StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Breaking Down Baseball Barriers, with Meredith Wills and Justine Siegal

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice investigate “HomerGate” alongside baseball data scientist and astrophysicist Meredith Wills, and, get details on what it takes to be a groundbreaker in sports from Justine Siegal, founder of Baseball for All and the first female coach in the MLB.Photo Courtesy of Justine Siegal. 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 revisit the big baseball mystery that took place between 2015 and 2017 when there was an outbreak of homers. But nobody knew why. Yeah, and so you know, Major League Baseball

commissioned an independent investigation led by Professor Alan Nathan who personally told us right here on PWS in 2018 Major League Baseball commissioned an independent investigation led by Professor Alan Nathan, who personally told us right here on PWS in 2018 they'd looked and they found pretty much that there was no smoking gun and that they would continue to look. Yes, and astrophysicist Dr. Meredith Wills was having none of it and tore, literally tore into the balls and found what looked a lot like a firearm with smoke coming out of the barrel.

Well, how about that? Yes. And also taking us inside baseball's universe will be Major League Baseball's coach, Justine Siegel, who might just know a thing or two about where we stand on the cusp of the new baseball season. But first, let's speak to our super sleuth, Dr. Meredith Wills. We did speak to Professor Alan Nathan, who led the Major League Baseball investigation last year,

and he said something was happening, but they weren't able to discover it. You did. But before we get to that point, and we will, don't worry, we will, what led an astrophysicist to baseball? I love this question. Let's see. I was born on opening day. I was three weeks old when I went to my first baseball game. I don't remember how old I was when I learned to keep score. I have been an official scorer in some capacity since I was about 14 and have actually been a professional official scorer.

I didn't become an astrophysicist until I went to college. So the question is more the other way around. Wow. What led such a baseball fan into astrophysics? My grandfather worked for NASA, and so it seemed like the thing to do, I guess. Nice. Family tradition. Yeah, so I

came, my dad's side is baseball, my mom's side was the scientists. And you're bringing them all together. At the time, it was a lot easier to get a job in astrophysics and enjoy baseball than the other way around. It kind of still is.

I mean, it's very hard to just do astrophysics research on the side for fun, as opposed to if you get paid by NASA to do astrophysics, you still could do baseball research. But I found a way to do baseball research and get paid for it. So, oh, darn. All right, let's deal with this what made you think you could solve homer gate i'm calling it homer gate from now on oh okay i like it oh oh not that homer no not that homer so homer gate well uh i guess some of this comes from i have a

uh history of for entirely different reasons I've gotten very good at tearing apart baseballs. And it turns out that there is actually precedent going back, oh, at least to the 20s, for changing the ball, changing the way that it travels. The best example of that is actually something Ben Lindbergh wrote up where they, if you've heard of the dead ball era and the live ball era. Okay. The reason that you got the transition was because it was World War I and we ran out of American wool. So we had to start importing wool from Australia to make the yarn for inside the baseballs. That turned out to be springier, and suddenly it becomes much easier to hit home runs. You get Babe Ruth.

Look at that. So the idea of construction of the ball, making it travel differently, there is precedent. I thought, great, maybe I'll find something. So that was sort of where it started. differently. There is precedent. I thought, great, maybe I'll find something, you know, so that was sort of where it started. That's, first of all, brilliant of you to look to the past and see where the precedent is, or see where the precedent is for the past, and then maybe use that as a clue to look into the future, because, you know, you deconstructed a ball, which, first of all, kudos to you for that. Because the first inclination would be to cut a ball open and take a look at the cross section of the ball. That's the first inclination. I don't care who

you are. You think, okay, let's see what's going on with this ball. Boom, let's cut it in half. Let's look at a cross section. We'll break down the component parts and we'll see, you are, you think, okay, let's see what's going on with this ball. Boom, let's cut it in half. Let's look at a cross section. We'll break down the component parts and we'll see, you know, we'll take our measurements and we'll see. You, no, you were like, let's unravel the ball completely. That, by the way, that alone, you just deserve like many, many kudos for that. You know what I mean? Because, I mean, that just shows right there that you're thinking outside of the box. With that in mind, I got to know, how long does it take to take apart a baseball? Because you didn't do it. You literally took it apart. You de-themed it and then unraveled it. How long does that take? If you're on a roll, it takes, oh, I don't know, maybe one to two hours. The problem is that taking the laces apart

really cuts your hands up. So you can't really do more than a couple a day because you just, the laces are tight. And even then you have to get like, I've taken enough apart where i'm pretty good at detaching the seams themselves so that they don't fray but you you're literally taking a pin sticking them under the seams and pulling them up and if you don't do it exactly right the seams fray and then it takes a lot longer plus you, you then lose the laces. And I should say the laces, right?

You lose the laces, which, you know, ultimately became my most important data point. So it's really a good thing that I'd already gotten good at taking them apart because it meant my laces were largely intact. So where do you go to source? Because you need to source balls of a certain period. It's not you saying, well, I'll look at the balls that are current. I'll look at the balls or whenever, you know, there's a couple in the backyard, I'll deal with those. You have to go to a certain place. Was that access easy? Yes and no. By the way, it turns out that, here, visual aids. Okay. It turns out that every baseball that is pre-2015 has, let me see if I can get that close enough to the camera, it has Bud Selig's signature on it.

So by definition, if it's got Bud Selig's signature, it is pre-2015 because the commissioners changed in the offseason of 2014-2015. It's kind of like money and the US treasurer. When the treasurer changes, the signature on your money changes. We are dealing with a super sleuth. A little simple indicator like that. Okay, so you date... Afterwards, it's harder, actually.

Because the transition happened during 2015. So you want to make sure you don't get 2015 balls which do save manfred and so for those i actually did go to people specifically you know uh 2016 2017 uh a lot of parties that actually i have to keep anonymous for various reasons. And since then, it's been a little bit easier to get my hands on baseballs. I prefer to have ones that have actually been game used to some extent, you know, either used in batting practice or foul balls or whatever, because you get a more random sample. Gotcha. You know, as opposed to like if you get a box of baseballs,

as I've discovered, you take them apart and they all have the same ID number on the inside. So it could be that the difference might be related to that exact person at that exact time, not that it is something that's systematic. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense.

So what did you find? eBay, I guess, is the way you end up going. And then you ask the person, when did you catch these baseballs? And there happen to be some people where they'll say, oh yeah, I got them in August and September of last year. Great. Okay, I'll take them.

That's the way to do it. I mean, we talked about the Major League investigation, the independently commissioned investigation or whichever you way to do it. I mean, we talked about the Major League investigation, the independently commissioned investigation, or whichever you want to call it. They didn't find, but you did. But what did you find that was specific? And how does that correlate to the physics,

to the home run increase? Because that home run increase tailed off in the 2018 season so we are looking at a specific time time band here so what did you find what was it that you went a hot smoking gun well this i this does start with the home Run Committee's findings. And it's basically that they found the only thing that was clearly different was the ball. And in particular, they found that the drag on the baseball, the aerodynamic drag was less on the balls in 2016 and 2017 than before 2015.

And so hence, it's gotta be the ball. That much they knew. It couldn't be coaching. It couldn't be weather. It couldn't be launch angle. It had to be the ball. Right. What I found, and in the way that science always works, I almost didn't even measure this. In the way that science always works, I almost didn't even measure this. It was the last measurement I did, and it was a last-minute aha, was I ended up looking at the thickness of the red laces. So like the actual, you know, how – Yes, right. And it turns out that for the newer baseballs,

the laces themselves are actually thicker by 9%. And that's a big enough difference where it is a statistically significant difference so what what does thicker laces mean i mean apart from the fact they're thicker well it's interesting because a lot of people when they hear thicker laces they think higher seams right they think seam height right and of course if you had higher seams i mean we do a lot. It would be less. It would be more drag. It would be more drag and you get more movement.

And so, you know, you'd have an increased madness effect, as we've discussed on this show here many times. But so it's really interesting that you found this thicker, these thicker seams, these thicker laces. No, no. Thicker laces. Thicker laces, not thicker seams. I'm sorry. The seam is the space in between. these thicker laces. No, no. Thicker laces. Thicker laces, not thicker seams. I'm sorry. The seam is the space in between. The thicker laces, what did that do to the ball?

Does a thicker lace mean a tighter seam? What exactly does it do? What ends up happening is, I mean, I guess, first of all, to make sure that the seams are related to the size of the leather cover. So if you think about it it's that it's the amount of leather that's getting squeezed under the laces that's what gives you the height of the seams right it's the leather it's not the laces um as far as getting that difference it turns out that um the lace because the laces are cotton um we've all had this happen you know you spill coffee on your shirt you go into the bathroom you go and scrub it out you get a divot in your shirt

yeah it's like a little it's a yeah right yeah right so what what that demonstrates basically is that wet cotton if you deform it and let it air dry, it stays deformed. So in the process of making the baseballs, the cotton laces get wet. They're put under tension from the stitches themselves. They're then actually put under additional pressure to make the ball more spherical, and then they let them air dry. Well, thinner laces are gonna stretch more than thicker laces. And what you end up with is that seam is the weak point.

So you literally get almost a deformity along the seam. And so it bulges at the seams for the thinner laces. For the thicker ones, you get a little bulging, not so much. And I actually did a follow-up study where I looked at another sample and I found that every single pre-2015 baseball I looked at was bulging at the seams, all of them. And in some cases, by a significant amount, actually. Wow.

So if I go back to the World Series in 2017, so the Astros and the Dodgers, both sets of pitches, both ballpens were saying, balls are juiced. I won't do the accent. Balls are juiced. I'll say it in British. Sounds far more ridiculous, right?

You know what? I know with various Brits that I know that was a lot better than what I usually hear, just so you know. You've just patted me on the head, haven't you? It was a compliment. All right, thank you. All right, thank you. I'll take it as such.

But they were both saying these balls are different. They found that they were slicker. The slicker thing I don't understand, but yeah. But they said there's something different. Because if you blindfold a pitcher, a major league pitcher, and just say ball, because they did an experiment, and I think it was the Dodgers. Hey, it's one or the other.

The Astros or the Dodgers. Six balls, and he said postseason, regular season, and he got them all right, the difference. Right. Three of each and they will know they just because that's the tool they use day in and day out they have an intimate knowledge of what one's what the the interesting thing is okay what we have here this is a pre-2015 ball this is a post-2015 ball i I actually used these balls, and this is just like I randomly picked them out of the samples that I have. I gave a presentation last summer where I brought these, and everybody who I talked to afterwards, I had them feel the balls. People who had never picked up a baseball in their life could tell the difference.

Wow. 100% they told me correctly which ones had the thicker seams. That's how obvious it is. So it doesn't just take pictures. All it really takes is having any kind of tactile ability. So it's a haptic experience. If you touch it, you can feel the difference. So now this is what I want to know because you were you're an official scorer and you've been

you know at which means you're you're a purist fan um rawlings says that hey man we we just do what we do like you know what i mean like we've we changed nothing is is that really the case i mean because it seems to me that something's got to be different. So, you know, but I understand why they would resist in saying that anything's different because anything you change in baseball, baseball is such a game of statistics and such a game of tradition.

You are going to anger fans because fans who are keeping a close eye on things, they want to know what those variables are because they're going to factor that into their recordings so what do you think that it's more like them towing their own party line or is it or or is there something that they're they could be truly ignorant of uh i would say yes and no. Okay. I would say that, first of all, I would be very surprised if anybody intentionally went out and got laces that are 9% thicker. It was very likely just a contract negotiation. This was the bid that came in the best and it you know however many levels down and it just didn't occur to

anybody i mean to to either to check or to take seriously that the laces were that much thicker in addition to the pitchers what you have to realize is all of these balls are laced by hand so there's a couple hundred people down in costa who are making baseballs every day, every week, you know, and they produce like 200 baseballs a day or a week each. Yeah. And I guarantee they had to have known there was a difference in lace thickness. surprised if Rawlings anticipated that this was somehow going to change how the ball traveled and essentially how the game evolved. It may also explain to some extent that 2018 changed because they could have had, and I need to look at some more 2018 balls to take a look, but they may have just had supply turnover. And the next batch, they're still thicker as far as I can tell, but they may not be as thicker as the 2016, 2017 set.

Interesting. Interesting. Can I go back just to the physics of it a little bit more? And I know we're crunched for time. Smaller balls, tighter laces not necessarily smaller more spherical more spherical does that affect the deformation of shape once they're hit do they then return to their spherical true spherical shape sooner and is that going to be the reason maybe like i know because i'm a physicist, they fly further? That's something that I considered.

And I have a feeling that if it is an effect, I don't think it's the predominant effect, partly because when the MLB Home Run Committee did their research, they put all these balls through a wind tunnel, even ones that hadn't been impacted, and they still found a difference even without impact. So if impact is having an effect, it's an additional effect, but the effect exists regardless of whether the ball is hit.

Wow. Thank you. That's great. You really did get into this, man. You really got into this. This is great. All right, we've got to take a break. We're going to take a break.

Are we going to have the doctor remain? We are. Fabulous. Yeah, excellent. I have a head full of more questions. Right. More from Dr. Meredith Wills when we come back. The mystery solver of the big, I sound like Scooby-Doo here.

It's like a Scooby-Doo mystery. I'm not belittling your work, doctor. This mystery has plagued people's minds and no one's really produced a smoking gun until now. Yeah. And I think we have exactly the right person and there's more evidence, I believe, to back this up. Stay tuned.

We're going to get really into this. Welcome back to Planet Science. This is our little baseball mystery that isn't so little. It's rather large, big. And the codebreaker. Yes. The person that broke the Enigma code. We have the chief detective, the chief inspector. Yeah, we have a super sleuth, Dr. Meredith Wills.

An astrophysicist, second, but a baseball devotee first. And we've got into laces being thicker, the consequences thereof, but there's other evidence to back up that the laces are, not just you saying it and then just saying, well, that's it now. I've said it. That's enough. Rich Hill, pitcher, Major League variety of. What did he say about the balls when he was pitching them? Well, he's actually been, I guess, until some of this stuff came out, very, very vocal about the fact that the ball was different. And he postulated that the seams were higher. Specifically, he even brought up that the laces were thicker and went to MLB and said, please, will you check to see if the ball is different?

Because the ball really feels different. MLB came back and like Rawlings said, the ball hasn't changed. I mean, even to the MLB home run committee, Rawlings said the ball hasn't changed. I mean, even to the MLB Home Run Committee, Rawlings said the ball hadn't changed. So, you know, it's more, I guess Rich Hill was right, is what it comes down to. It just required that somebody go in and check for real. But there was actual medical evidence with something called pitcher blister?

Oh, yeah. actual medical evidence with something called pitcher blister oh yeah um pitcher uh rich hill uh aaron sanchez is another one uh marcus stroman this last year uh where uh aaron sanchez with the blue jays was actually the really big one because he had like the lowest era in baseball so great young pitcher and he lost about a half a season to blisters that got so bad that I believe he tore a tendon in his finger in the end and was out for the rest of the season. It was pretty bad. If you want to see some pretty disgusting pictures, you can look up some stuff online. And it is just disturbing how bad thing, cause they kept trying to cut things away in hopes that it would somehow. But, um, I mean, the way to, to look at it,

seeing as I have demo is when you have a, I'm not a pitcher, but for a four seam fastball, I can get that right. Or same fastball, you hold the, um, the, your finger up against the laces. Yeah, right. And so if you're letting go, depending on how you do the release, effectively, and this is something that bears looking into with equipment that I don't have,

I have a feeling it's almost more of like a sandpaper effect than if the laces are thinner. And so, you know, it's not that people won't get blisters at all. But, and again, back to Ben Lindbergh, did a great article where he looked and the, I don't want to, I want to say it's like a factor of five or a factor of eight. There was this massive spike in 2016 of pitcher blisters just going up. And it's just interesting that there's a correlation between the laces being thicker, the pitcher blisters going up, and the home run search. It's very strange to think that they're completely unrelated.

I have to follow your train of thought here. But I go back to a show we did a couple of years ago with the great Ron Darling, pitcher with the Mets. Oh, yes. And he had a similar thing on one of his fingers, and he showed us a scar. Do you remember that, Chuck? Oh, God, yes.

It's still there. And he called it a vampire ball because he couldn't help it. It would rip on the seams and get blood on the ball. That's hence the term vampire ball. Oh, wow. Yeah, because one of the rules is you're not actually allowed to wear any kind of bandage or anything. So when you get a blister, you end up on the disabled.

So it's actually a very big deal, even for a minor blister. You know, you see guys pulled, and a lot of times you can tell because suddenly someone's looking at their hand and the guy goes. And sometimes it's an actual blister. Sometimes it's that there's one that seems to be coming on, but it's a starter. They want him to make his next start, and so they're going to be cautious about it.

But, yeah, because you'll lose a guy to the 10-day disabled list easily. All right, so we've cast you in the role of super detective, right? Let's turn this the other way. Baseball, Chuck continually tells me, needs to be better, more, give me more, let me have more homers, let me have more this, let me have more that. I'm only giving the people what they want, man. No, you're being selfish being selfish is what you want. All right.

Laces seem to have had a positive effect. Yes, any pitcher will disagree. I was going to say, it depends on what you consider positive. Positive on home runs, negative on pitchers. Right. So, nah, pitchers, home runs, yes. Shallow am I. Is there anything else that could be done?

Because baseball looks like it could do with a little bit of an uplift. And have Major League Baseball and Rawlings inadvertently stumbled upon something that could be a positive? I, you know what? Baseball, be home runs are interesting to people who are not rabid baseball fans. Right. I would look at myself. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. So this is to to to bastardize a Bull Durham quote. It's about strikeouts, but it's the same idea. Home runs are boring. Besides that, they're fascists. Throw more ground balls. It's more democratic. Okay. You know, the home run, there's nothing involved.

There's no defense involved. It's just the pitcher and the hitter and the fielders could go home. Exactly. However, I mean... But it's a visual. But you got to remember though, like let's look at a no hitter. That's the same thing. I mean, everybody it's a visual. But you got to remember, though, like, let's look at a no-hitter. That's the same thing.

I mean, everybody else can kind of go. But no-hitters happen so rarely. That's true. And now we've got multiple home runs every single game. Right. Yay. Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron.

You know, who for years and years and years was the home run king. That's right. Said the most exciting play in baseball is a triple. Well, yeah, because how often does that happen? Right, and it's hard, too. Right, it's very difficult. When Bartolo Colon can hit a home run, anybody can hit a home run. So now, what do you think about this?

Because here's my thoughts on it. hit a home run. So now, what do you think about this? Because here's my thoughts on it. I think that people love home runs until there's a really great pitching duel. When there's a really great pitching duel, everybody changes the way they feel about the game. But as soon as somebody hits a home run or as soon as there's a score, forget the home run. All right. Just say you have an inning where, you know, just through a series of moves, you know, you do a sacrifice and boom, and now you bring a guy home and now you leave the inning and you scored a score. Once that happens, I think people are just like, now I just want to see scoring. I just want to see home runs. It's like, I think that that's kind of the way, for some reason, that that's how baseball has become

in the minds of the average fan somebody like you who's a purist i think you're looking at every aspect of the game but i kind of feel like you know if you're just a regular person you either want to see like this incredible pitching display or you want to see dingers you know or just a lot of hitting because you know baseball i think you're right what is boring is home runs what's not boring is hits lots of like you know what i mean you want to see a lot of offense you want to see hits you don't necessarily want to see home runs there there is uh i have two two words for you and this is this is relevant this just happened the last few days two words nolan arenado third baseman for the rockies, who happens to also be very, very good offensively, but the man is a defensive genius at third base.

If you've ever watched him play third base, he makes the kind of outs where you go, did you just see that? That seemed impossible. see that, that seemed impossible. I think those kind of plays also tend to get appreciated even by people who are not purists. So really, or the running catches where they make these insane dives, you know, going into foul territory. Did he just do that? So really impressive defense i think also gets people uh where it it runs into problems and ironically this is something that you know people who work in the saber metrics or analytics or uh is when the game is boring because the outs are just being made easily. Now, in a way, that's actually a better played game. So something like a shift, the reason they do a shift is because the statistics for getting those outs goes up. Right, yeah.

On the other hand, it does actually, like you say, kind of make it boring. But then the team wins. Actually, I believe the best way for a team to increase their revenue is to go on a winning streak so you know boring baseball that wins might actually work out in the end you know so who knows am i getting the feeling that as a purist the ball is sacred and no playing no playing, no tampering, no messing with the laces. Let's keep it as it is. And then we respect the talent of the third baseman.

We respect someone like Keith Hernandez on first base for doing the incredible thing they did and maybe even changing the game the way opponents played and getting into and appreciating it more rather than me as a newbie to the game and being super impressed by someone being able to hit the ball several hundred yards. But looking and learning to look at the intricacy, the detail,

the beauty, I'm not a mathematician, but what I can imagine is the beauty is in the numbers not in the home run the beauty is in the numbers the beauty is also in the athleticism yeah yeah uh yeah you know that's that's uh maybe maybe that's the way to look at it fielding requires athleticism in a way that pitching and hitting does not. Cool. And we all appreciate, regardless of the sport, it's basketball, it's football, it's soccer, it's, you know, truly wonderful athletic plays are always a joy to watch. Yeah. And the acrobatics in baseball is in fielding.

That's where you see the acrobatics in baseball and no place else. Hey, let me ask you this, back to your study because it just dawned on me. So you find these, okay, first of all, the response to your findings was a little, was almost laughable. It's like, oh, yeah, we didn't think of that. That was it. I mean, seriously, that's all they have to say. I mean, like, you know, I don't get that. How does somebody find something so significant and then the response is, oh, yeah, well, we didn't really look at it like that.

Like you said, everybody either cuts the ball in half or the other way to do it is if they decide to take the cover off, they take a razor and slice through strings. That's right. Never the deconstruction. So now, are they willing or does this have to happen? I mean, your findings are really detailed. You know, I looked at the way you overlapped all the little boxes where you show everything from the deconstruction of the ball and the twine inside and the core and everything. And then you show the laces. And it's like so demonstrably different, you know, between the two balls. Are they going to try to replicate what you did? Or is that necessary? I would say validation is always a good idea. My understanding last time I spoke to Dr. Alan Nathan

was they were taking a different tack on what might have changed the aerodynamics of the ball. In their case, they think that it may be that the core is off-center a little. Well, he told us about that. They also think it might be that the leather is smoother. He told us about that, too. And those seem to be the two that they're really focusing on

as opposed to that the ball might be rounder. That seems to be being discounted for whatever reason. What have Major League Baseball said to you, if anything? I had

one discussion with Dr. Nathan about a week and a half after my study came out. We discussed the nature of what Thread was, basically. Not much about the findings themselves. They asked for my data, which I did give them because it is science. And, of course, your data should be transparent. Right. And I haven't heard a thing since did major league baseball's head office have a direct player i know you said

you spoke to dr alan nathan and he was commissioned by them i did spoke i i emailed the the day before the article came out i did email major league baseball for a comment um i mentioned to them that i had already received a comment from Dr. Nathan, and they said, great, that counts as our comment. Oh. And that was it. Okay. All right.

So they have been contacted about this, and I did tell them what my results were. So they are aware of them. So is there any place else to go with this from your end? Is there anything else that you think you can look further into this? Because I would love to see you actually just come up with definitive conclusions and just be like, eat this! No, I'm joking. Because we'd keep bringing you back up. Yeah, we'll keep bringing you back up.

We'll keep bringing you back up. There is, there's two things. First of all, I will admit I'm curious to see more for the pitcher blister issue than for the home runs. Don't forget, this happened in 2016 and 2017, but none of the results came out till 2018. Right. So any home run drop off, it's coincidental. came out till 2018 right so any home run drop off it's coincidental however in 2019 they know that these results exist so i want to get my hands on some 2019 balls and look at the lace thickness to see if in fact there may have been a change back to thinner laces. Interesting. And I mean, and if that's the case, it seems to me that it would have been done, you know, with some sort of forethought to it,

as opposed to just the, you know, here we're going for the best bid for our contract. Interesting. Another one that I'm a little curious about, and I have a couple of former major league pitchers who brought it up. I'm not sure it shows up well on these, but I have to wonder if the laces themselves,

or excuse me, the seams themselves may not be slightly wider. And that actually, it has to do specifically with the way, this was a pitcher who was telling me about throwing a curve ball and his hands are about the same size as mine. So this is a newer one. And apparently when he used to throw a curve ball, his fingers wouldn't touch the l size as mine. So this is a newer one. And apparently when he used to throw a curveball, his fingers wouldn't touch the laces at all on either side. And with the newer balls,

he says that his fingers are touching the laces, which makes the release slightly different because he's getting a little friction that he didn't used to. So that would be, again, I don't think that there is, like I said, any kind of, you know, pre-planning. There's no good reason why thicker laces would be anticipated to cause more home runs. There would be no reason why wider seams would be anticipated to do anything either. But, you know, it is easy enough to go in and measure that sort of thing.

I just haven't had a chance to do it. And a wider seam would also give you effectively a larger area against which to get that blister. And you can incorporate the physics. Love it. Dr. Meredith Wills, the power of an inquiring mind. Yes.

We love it. No wonder you're an astrophysicist. That mind is being applied to a number of different things and long may be applied to baseball because I think baseball might well be a better place for it. Thank you. Baseball needs astrophysicists. Yeah. Actually, the world needs astrophysicists. This is true. The whole world needs astrophysicists. Yeah. Actually, the world needs astrophysicists.

This is true. The whole world needs astrophysicists. Problem solvers. Doctor, a pleasure. Thank you so much. Yeah, time's been fabulous. And thank you for opening the minds of not just Sean. Sean?

Yes. Yeah. Chuck and I, Sean's brother. I'll be Sean for you. Oh, darling. Yes. And our listeners in particular. Thank you once again.

We're going to take a break. Yes. We are. Dr. Meredith Wills, really just, as I said, the power of an inquiring mind. When we come back,

the first female Major League Baseball coach, yes, Justin Seagal, will be our guest. From one fabulous part of baseball to another.

Stick around. We'll be back very very shortly Welcome back to Playing With Science. And now our pleasure to speak to a groundbreaking coach, Justine Seagal, the first woman to coach professionally in Major League Baseball. We are so honored. Justine, welcome to the show. Yes, thank you for having me. Pleasure is ours. It's been a pleasure.

Growing up, you were drawn to baseball rather than softball. What was the reason for that? I played baseball with my brother and all of my friends, and that just was the sport that made sense to me. I was a big Cleveland Indians fan. So I wanted to play the same sport that my heroes were playing. And I just kept playing. And when I was told I should quit because I was a girl, I was 13. And I just decided I would keep playing forever.

Who told you to quit? My new coach. He said I didn't belong there, but I didn't quit, so he had to keep calling me anyway. Who lasted longer, you or the coach? Pardon me? Who lasted longer at that team, you or the coach? Well, I would say in the world of baseball, I lasted longer.

There you go. There you go. Note to self for the coach, do not ever do that to a young lady. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Notes to sell for the coach. Do not ever do that to a young lady. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'm interested to know whether or not you feel kind of the gaze of the public and all of the, you know, there seems to be a great deal of, I don't know, I don't know what you would call it, pressure. Would you call it pressure? Kind of like, you know, it's tough to be the first anything. And, you know, of course, that makes you a great role model and that means that you're groundbreaking.

But personally, does it put any pressure on you when people tend, because I'm sure for you, you're like, I love baseball. I'm just doing what I do. I'm just doing what I do. I'm just doing what I love. So how do you handle that? Sure. This year, I'm not with the team, but in the past, you always know that people are waiting for you to make a mistake, or at least it feels like that. But I've had a lot of support in recent years. I've had fans look at me like I have three heads because they're not comprehending why I'm in uniform but I've also had fans with their own signs cheering me on. So the players have been great.

You're really just part of a team. It is different. I'm a woman. I'm proud to be a woman. I don't pretend to just be one of the guys. I'm a woman. I'm proud to be a woman. I don't pretend to just be one of the guys. I'm a woman who coaches baseball, but the guys, they couldn't be better. And if I can make them a better player, that's all they care about. Wow. My kind of coach, Chuck, can make the players better. That's it. You've got it. Yeah. You've got it in any sport. That's what I want to hear.

That's where I want to go. But, Justine, to be a woman in such, I won't even say such, a male-dominated environment, it is totally male-dominated. How did you go about leveling the playing field or turning it to your advantage as a coach? the playing field or turning it to your advantage as a coach? Well, I started learning to coach when I was 16. That's when I decided to make it my goal.

And I would have to say I just didn't give up. So every time I was told I couldn't do it, I would just find another way or another program that would accept me. I got a PhD in sports psychology, figuring I could use education as a tool that I have that other coaches don't have. And that has served me very well. Yeah. Yeah, that's got to be. So how much of that, and can you give us maybe an example of how you bring in the sports psychology? We've had several sports psychologists on this show and it seems to be an extremely important part of player performance. So how do you bring that into your coaching? Sure. So I have not, I've been coaching and using it to be the best coach I can. So when you understand how people learn or understand the best way to

communicate to reach the players, then, then you're a better coach. So I would say that the sports psychology and all the information I know, it helps me translate knowledge for players, whether they're confused on what's going on or whether or not I can help them and they don't even know I'm helping them because of the language I'm using or where I'm throwing the ball during batting practice.

It's all encompassing. If I was just doing mental performance for a team, then I would work on concentration and visualization and those type of things. But in my case, it's all who I am and it's how I coach players. Wow. We speak to a lot of coaches and what you just said there is really cool. And the way that you're using it is extremely impressive that it's about making you a better communicator. And so that's, I mean,

like the easier it is for me to understand you, the easier it is for me to carry out your instructions, the better off I'm going to be. That's fantastic. Yes, and then you can, you know, throw in different things like constraints on practices, you know, different, once you know that there's different ways to learn,

you can also shape your practices so you can reach more people in a shorter period of time you can really hit their sweet spots it's interesting we we interviewed ned colletti the former gm at the dodgers and we discussed uh development of foveal vision and and concentration and visualizing as you've just described and he was saying how he wanted his coaches to be more like educators yeah and you you have preempted that by going directly into that environment and i have to credit you for seeing something ahead of the curve back in my sort of sporting environment there was a saying that said the better the players you played with the better player you became.

Did you, through your experience, because you've worked with a number of major league teams, find that the experience of working with pros just drove your coaching skills upwards very quickly? Well, I've worked mostly with minor league players independent players and some uh major leaders or former major leaders um and for me your question is player to player but as a coach when you've coached with someone that's been coaching for 50 years i mean you can't help but elevate and try to soak in everything they know. And I think when I worked for Team Israel during the World Baseball Classic

qualifier, they determined there was like 130 years of experience on that coaching staff. So you can't, all you want to do is keep your eyes and ears open and learn and do whatever you can to be better. So Justine, before we let you go, we need to speak about what you're doing now, which is Director of Sports Partnerships at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society, which is an amazing title at Northeastern University.

Plus, you have the Baseball for All Foundation that you are the founder and director of, which is promoting gender equality throughout baseball. So please allow us an insight into both of those roles that you have. Sure. I actually moved on from Sport and Society, but it's an amazing organization that provides opportunities to address social justice issues through sports, whether that's poverty, whether that's sexual assault, all of those topics can be addressed through sport. But I've moved on and I work now full-time running Baseball for All, which is a nonprofit I founded to provide opportunities for girls to play, coach, and lead in baseball. Like I was sharing my story, I was told I should quit baseball.

like I was sharing my story I was told I should quit baseball amazingly here in 2019 girls are still being told they should play not play baseball but play softball so we're telling them they can do whatever they want not live in a box and believe in themselves

wow congratulations yeah great stuff and fly that flag as high as you can and I'm stunned that in 2019 we're still hearing that song sung Yeah, great stuff. And fly that flag as high as you can. And I'm stunned that in 2019 we're still hearing that song sung. It's getting better. And our national girls tournament is growing by about 100 girls every year. We'll have about 400 girls from around the country playing baseball.

We run events around the country. We do clinics, tournaments, do talks to schools and so on. So we're really growing. And, you know, I just happen to think baseball is the greatest game and that everyone should have a chance to play. That's fantastic.

And I hope that your vision actually comes to fruition because it'd be wonderful to see everybody get a chance to play. And just thanks for everything that you're doing. Yeah.

If any of our listeners wish to reach out is there a website is there something they can can explore to learn more yeah for sure go to baseballforall.com and and you'll see all you need to see all these beautiful girls playing baseball and you can reach me through the website as well baseballforall.com simple as that uh just thank you so much for your time thank you for sharing your story and thank you for turning a deaf ear to what i would say was a disgraceful piece of coaching and uh congratulations on being a groundbreaker in baseball as far as women coaching is concerned and carry on the good causes. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Chuck, two amazing women in the world of baseball. Absolutely. That are leading.

We have Dr. Meredith Wills who wouldn't take no for an answer. There's no smoking gun. It's not the baseball. And she said, well, I've got another theory. How about this one? And then Justine there, the first woman to coach professionally in Major League Baseball, and who hasn't stopped there and rested on her own laurels, but is prepared to give and promote the opportunity for other young women to come through and follow in her footsteps. I think it's amazing. I do too. We have to do more shows where we celebrate and herald women and their accomplishments in sports. I think it's awesome. I agree. And on that note, we will say farewell and we will go

off and research just that. So I have always been Gary O'Reilly. And I have sometimes been Chuck Nice. Parent of the year, apparently. This has been Playing With Science and we look forward to your company very, very soon.