StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI: Baseball: The Perfect Game

Episode Date: November 2, 2017

There have only been 23 perfect games in baseball’s 140-year history – and only one in the World Series, by Don Larsen in 1956. Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore what it takes to throw a perfect game, with guests Neil Tyson and Houston Astros announcer Geoff Blum.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on:TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscienceApple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceStitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/baseball-the-perfect-game/Photo Credit: AP file photo via San Diego Union Tribune at http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/sd-sp-larsen-1008-story.html 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 go to the limits of sporting possibility and ask, is it so hard to achieve sporting perfection? Really? Really? Is it that difficult to achieve a perfect

10 in gymnastics, so tough to go a whole season unbeaten in the NFL, or even pitch a perfect game? I mean, no hits, full stop. Yes, and if we're going to go there, then we certainly need a co-pilot, and who better than the man himself, speaking of perfect, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson! Why'd you make me wear this now? You stopped by the store on the way in. No, no, I'm born and raised in the Bronx. There you go. So for those of you who don't have the benefit of watching us on StarTalkAllAccess.com, if you're just listening, Neil is in full Yankee regalia.

Yeah, I got the hat, the jacket, everything. But I'm a legit Yankee fan, born and raised in the Bronx. He's what we call a bomber legacy. And I'll tell you this, in my formative kid years, where that's when you're most likely to be a Yankee fan, a baseball fan when your dad takes you to the game kind of thing, that was the driest episode of Yankee franchise there ever was. I was a fan during the awful, awful years.

People don't know that the Yankees had, during the 80s, they were a bad, bad. And I'm talking about even the 70s before Reggie Jackson. There are baseball fans around the world welling up right now. With laughter. What? The Yankees are bad? They were terrible. They went like a dozen years without getting into the...

Big drought. That's a drought for the Yankee. I'm sorry. It's a drought. It is. I'm boiling in this jacket. I've got to take off the jacket. Well, take the jacket off. And while you're doing that...

We'd better get to our guest. Yes. Our other guest. Our other guest. And joining us via Skype is Houston Astros announcer, our very good friend, Jeff Blum. Oh, previous show, Home Run Science. Jeff, how are you, my friend? I'm doing extremely well until you showed Neil with that jacket on.

I'm good. You know, there's some things we can do and some things we can't do. It was the latter. Well, let's get into this game, right? This game meeting our show, right? The most difficult thing to achieve in elite sport was as a baseball player, hit

a fastball. And then you sat us down and said, I have another idea. And you came up with the perfect game. To pitch the perfect game has to be the most difficult. Well, so what led me there was if you're just trying to find something that's hard to do, let's look at the singularly hard things that have happened in sports. All right.

So you can say, how about a hole-in-one in golf? All right. So you could go your whole life and not hit a hole in one, but they kind of happen often enough. They they'll make the news a few times in a golf season and maybe not the pros, but it's somebody, somebody is going to hit a hole in one. So, so it's, it's rare, but not impossible. And you don't take that person and build statues to them. Right. So,

whereas I just thought it perfect. And yes, and build statues to them, right? So, whereas I just thought it perfect. And yes, hitting a baseball with a round object going 90 miles an hour when the person who threw it, the whole point of why they're throwing it at you is so that you don't hit it. And the fans are screaming. And Jeff, quick, you know, back me up on this.

Here you are on a field and you're a visitor in another stadium, and they're throwing a 90-mile-an-hour, and everyone is booing you, and you're supposed to hit the ball. Where in golf, the ball is sitting at your feet, not moving. And they're telling people to shush. And they're telling people, quiet, please. It's like, shh, shh.

So how do you guys feel about that? Just wondering. It's all experience. It's a matter of going through that process. But you're right. It's one thing physically and scientifically to actually try and manipulate a bat, a round bat to hit a round ball. But then you add on top of it the added pressure of the fans.

They are just waiting for that moment when you swing and miss. Yes, absolutely. So here's what happens. So rather than look at, yes, it's odd that we have a sport called baseball where if you succeed a third of the time, you are a Hall of Famer. That's just kind of really weird, right? You're batting.333 your whole life. You're the best hitter, you know, top 100 hitters there ever was. That's just, that's an

extraordinary fact. It is. Such a thing exists in this sport. But then I thought, how about other kinds of achievements? And let's look at the perfect game. Right. And remind people what a perfect game is. It awesome, but your fielders are backing you up. Yes. Your fielders, they can't make an error. Hey, Jeff, let me ask you, since Neil just brought that up, uh, you were an infielder. Were you ever a part of a perfect, did you ever contribute to a perfect game? I was never witness or played in a perfect game. I played in a no hitter. And oddly enough, it happened in Yankee stadium? I was never witness or played in a perfect game. I played in a no-hitter, and oddly enough, it happened in Yankee Stadium

when I was with the Houston Astros. We had six pitchers go out there and throw a no-hitter against the Yankees. I remember that game. I might have even been at that game because at the end, because it was kind of a little bit... You hear someone booing really, really loud.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, this is funny. It was just weird because it was a little bit anticlimactic, right? The Yankees get no hit, but they're like four relief pitchers in there. And at the end of the game, they all gathered. I'm looking in the field. They all gathered for the cameras. I said, why are they interviewing? And I said, then I looked up at the scoreboard. Holy shit. The Yankees got no hit. It's a no hitter. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a no hitter by committee. By committee.

That's pretty funny. What was the reaction of the whole club? The whole club, how did the whole team, how did they react to that event? Well, to Neil's point, the replay that we continue to show throughout the years is Billy Wagner closes it out and gets a ground ball to first base. Jeff Bagwell, Hall of Famer, flips it to Billy, and he steps on the base, and Billy's got two hands in the air. Yeah, we did it! And Jeff Bagwell has this look on his face like, man, dude, we just won a game. What's the big deal? You know? And all of a sudden, it kind of dominoed

through the team, and we were like, holy cow, we did something special. But just to be clear, when I first, I wanted to do a reality check on how often you would expect a perfect game. Okay. And so at the time I did this, there were like 15 perfect games ever pitched. Okay. By the way, three of them pitched by Yankees. Okay.

So that's extraordinary. One of them in the World Series, which we'll get to in just a minute. Right. At the time I did this calculation, there were 15 perfect games. Okay. And I said, that's not a big number, guys. Look at how many games are played. Over 200,000 games.

How many years this has been going on. So I said, let me just do a sanity check on this calculation. Okay. And what you do is you can say, all right, let's say you're batting 300 just to, all right. So that means the pitcher has a 70% chance of getting you out. Or you're not getting a hit. So it's in my favor as a pitcher.

So now Gary comes up to bat. Let's say he's also a 300-pitter. It's still in my favor, 70% chance. But for me to get both of you out, it's the joint probability of getting you out and getting you out and mathematically I take 0.7 and multiply that by 0.7. That's the the rest of what is in the average Taken away by batting 300, right? So three 30% chance you'll get a hit 70% chance. You're not gonna get a hit Okay, so all you have to do is multiply this 27 times. Oh my god. Okay, then you get a hit. Okay. So all you have to do is multiply this 27 times. Oh my God. Okay. Then you get a probability of you get how many games that will happen if all other things being sort

of equal. Now, the first time I did this calculator, I didn't do it right because I only took people's batting averages. But if you want a perfect game, you're not getting the first base at all. So on base average as well. But at the time I did this, on-base percentage was not a thing. When did on-base percentage become a statistic that people tracked? You know what? They did track it quite a bit, but they didn't track it in the sense of adding it into an on-base percentage and batting average and slinging percentage. It wasn't until about four or five years ago.

That they got that other thing, that other number. Yeah, they started, it's OPS. Yeah, which makes no freaking sense because it can be more than one, and it's no, no, I'm not buying it. Well, the reason is because all these analytics, they want to take batting average out of it. They want to show production, and they show production as far as getting on-base and slugging.

So they take slugging percentage and add that to on-base percentage. Therefore, you get OPS. That makes sense because it's kind of like measuring productivity in the workforce. Like you can show up to work every day on time and leave every day, be the last guy to leave. But if you don't do crap while you're there, who cares? But if you don't do crap while you're there, who cares? My point is, as someone who is mathematically literate, that statistic makes no mathematical sense whatsoever.

You can't just add percentages. It just doesn't work. F? No, no. Don't think this through. You're right. Okay? If you succeed 80% of the time and I succeed 80% of the time, we both don't succeed 160% of the time and I succeed 80% of the time, we both don't succeed 160% of the time.

So don't get me, but let me finish this out. So what I had to do was use the on-base percentage, which is higher for everyone. Right. Because sometimes you get walks. So it's just to be clear, on-base percentage, and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong here. on base percentage, and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong here. It's your batting average plus your walks plus hit by pitch plus catcher interference plus taking a base on a strikeout. Okay.

Okay, is there any other way to get to first base? Well, it depends on how much she likes you. Oh! Okay, I'm sorry. Oh! I'm going'm sorry. Oh! I'm going to carbon date that joke. Listen. You said you could edit this later, right?

Yeah, you see. Hey, look, I'm a dad. That's a dad joke. That was a dad joke. Okay. What stat do the players focus on? He was going to answer my question first. Is he?

Okay, I'll get in line. Now I forgot the question. Is there any other way to get to first i forgot the question is there any other way to get to first base no that's the only way to get to first base uh yeah other than off the field but um i'm not too sure if they actually take into account getting on by uh by strikeout because that counts against your batting average um and the uh catcher's interference is counted as an error against the catcher so i don't think they count that it has to be a walk walk and hit by pitch or intentional walk. Yeah, but if I got on base, I got on base. If I freaked out the catcher.

There are limitations. There are always limitations. So regardless. Can't take credit for the other guy screwing up. Okay, that's what it is. Well, so this is why I want to start a movement. If you walk on 10 pitches, that counts as a hit. If you walk on 10 pitches, that counts as a hit. If you walk on four pitches, it counts against the pitcher.

I'm glad I changed my numbers then. No, no, no. What do you think of this? You're counting battling the pitcher. Yes. If I can battle the pitcher and I exhaust all their strikes and I have a good eye, I earn that base. That should count in my favor. It shouldn't be a non-at-bat and count against the pitcher. I earned that base. That should count in my favor. It shouldn't be a non-at-bat and count

against the pitcher. I took that base. And so you've got to come up with some number of pitches for which you then get credited with that. Jeff, on this show, I am always for changing games. So what do you think about this? I mean, I kind of see what he's saying. What do you

think about that as a hitter? Well, you talked about how hard it is to hit a baseball and get credit for it. You shouldn't be able to get a hit without getting a hit. Oh, okay. So you're saying that that cheapens the actual batting average if you were to allow that to be a part of it. Okay, so I got another one. I'm on a roll. If you get hit by a pitch on ball four, you should be able to go to second base. Oh, okay.

He got him. I got him. No, no, whereabouts do you hit? Because it's different. It doesn't matter. I kind of like Gary's thing because if you get hit in the balls, which is almost impossible, you actually go to third base. Well, if the ball hits you in the balls, it counts.

That's three. That's three balls. Hey! We love the math. See, this is how math works. Two plus one equals three. All right, so come on. Let's conclude the equation. Okay, so you do the numbers now with on-base percentage

because a perfect game, no one makes it to first base at all. Right. As opposed to a no-hitter, where just no one gets a hit, but you can give up a walk. Right. You can even have an error. Right. This sort of thing.

Okay. And so I ran the numbers. So what you do is you can get sort of the average batting average for a team. All right? And it's actually lower than you think. I just checked this yesterday. So the American League batting average, which is typically higher than that for the National League because we have the designated hitter, right? So it's not this sort of easy out with the pitcher batting ninth.

So our averages are just slightly higher. the average for the entire league is 250 Wow the whole league holy yes the average of the team averages is 250 nodding Yeah, right so so that means you got some folks batting 240 to whatever you know they and that that rounds out your club Okay, so that means this is Even more in the favor of the pitcher if you're trying to pitch a perfect game. But you'll always have some batter that's batting three-something. But, again, I just wanted to do a sanity check on that number 15. That's all I did.

So you take 250 and you say, all right, there's a 75% chance I want to get every player out every time I face them. Give everybody a 250 batter. It's just a sanity check. All right? If you do the calculation perfectly, you would stretch that out. But watch. So you do it.

So.25 times.25 times.25. Do that 27 times. Okay? We're getting to something. Then you find out how often would that happen? All right? It's like one in 15,000 games. To some crazy... Okay?

So then... Was that the number? I better double check my notes on that. But it's one in a huge number. Then I looked at all the games ever played. You have 30 teams right now. And they play 162 games. But a team plays another team.

So it's half that number. Right. Because you're counting games now. So it's half that number. Right. Because you're counting games now. Right. So it's 30 teams playing 81 games, total games, okay, if you want to think about it that way. Because they're playing each other. They're playing each other. And then you multiply. Then you add up all the games back to – stay in the modern era, that 1800s baseball.

What the hell was going on back then? I don't know. They weren't playing with gloves, and they were playing with, like, you know, a sock ball. Who knows, man? Some of the numbers are crazy. Yeah. So you want to stay in the relatively modern era. Yeah. Not the shoeless Joe Jackson era. So it's basically a hundred years of ball. So, so when I did this, I came up with like the number 12 or something. I mean, it was a sanity check. The real number was 15. I got 12.

And I said, oh, my gosh, this is actually working as a calculation. And so right now we are up to 20 or 21. 23. 23 perfect games. And I'm just saying a perfect game is a stunning fact in baseball. We are going to take a break. Don't forget, coming up after, we will have Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jeff Blum. So that's one World Series winning hitter and your personal guide to the universe.

Stick around. We'll be back shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. This, of course, is Playing With Science. And today we are talking about the hardest thing to do in sports. And according to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, that is pitching the perfect game in baseball. Not just hitting 100 mile an hour fastball, but pitching the perfect game. I suppose the most famous perfect game has to be back in 1956. Yankees versus the Dodgers?

Yeah, and the Yankees. Yes, it was the Brooklyn Dodgers, I think they were at the time. Yes. Really something special. A real local event. Yeah, because if you calculate, if you're going to calculate the odds of pitching a perfect game using everyone's on-base percentage, you would expect that you'd be more likely to throw a perfect game against a last-place team.

Right. The last-place team, all their numbers are suppressed, right? They're not going to be, you're not going to have the good hitters. They probably don't even have any marquee players. key players. So I would bet most, I haven't checked this, but I would bet that most of the no-hitters in perfect games that have been pitched have been against sort of lesser teams in the rankings. Okay. Makes sense. Statistically. Statistically, you'd expect that. Right. So if it's different from that, I'd be very surprised, but let's keep that for the moment. So in 1956, in the World Series, the Yankees, the best team in the American League,

are playing the Dodgers, the best team in the National League. And Don Larson pitches a perfect game. All right, let's play. Play it. Larson is ready. Gets the sign. This right forward. Here comes the pitch.

Strike three. Another hitter. A perfect game for Don Larson. He'll be there. He's out there. A perfect game for John Larson. Jimmy Burrow runs out there. He weaves for Larson. And he's won by his teammates. Look at this crowd roar. The first World Series no-hitter.

A perfect performance by John Larson. I know you love your numbers. 97 pitches. That's all Larson took. Okay, so the minimum, well, the minimum pitches would be 27 pitches. We have three down all the way through. No, no, one pitch out. Right.

One pitch out. So 97 pitches. Oh, oh, oh. So, okay. You can throw 27 pitches. You can throw 27 pitches. That means. That's a minimum game.

It's contact on all 27 and then you're out. And the fielder. And the fielder plays it and you're out. And the fielder plays it, and you're out. Gotcha. 97 pitches today, Jeff, they would have taken, well, not in that game, but today nobody pitches 97. No one throws 100 pitches anymore. Isn't that right?

No, you're extremely right. Yeah, you get to 100 pitches, all of a sudden bullpens are up and managers are freaking out, and they take the guy out. Yeah, but do you take Don Larson out in this game? God, no. Okay. You have to call a God for that way. Wait, is that hindsight?

Wait, no, honestly, Jeff, is that hindsight speaking, or is that just the fact that when somebody gets to the seventh or eighth inning, no matter how many pitches they've thrown, if they're throwing a perfect game, you leave them in? Even a no-hitter. Even if they're throwing more than their average per game and they might take them out of the next rotation. Yeah, they would. Yeah, that's exactly what would happen. There's actually, I believe it was Edwin Jackson with the Arizona Diamondbacks who threw a no hitter, had 10 punch outs, walked

eight guys and threw 150 pitches, but the manager left him in, and they did skip his next start. So, yeah, that would happen, but in a perfect game, you are not touching anything. You're letting that guy play it out. All right, Jeff, so here we go. I'm going to read you a list of names. Dick Williams, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reeser. Pee Wee Rees.

Rees. Pee Wee Rees. Silent E, like Degrass. Silent E. Ray Campanella. Oh, it's by the way. Duke Snyder. All-future Hall of Fame batsmen that Larson flew past.

Oh, they batted against Larson in that game. In that list again? Dick Williams, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reset, Roy Campanella, and Duke Snyder. And Jackie Robinson is in that list. Absolutely. Wow. When you said against lesser teams, that's why this is absolutely stellar. Right, right.

And I think Don Larson is not in the Hall of Fame. And not as a player for lifetime performance. Yogi Berra is. So my sense of this is, if you have achieved something so singular that no one has done it before or since, nor can anyone even think that happened. That's put the boy, this mention of him just in the history part.

But I'm thinking if that's all he did in his life, put him in. Well, even for that, I mean, even if you were to, you know how they say, okay, Hall of Famers now going to have to have the asterisks because, you know, blah, blah, blah. So do that. Put him in and put an asterisk because, you know, blah, blah, blah. So do that. Put him in and put an asterisk like, yeah. It's the singular thing. This is the singular thing that he did, and no one else has ever done it, and it's the hardest thing to do in sports.

Going back to your point about Don Larson and the Hall of Fame, it is the only ever perfect game in a World Series. Correct. Stand alone. And it's the only no-hitter. The only no-hitter. It's even the only no-hitter. The only no-hitter. It's even the only no-hitter. And it's even more than the no-hitter.

Game five, game six, game five. And in game two, I think he had two innings and they pulled him out. He wasn't very good. And he came back and delivered a game like that. It's awesome. The fact is that, I mean, the fact that he's not in the world, I mean, in the Hall of Fame lets you know that this singular accomplishment was his singular accomplishment.

It's like the one-hit wonders, you know. Let me hear the rest of that album. He's the fully vanillium basement. Oh, you're taking him out at the knees there. I'm sorry, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm just saying, you know, you hear the one-hit wonder, and you say, let me hear the rest of what's on that album, and it sucks.

Right. It's the singular. That's it. I like achievement. I like it when people's talent, artistic, physical, athletic, rises up against everything else. You have to just stand awestruck in what they have performed. I've got his corner.

I've got Don's corner, no matter what Chuck says. Yeah. All right. Okay. So we talked about Don Larson, only perfect game and only no hitter in World Series history. But, you know, it doesn't end there. Let's take a look at Randy Johnson. Your friend.

Six foot nine, Randy Johnson. Who I would so much rather be Randy Jackson. You know, give me a tissue. Six foot nine of him. Which, by the way, one of the most dominant pitchers ever, right, Jeff? I mean, seriously. Did you face Randy Johnson?

I did. He's in my book. I got him. I hit a home run off him. Oh! Nicely done, my book. I got him. I hit home runoff in my review. Oh! Oh! Nicely done, my friend. Nicely done. And he MF'd me the entire way around the bases. It was great.

Awesome. Oh, that must have been music to your ears. That's got to be great. It was. That's got to be great, having Randy Jackson call you MF the entire time you're circling. I'm sorry, Randy Jackson. That was Randy Jackson now, people. You notice I keep saying it.

From this moment onward. Were you ever teammates? Were you ever teammates? Because you were at the Diamondbacks as well. No, I missed him. No, okay. So let me ask you, when you face him, because he was so tall,

are you taking that into account in any way? How do you look at him? Where do you look for the release? By the way, he's pitched a perfect game. Yes, he has. We're going to take a look at that in a second. But I just want to know, well, maybe we should look at the clip and then we'll talk about that. Yeah, but put him on the clip.

This one's up against the Atlanta Braves for the Diamondbacks, so roll it. Game one, one after go. the diamond back so okay there it is look at his teammates look at Randy Johnson the dude's head came up to his nipples I know I love it. Gene Stryker. He faced 27 men. He got them all out. And he gets mobbed by his teammates.

I'm by the mob. It's really one of the coolest moments in baseball ever. You want the best pitchers to have one of those on their record, right? You knew he was a great pitcher. And that kind of completes the total storybook of what could be someone's career. Catfish Hunter also had a perfect game. Absolutely. These are great pitchers.

The great thing about Randy Johnson's perfect game was he doesn't dial this up until he's 40. So it's not one of those early... He was 40 when he pitched this? The oldest player ever to deliver. And didn't look a day over 52. He was 40 when he pitched this? The oldest player ever to deliver. And didn't look a day over 52. I mean, Jeff, that's a mean-looking dude, let alone the 6'9".

That's a face. So here's what I want to know, Jeff. How do you face somebody? Because when you look at how tall Randy Johnson is, how do you adjust your hitting? Because it had to be kind of weird and freaky to see this lanky giant. Where do you look for the release? Where do you do all that? How do you change your hitting? It's tough. Typically, as a hitter, you'll look at the logo on the hat of the pitcher and then adjust to wherever that

arm angle is coming from. And he's a whole different animal as far as trying to pick the baseball up. Not only was he 6'10", but he is coming downhill. He's letting go of the ball maybe about three or four feet later than a normal pitcher. That's what makes it tough too. So your timing is thrown off because normally you're going to see the ball for maybe another five, six feet as opposed to off Randy Johnson. So you had to adjust the timing of your swing. You had to adjust the quickness of your swing. And obviously the brain has to get involved in recognizing spin, rotations, and velocities all at the same time. He was extremely tough. I didn't have good numbers against him.

But if you face a guy that's dialed in like he is, it makes it that much tougher. He creates a tough angle, too, because he's so tall. And the trajectory and the plane that he is pitching from is completely altered also. So as a hitter, you you got to create a different angle in your swing to try and combat how he's coming from so high so how do you prepare how do you prepare for a guy who's going to be pitching to you like that in in sort of practice or do you just think well you know what you don't you don't simple as you can't yeah i mean you could be you go out there and put your batting practice pitcher on a on stilts but, but there's really no way to replicate. And at the time, he was really

the only guy that was over six foot five that I ever faced. So he was another five inches on top of that guy. So Jeff, you're not old enough for this, I don't think, but I know this sounds like I'm father time. But maybe you're old enough to remember when it happened, you surely weren't playing, when they reduced the height of the mound. Yep. That was around Bob Gibson, right in the mid to late 60s? Yeah, so to reduce the advantage that the pitcher had over the batter so that there'd be more hitting and more action. And so what we're saying here, not to put words in your mouth,

but he just took those six inches back, put it on the mound, and gave himself his advantage again. That's what he did. He gave himself the advantage. The advantage that had been subtracted away from a whole generation of baseball players. So we could get more action and more scores. Right. That's great.

Do Cubs scout the taller pitchers simply because of that? They may, but, I mean, ultimately it comes down to, we talked about it earlier, production. If you're going out there and getting out, then you're going to be the guy that goes out there for me. And there's different guys that are tall that have lower arm angles and things like that. But it's a lot of the conversation. But if you're big, throw hard, it's going to be an advantage for you. Pedro wasn't very tall.

He couldn't have been even six feet. Exactly. Yeah, he was 5'9", 5'10". Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all about production. Look at Fernando with his big fat butt. So, I mean, seriously, you know. Hey, that's the beauty of baseball.

Exactly. You can have a gut and still. Yes. All right, beauty will be in the eye of the beholder when it comes to baseball, it seems. We will take a break. We will be back with Total Perfection with Jeff Blum and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Stick around. We'll be back shortly.

Hi, I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And we have Jeff Blum and, of course, Neil deGrasse Tyson as our guests today. And we've been chatting about perfect games in baseball, the hardest thing to do in sport, according to the man to my left. Only because it's... By the way, there are harder things to do.

There are things that baseball players have done where no one else has done it. For example, Aaron Judge on the Yankees. Yes. Has four strikeouts in three consecutive games. Right. In a playoff. That has never happened in the history of the sport. So you can say that's the hardest thing to do.

No, no. Yeah, that's true. Because that's something, a record he holds uniquely. But isn't that because there's a statistic for everything in baseball? And you know why? Because of all the downtime between pitches that announcers need something to talk about, don't you? Oh, you nailed it.

Busted. You nailed it. Yeah, no. Hey, don't you? Oh, you nailed it. Busted. You nailed it. Yeah, busted. Hey, that's the reason why I've got sheets, I've got stats. I mean, yeah, no, that's so true. We just called you out, dude. That's probably the beauty of baseball. Because baseball throws up some of the most unique statistics, events.

Say offers up rather than throws up. I will say offers up. Thank you. Phrasing. He's a Brit. Get your English correct, events. Say offers up rather than throws up. I will say offers up. Thank you. Phrasing. He's a Brit. We teach him English correctly. We're teaching him English, American here. All right, sat in front of the class again for English lit.

Right, so anyway, let's not mess about. Jim Abbott's no-hitter. We are very Yankee-centric, but I make no apologies right now. Play this clip, please. Indians have not had a man pass first base. By Erga, batting 318. And the ground ball to Shark. Bernardi.

He did it. He did it. No hitter for Jim Abbott! Jim Abbott, no hitter. Now, of course, what made Jim Abbott so very special? Well, because there are a couple hundred no hitters. Obviously, it's easier to throw a no hitter than a perfect game. I was unaware of this player, this event.

Yes, yes. So did you notice that his glove was sort of resting on his arm? Yeah, exactly. Right, because he doesn't have a hand. Right. He's congenitally born with only one hand and has always wanted to play baseball. And imagine people saying, you know, you're barking up the wrong tree, fella. You know, and he said, no, I want to play baseball. Figure it out a way to field as a pitcher with one hand.

It's incredible. So he throws the ball, and right out of that tossed stroke, his hand goes into the glove so that he's ready to field. Then he will catch the ball, put the glove back into his right hand with no hand, his right arm with no hand, retrieve the ball, and then throw it. And there's YouTube clips of him fielding. He's doing that. Fielding.

Unbelievable. He's a triumph. So, Jeff, as an infielder, how freaking awesome is Jim Abbott to do this? Or is it just brain and muscle memory? I'm sure brain and muscle memory has to go into it. But, I mean, this is years of practice and him trying to figure that out. And obviously, don't ever doubt the human spirit when you say you can't do something and you got the desire. Absolutely.

Because obviously, there was something in that left arm. If there wasn't anything in that left arm, he probably would have shut down baseball and never played again. But he understood he was good enough and figured out a way to make it happen. That's what's remarkable about it. But then to go out there and accomplish something like a no-hitter, you know, kudos to Jim Abbott. I mean, what a miraculous thing. But I don't understand, as a player and having watched Jim Abbott, you know, you will try and do this yourself with your own glove and fail miserably.

So credit to him. Yeah, man. Just might get a little weird here. Could it be that because he's missing a hand that throws off the batter um you know what i don't think necessarily because as a hitter you're focused on that release point uh okay okay you know so i don't think it really throws off the motion what's interesting to me is that he can't use that right arm as a cantilever to kind of help him pitch so he was basically everything was on that left arm as a cantilever to kind of help him pitch. So he was basically, everything was on that left arm.

It was a one side of a body thing. Yeah. Right. There's none of this sort of, you know, balance act that you do with both hands to get the pitch out at high speeds. To be able to master the technique and not having the other hand. Yeah. And the fierce determination as a young person.

And like you said, Jeff, the will to do, to accomplish when other people say you can't, oh my gosh. You must have faced that can't word how many times a day. Right, right. Absolutely. We have one last clip. Oh yeah, please. What's this?

Oh! So, Neil, actually, you bought this. Figure out the possibilities of that one. Yeah. Neil, you bought this up. That's the hardest thing to do. You bought this up earlier, and that is Randy Johnson when we were off the air.

How do you get that to happen on the radio? Yeah. You bought, you got to go to StarTalkAllAccess.com so you can see this. Okay, so this is Randy Johnson. This is Randy Johnson. In a game. In a game. Throwing a pitch.

And? And a highly unfortunate pigeon flies into the trajectory of this. 95 mile an hour fastball. And there's nothing left of the pigeon. We've already discussed Super Bowl day being a bad time to be a chicken. To be a chicken because of the chicken wing consumption. But Americans consume one million chickens per hour. Per hour.

For every hour of the year. Well, now add one dead pigeon. It was a bad day to be a pigeon. One million and one in that. Play the clip one more time. Oh, gosh. Well, at least it was fast. So, yeah.

Do you have any statistics on how likely this is? Break that down. Can you break that down? One in a zillion pitches. There you go. Well, that's, oh. Oh, man, that's amazing. And for those of you who want to see that,

you can either go to YouTube or StarTalk All Access. And if you are a lover of all things feathered and flying, don't go there. Yeah, without a doubt. Hey, listen, we are at the end of our show. Wait, you're not ending yet because I've got to say. We are, but Neil isn't. Excuse me, Jeff?

Jeff, let me just compliment the Astros for putting, you've got a space shuttle on the arm of the. Absolutely. And is that one of the memorial ones or is it just a standard one? Yes. No, that was in memorial. I believe it was a 2003 jersey that we had in the space shuttle launch. For Columbia. Columbia.

And Houston is the place where we have a problem. If we ever have a problem, we have it in Houston. No, no, no. If you have a problem, you tell Houston about it, and they'll fix it. And they'll get that straight. Thank you. Appreciate that. a problem, you tell Houston about it, and they'll fix it, and they'll get that straight. Thank you, Dan. The seat of the manned space program of NASA is Houston

Johnson Space Center. And a little known fact, when the shuttle launches from Florida, okay, all the control is in Florida until the instant the spacecraft leaves the gantry. Then all control goes to Houston.

That's correct. Because it's off the pad. It's off the pad. Get the hell out of here, Florida. It's like parents with children. I'm out of my house. I'm done with you. We're done with you.

All right. Hey, listen. I've always liked, I just always liked the fact that Houston, that space is in the culture of Houston. The fact you even call the Astros. I mean, that's the part of the culture, the Astrodome. There was AstroTurf. Yes. culture of Houston. The fact you even call the Astros. I mean, that's the part of the culture, the Astrodome. There was AstroTurf.

Yes. All of this comes from Houston. So let me just, we have to stop. Cause we have to do Facebook live. You can't put this on, but I just would say good luck to the Astros. I mean,

we're all just baseball fans here. So let's hope it's a really fun series. And I say just the opposite. Thank you, Jeff. Jeff, here's the deal. I'm not just looking forward to a fun series. And I say just the opposite. No, that's all I'm hoping for is a good series. Jeff, here's the deal. I'm not just looking forward to a good series. I want the Yankees to win. Okay.

Through you and Neil and your stupid sportsmanship, I hope they die a horrible death, and I hope they lose in a sweep. Bang. Okay? The possibility of that is about as much as Aaron Judge hitting another pitch. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Snap!

All right, on that note, we got to end. Gary, take this out. There's not an Astros-Yankee love-in right now, but there's a whole lot of explaining to do with that. That is our show. It's been an honor to have Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson with us and his perfect calculations.

And of course, Jeff Blum, our old friend and good friend. Thank you, Jeff. Announcer with the Astros. That's playing with science and the perfect game. Hope you've enjoyed it. We'll see you all soon.