it off, and you make the ball bounce a little bit off of your bat a little bit more.

So here's the physics, right, JP? Your batting coach was correct in that if you have a heavier bat, you swing it around, and you are creating more momentum in your bat so that when you transfer that momentum to the ball when you hit it, it will go farther. The problem, of course, is that it requires more torque. You have to generate that extra turning of your wrists and your arms, elbows eventually in order to move that bat head fast enough to transfer that momentum. The main issue is the matter of

contact. If you can contact a ball pulling while swinging a thicker, heavier bat, your heavier bat is going to work for you. If you can't get the bat around though, if you don't have the arm strength, if you don't have the wrist strength, then the heaviest bat in the world isn't going to help you because that fastball is going to blow on right by. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, because that's what his coach was saying. You're a power hitter. Therefore, you need the heavier bat. It makes sense. Yeah. And to his point, there's guys I mean, there's different gifts guys have. I was always able to hit a ball far. And so that was my gift. There was guys that can't hit a ball far. Some guys can throw hard. Some guys can't. It's just genetically whatever they have. But that was one thing I was. And so when I was able to

start using those heavier bats, it really made a huge, huge difference. I got a quick question about balls myself because JP's been hit many a time being a catcher, right? I mean, you go down, you get hit square. So just for you, which hurt worse, getting a foul tip in the cup, or was it just a ball that hit the dirt and came up and hit you square on? Can you share a story with us? I have a great story about that, actually. Are you comfortable? Yeah, density. Density.

The dudes will understand this a little bit more, I think. So first off, there's this thing called the Nutty Buddy. You guys should check it out. It's actually a cup. That's a cup? Wait a minute. Say it again now. Oh, no, no.

Say this again now. You need to watch this YouTube video. The Nutty Buddy. That's correct. And this is a protection cup. That's right. That's two compartments has two compartments. Two compartments.

Yeah. But check it out on YouTube. The dude, the way he advertises it is he stands in front of a pitching machine and just takes a ball. And just takes them. Square in the cup. And it actually. Now, see, that works unless I find him later on that same night with a dominatrix. And then he's a masochist.

And then I'm just like, okay, dude, now you're just fooling people. But go ahead. The Nutty Buddy. The Nutty Buddy. So I've actually have – there's a lot of umpires that wear Nutty Buddies nowadays, thankfully. But to my point was story, the protection from down up is not the best. So foul balls. Right.

One time I got a foul ball. Right. And hit in the dirt straight up. So it's ricocheting straight up. Straight up. Right. It's like a scene from that, I brought up James Bond earlier, but remember when they pulled that seat out,

James Bond, and they sat him down. Yeah, go ahead. Casino Royale, the reason. Go ahead. So I literally am in such pain, I hop off the field into the bathroom that's in the dugout. Right. And so the trainer's obviously chasing me down at this point. Like, dude, there's a game going on.

Right. And so I pull down my pants, and I'm like, just tell me it's not bleeding. Just tell me it's not bleeding. Oh, Lord Jesus. And so sure enough, I wasn't bleeding. I was able to get back out onto the field. You went back and played? Finish it out.

That night at the bar, and again, this is a little much, but that night at the bar, it was a little tougher to sit down. A little ginger. But a few whis the bar, it was a little tougher to sit down. A little ginger. But once a few whiskeys deep, and I was good to go. I did have a serious question real quick, though. Go for it. The speed of the bat, right? If the speed of the bat is the same as the speed of the ball when it hits and come up and hits him, does that mean that the ball is going to stay at the same

speed? Does the speed of the bat impact the speed of the ball coming off the bat? Right. I'm sorry we got a graphic discussion here. By the way. I did want to know. Now there's something called exit velocity off a bat. So it's exit velocity.

You want a certain exit velocity coming off your bat. And you know. By the way, on a 90-mile-an-hour pitch, what was the exit velocity off of the ground to JP's balls? You really don't know. It could be higher. It could be lower. It could be the same.

Can you explain exit velocity to a guy who has to talk about exit velocity all the time but can't wrap his head around it? Exit velocity is just very simply how fast the ball leaves the bat, right? Your bat's coming in, ball's coming in, they hit each other, and this was going this way and then it goes that way. The ball, all you need to know, exit velocity, it depends on too many factors to predict at any given time. But there's two things that are important, right? Not only is you have to get the speed of the ball off the bat,

you have to figure out what the angle of the ball off the bat is. If you are hitting, I don't care if the ball is coming off the bat at 100 miles an hour or 50 miles an hour or 60 miles an hour. If you don't follow Wee Willie Keeler, hit them where they ain't, it's still an out. So the bat speed thing matters because you have to be able to get around on a 100-mile-an-hour fastball. You've got these guys now who are throwing 100 every day right i mean odalis uh guys like that uh but really if you have a uh if you're really trying to figure out how to optimize your ability to hit it's not the speed that matters it's whether or not you can get the ball to where the the fielders aren't

if you're trying to hit a home run right you want to take an angle it goes up i know that hitting coaches tell your people try to hit line drives but really If you're trying to hit a home run, right, you want to take an angle that goes up. I know that hitting coaches tell their people try to hit line drives, but really if you're a power hitter and you want to hit out of the park, you hit it at a 45-degree angle. Right. Okay, Charles, I think JP has another question. Yeah, so another thing. I think it's activated your mind.

Your little squirrel's getting really busy. I love it. I love talking to this. So then some of the furthest home runs I ever hit, I realized in the barrel the seams were indented into the bat. And so there's a miss. I don't know. They always used to say you caught a seam.

If you hit a ball a super, super long distance, it was a difference between hitting it in the, I don't know, what would you call that? The white part of the ball. The white part of the baseball. The space. Or the seam. Or right on the seam.

Because again, you know, with Maple. So wait a minute. Are you saying that you have actually looked at a bat after you've hit a home run and the seam of the ball is indented into the bat? Yeah. So in Maple, I mean, Ash, you can see it a little bit, but in Maple, if you hit a ball square, because guys always want to clean their bats too. Another thing is guys always clean their bats

because you want to see where you're hitting the ball on the bat because there's a sweet spot. So you want to be able to, it's all the things I go into. But when you hit, since it's a clean bat, when you hit a ball good, I know exactly where I hit it because you can see, especially in the longer home runs, you see the seams, the indention of the seams on the bat. So I just want to know if that makes sense, if that's...

And does that make a difference, Charles, hitting the seam or hitting the white space? Does that make a difference and why? Let me tell you two ways that it could make a difference, okay? One way is that the white part of the ball is slipperier than the seams. So if you catch the seams, you may be able to hit the ball with a more clean shot without slippage. So that like – on a foul tip, what happens is you catch a piece of the ball and it spins away. But if you hit it on the seams, you might be able to get a little more friction so that even if it's not exactly square, you might be able to get it without flipping off. It's the same reason why the pitcher grips the seams.

The bat is gripping the seams the same way the pitcher throws the ball. Excellent point. That's awesome. Charles, I have a thought for you. If we sort of cut across all Major League Baseball rules, what would be the perfect material to make? To cork a bat. A bat. So a power hitter like JP could do his thing and not worry about it.

Tell us from an astrophysics standpoint, how can we cheat best at this game? If I want the perfect bat, I would actually use an aluminum bat. Really? JP, you probably remember from college, right? That ball would just fly off that aluminum bat. So why is that? JP, by the way, when you were in college, did you love playing with an aluminum bat?

I was a huge aluminum bat guy in college, yeah. Really big fan. Silver shiny, very. You're taking this in another direction, Mr. Nice. You are. You've got your own little show going on. Your own little show going off up here.

I didn't do it this time. JP did that one. I'm sorry. No, I obliged. You started that. I'm going to have to separate you two. But no, seriously, why is aluminum such a great material and why is it worth better? Okay, aluminum is very light for its – it's still heavier than wood, right? Denser than wood, I should say. But you can make it kind of hollow.

The typical aluminum bat isn't filled all the way through with aluminum. So you've got some space in the middle. So you've got this sort of ability to ricochetchet bounce back and forth a little bit that elasticity right that was the second point about hitting the ball in the laces that matters right because as JP was saying hit the ball in the laces what what you're getting is a little extra compression right the laces are up by a fraction of an inch and if if you hit that lace just right, get a little extra compression, you have a little bit longer to transfer more energy from the bat to the ball, and therefore you can get a better launch of the ball.

So it's basically a spring load is what you're saying. Yeah. Gotcha. And so if you have an aluminum bat that's got a little bit of give to it, a little bit of hollowness in it, you're just going to contact, have a longer period of time to transfer energy, and therefore you get a little bit extra rebound off of that. I don't know if, JP, that makes sense to you in terms of, I don't know if you ever can feel this, right?

The contact with the ball is just a fraction of a second. But do you ever feel like when you hit a ball really, really well, it seems to hang on the bat just that little tiny bit longer than when you just get a piece of it? Honestly, it's almost the opposite. When you hit a ball super square with a wood bat, you don't feel it, which is – Wow. I don't know how to –

Well, you know what? I thought that's why they called it the sweet spot. It's because there's no reverberation in your hands through the bat. Yeah, when I hit a ball good, I knew as soon as I hit it, I was like, that was sexy. That was it. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. Yeah, I hit that right.

Okay. Right, we're going to take a break. Seems like the right time, doesn't it really? Chuck, go and have a cold shower. You've got a couple of minutes. Right, we'll have some sexy baseball when we get back. Stick around. Welcome back to Playing With Science.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. Yeah, okay. What we're going to do is we're going to do our final segment, but we're going to open it up to you guys. Right, questions from the floor. Please, you must have some. Caleb, you are our master with the microphone.

Quite a few people have their hands up. Choose the victim of your choice. There you go. Sir, please introduce yourself. My name's Jason. We're here at South by Southwest, and a big focus of things here have been virtual reality and augmented reality. Yes. I just wanted to maybe get a sense from JP or maybe from Charles how that's currently being used as far as sports performance enhancement.

Cool. And how it might be used in the future. All right. Thank you, Jason. Just to direct you to a Playing With Science show that's already up regarding how technology is changing football, and that would be American football. We do address exactly that issue. No, no, absolutely. It's free for go and grab, and you'll hear a lot more than we could explain to you

in terms of this answer now. And by the way, just for the distinction's sake, so the virtual reality is completely immersive. That's where you put on the goggles and you are in that world without leaving where you are. The augmented reality is Terminator.

So remember Terminator when he landed and he looked around and was like, and he saw all the different stats, that's augmented reality. So exactly what you said is great. So Holden, what is MLB doing with that? Well, right now it's more viewing and it's starting to, it's not virtual reality whatsoever, but they're doing real time analytics. So what we're doing, we're talking about route efficiency. Now, route efficiency would be a guy playing the outfield. Is he taking the most direct path to catching the ball? And the second that he catches the ball, boom.

Wow. Actually, they're working on time. So he's vectoring. Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. So they're looking at that and looking at route. How fast was his initial jump?

Yep. And what they're trying to do that way, so that would be the Terminator way of doing it. Right, that's the Terminator. Is calculating how quickly and how efficiently somebody, an outfielder, is getting a ball. They're doing a lot defensively. Is this in-game or training? This is in-game while you're viewing. A lot of the things that we're looking at right now is trying to make baseball more exciting.

Okay? And seriously. I mean, it's... No, no, no. Maybe not so much exciting, but bringing it into... There's a lot of nice bats. There are a lot of nice bats. But the biggest knock on baseball is it's boring.

And we're trying to get more people involved in it. Listen, Holden, you had me at nice bats. Every other sport, like NFL and soccer, are using the GPS trackers. They're using the radio transmitters and the microchips and the pads. So, yeah. Now, as far as the VR goes, that's interesting because I've talked to guys in Major League Baseball. They say that they really don't trust it yet. They don't trust it to where they can bring it to their players.

Let's say you're in the batting cage. You're taking actual hacks. But there is virtual reality. Let's say you were facing Randy Johnson, and you're using this virtual reality. I guess maybe they haven't perfected it to the point to where you guys would feel comfortable. I know in NASCAR, the drivers put the VR on,

and there's the course there. You know why? Because NASCAR, those cars cost a crap load of money, so it's better to crash the virtual car than the real car. But, JP, would you, as a player, feel as though you would benefit from something where you could be in an environment where you're practicing the same thing over and over again without being in an actual game day situation? Immensely.

I think it's huge, and I think it's going to change sports. Just in football, how they're having guys go under center and being able to read defenses before you know, put you... Because the one thing I did learn and I didn't know as a rookie, and everyone talks about experience and I used to just be like

alright dude, stop with the experience. But that's what why guys continue to get better through their career. Because the more times that I could see a pitcher. So if I face a guy 10 times, 20 times, that's why some of these veterans, people are like, why are they so good? Because when I face a guy 50 times, unless he completely invents a new pitch, I know everything that he's got. And so if I can sit there and watch what this pitch does over and over and over and over, it's going to make a huge difference.

Now, like to your point is how real is it? Because I don't want to be able to sit there and watch all these things. And then when I get into the game, it not be the same thing. And then even to the point of and this is scientifically you know charles is is when you're thinking they always say when you're thinking it's too late so if i'm in the box and i don't trust my eyes and i have to think okay is that this that this or the other i'm done i got no chance so if another part is being over-informed, and that's the thing that, you know, for baseball. Now, for drivers, I have a friend who's an IndyCar driver,

and he loves the virtual reality because they can race on the track before they ever get into it. So, I mean, I think it's going to change the game. Right now in baseball, the only thing that they used to do was they have a screen. The Yankees have it, and some teams don't really have it. Some guys do.

It's a screen, and so they'll put the pitcher that you're facing, and there's a little hole out of the screen, and the dude just, the ball comes out of there. But that's more just for timing sake and purposes because if I can, like, and what I mean by timing for the people that don't know baseball is, like, if I'm hitting and the guy has a leg kick and it's a certain leg kick or if his windup is a certain tempo, I'm going, everything is timing. I'm going off of that pitcher. So if I can get

his timing down, that's half the battle. And so that's more than anything. But yeah, I think, you know, more and more you can see something and and you don't have to think, and your eyes can just – you were there before it happened. And, of course, I think virtual reality is going to be a huge and integral part of the sports. Super cool, man. Jason, does that satisfy you? Fabulous.

Right. Please, our next victim. Other questions? She's very keen, isn't she? I know people here. So this is more on the behavioral science side, a question for JP. I've always wondered, watching 162 games a year, you get to know who the umpires are and who's cycling through

and who's at home plate. So I've always wondered how much you factored that in to their differences of how they call a pitch and whether or not in the box and then also how that's changed now that viewers at home can actually see where the pitch ended up. Yeah, that's a really great question. I mean, seriously. You're on the spot.

That's a really good question. Because different umpires have to call games differently. I mean, you've got to know that. Even though the rules are the same. Even though the rules are the same. Even though the rules are the same. So in baseball, there is literally, I would get a sheet every game that said these are the cold and hot zones of that umpire. So some umpires may have a higher strike zone than others.

Obviously, the strike zone is a strike zone, but they have tendencies like anybody else. And then also you have to – part of it is being a psychologist back there because a lot of these guys, their egos are – a lot of them think that they're the gatekeepers of the sport. And so do you ever do this? No. It's just like, strike! And you're just like, good call, man.

That was a good call. Oh, dude. I really appreciate what you do, brother. Hey, seriously, no lie, though. There's guys you have to, like, pump their tires. Like, dude, you were freaking so good tonight. Like, you were unbelievable. Wow, dude.

You got new contacts, didn't you? You got new contacts. That's great. And then there's some guys that, legit, they will try to stick it to you to the point where I've watched guys back talk the umpire and I'm back there and I know that whatever we throw he's calling it a strike because he's pissed off at the guy that's here.

Because he's mad. And there's so many things we could talk forever but even to the point of if you ever watch when a guy gets upset at a strike they don't look straight back at the umpire no they'll put their head down and they'll right they start scuffing they start scuffing the dirt

yeah you know what i mean because if you look back at the umpire their ego they know because oh my god so it's like working for j-lo if you look her in the eye you're fired yeah done so because what happens is as an that happened to you chuck yep as an umpire as an umpire, if I'm looking at the umpire, everybody knows that I'm speaking with him. So he is already right out of the defensive. Don't you eyeball me, boy. Yeah, defensive, serious. And so that's why, guys, because, again, that's a good sign of disrespect.

If you look back there. Oh, my God. You just gave me such a new perspective on this game. I never would. You know, there's a big debate right now as to whether or not we should allow cameras and computers to call balls and strikes. No chance. It's a huge, huge debate right now. No chance.

And it's the same reason why we have the replay in the NFL. It's okay. After hearing this, I never want to see cameras call balls and strikes ever because that is awesome. I say no chance just because there will be breaking balls, curveballs, sliders, whatever, that will hit the dirt. And when they cross the quote-unquote K zone, it's in the air. It's passing through as a strike, but it's hitting the dirt.

There's no way you're calling that a strike. So there's a lot of things. So you're saying that this is forever going to be a subjective call. Yeah, for whatever, if I can ever have any say in it, but all players would feel the same way. Because, again, also, too, is what, and I'm sure you can speak to this as well, because this is way over my pay grade and education,

is we've been talking about moving the strike zone up or down, correct? And part of the reason, because they think that moving the strike zone up is going to make more contact, which it's harder to hit a ball up than down, which that's one thing that they're completely wrong on. But the other one is the reason why I think they're trying to move the strike zone is because literally if you watch the K zone, there'll be pitches that will pass through at the bottom of the strike zone that hit right behind home plate. There's no way that that could be a strike.

But for what they have right now, that's a strike. So there's a lot of things that still have to be an ironed out. But again, I wish that they had us mic'd up because it's it's. And then especially when I pay extra for that too. And when I'm not happy with the umpire then it gets more interesting and more fun. And what do you do when you're not happy? Do you say stuff under your breath?

Oh no, I wear them out. Because then there's a point, I'm good with guys and I'm nice to them, but dude, if you Do you ever talk to the catcher like he's the umpire? You know what I mean? So you're batting, right? There's another catcher, right? And he calls a strike.

And then you turn back to the catcher, right? And you're like, I ever tell you your mother's a whore? I ever tell you that? I mean, I'm just talking to you, not the umpire. All right, funny story. So do you know, you guys know Kawasaki? He's with the Cubs now. I don't know if you guys have seen Kawasaki.

Musunori Kawasaki. Musunori Kawasaki. So in Japanese, we used to know this, and he would call the umpires a derogatory term in Japanese. Politically correct, he would call the person a homosexual but he would say he would like look at them and just get all over them and say bad things

to them and he'd do it smiling. Right. So us in the dugout They're thinking that this guy in Japanese like, wow, they're such a polite culture. They really are. And we would be dying laughing because he'd be looking at the umpire and just ripping him in Japanese but just smiling the whole way.

So it was great because the umpire was like, oh, man, even when I'm not good, this guy is smiling at me. But we all knew that this dude was just completely tearing him apart. Let's just hope that there are no umpires listening to this show right now because he's in trouble. The secret may be out. All right. I think we have time for one more question.

Who do we have? Sir, what is your name? My name is Matt, and I'm a science teacher here in Austin, Texas. Give it up for Matt. Yes. Now, Matt, before you go on, let me just ask you, what grade do you teach? I teach earth and space science to high school seniors. Okay. My condolences. Well done, you, sir. Congratulations. I'm so sorry ask you, what grade do you teach? I teach Earth and Space Science to high school seniors. Okay, my condolences. Well done you, sir.

Congratulations. I'm so sorry for you, sir. I'm so terribly sorry. But you are a true saint. Good for you. What's your question? Dr. Liu, can you make some connections for us between the ball colliding with the bat and galaxies colliding with other galaxies?

It's galaxies colliding, Jerry! Galaxies colliding, Jerry! Galaxies colliding! That was a really cool way to bring the whole show together. So cool, from a science teacher to an astrophysicist. Let me put it this way. The collision of two galaxies is like the collision of two beehives. The stars inside them, just like the bees in the hives, won't actually hit one another.

So there's not actually a lot of physical collision, right? So in terms of a bat hitting a ball out of the park, you're not going to have a star hitting another star and knocking it out of the galaxy. But you have something just as cool, if not even cooler, because the gravity of the systems will make them slingshot out without even touching one another. You can throw thousands, millions of stars out into long tidal tails or just flat out into space. You can throw planets out of their solar systems. You can throw moons out of their solar systems. You can throw moons away from their planets. And all you have to do is to come close enough that your gravity will cause that to fling away. So in a sense, yes, it is too bad that we won't hear the crack of the bat, but we will

see fireworks well beyond just one thing hitting another, because you're going to have in a galaxy colliding with another one, fireworks, celestial like yo man did everybody get it i want i want to see that from everybody mind blown mind blown very nice baseball and right. Wow, this has been a great show, man. Isn't it? This is really cool. I'd like to thank everybody that sat through this and hopefully has enjoyed it. Yes.

Thank you. And we want to thank everybody at South by Southwest for allowing us to be here and to do our thing. Thank you to Andrew at TuneIn and TuneIn. And, of course, our guest. JP, please give it up. Thank you. Holden Kushner, the man with the inquiring mind.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Holden. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Yeah. A man that needs no introduction. I think you'd love him. If you've never met him before, please give it up

for the man on screen. Chuck Lu. I think you'd love him. If you've never met him before, please give it up for the man on screen. Chuck Lu! I'm Chuck Nice. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

This has been Playing With Science. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks.