StarTalk Radio - The Carlos Beltrán Interview

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice sit down with MLB Legend Carlos Beltrán to explore his extraordinary career including his first experiences in the league, adapting to the Moneyball era, and life after baseball. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/the-carlos-beltran-interview/ Photo Credit: StarTalk. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and this is a special edition of Star Talk, a sports edition. And I've got with me my co-host, Chuck Nice. Chuck. Hi, Neil. And Gary O'Reilly. Hey, Neil. Gary, I have both of you here at the Southampton Arts Centre.

Carlos Beltran. Carlos! Whoa! Good to see you, Neil. Give it up for Carlos! Yeah! Oh, my God. We're not worthy. We are not worthy. Thank you for to see you, Neil. Give it up for Carlos. Yeah. Oh, my God. We're not worthy. We are not worthy.

Thank you for having me here, guys. Not worthy. We are not worthy. So what do you have planned for us today? You know, pretty much we're going to talk about baseball through the eyes of Carlos. Really? Baseball? No, no.

I know. Spoiler. I'm lying. We're going to talk about hockey. Yeah. Carlos has always been a big hockey fan. I think really what we'll get down is to Carlos' life journey as a baseball player. On that journey, outrageous success.

Numbers that players can only dream of that you turned into reality. But along the way, there's an awful lot of science that we can unpack. Imagine Carlos enters Major League Baseball before Moneyball. Moneyball comes, then it goes. Carlos is still around. This guy learned to switch hit. He went out there in terms of player development and did things that other players hadn't even thought about. This is the sort of person that interests us because he is playing with science. So that's why he sat down with us, and we're going to extract an awful lot and hopefully have a great show. Well, this is going to be a learning experience for me also.

By the way, I've got to say, Carlos, doesn't this guy look great? El, retired. Look, he wears retirement well. You can look at him and tell. He's like, look how relaxed he is. Let me tell you, I have a lot of bad examples out there. Players that retire. Right.

They became a little heavier. So I just want to make sure that I don't follow those footsteps. Yeah, yeah. You're looking good, man. Retirement's treating you well. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You're looking good, man. Your time has treated you well. Thank you. Yeah. So, if you look at Carlos growing up in Puerto Rico, right?

His idol would have been Roberto Clemente. A man you never got the chance to meet. Never. But a player he idolizes. And later in your career, those paths actually cross and we'll get onto that because I think that may have been one of the proudest moments of your life in 2013

when you get the Roberto Clemente Award. But we won't touch on that now. We'll touch on it. And plus, of course, all the data that you love and enjoy, Neil, we're going to mine that. We're going to bring it out and bring it forward.

Mr. October, for numbers post-season that are frightening. Wait, wait, they called. Mr. October, for numbers postseason that are frightening. Wait, wait, they called you Mr. October? Well, Mr. October, for me, is Reggie. That's Reggie. Yeah, that's Reggie. He was Señor Octubre. Yeah, they tried to call me,

they tried to put like a little Spanish into that. But I will call myself Little October. Little October. Because Mr. October, you got to give that to Reggie Jackson. You got Reggie because you can't, you know, Reggie is Reggie. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October. He is Reggie. So Senor October, that works too.

Sounds good. You like it? We're happy. You're like, I'll take it. I'll take that. Just to be clear, if there are any folks who are not entirely familiar with the anatomy of baseball, October begins the playoffs. And the regular season goes from April through the end of September.

And it's basically right when October begins are the playoffs. And if you're going to be Mr. Señor Octubre, it means you're really kicking some baseball butt when it counts. When it counts. Exactly. Yeah. But before we get into it, why don't we just, speaking of when it counts, look at some of Carlos'

accomplishments. Of course, 2017, Houston Astros, you cap off your career with a World Series win, something that is like the dream crowning jewel in anybody's career after a long-storied career full of accomplishments that had to feel pretty doggone good. Yeah, that was an incredible moment in my career.

After playing 20 years, the year that I decided to retire, thanks God, as a team, 20 years, the year that I decided to retire, thanks God, you know, as a team, we were able to accomplish that. So it was a great moment to be able to leave the game, but at the same time, great moment to be able

to experience with all my teammates. But it can't be that great if you're not wearing the ring. This is more important than the words in the ring. Ooh! Ooh, his wedding ring! I got it, I got it.

The wedding ring! Oh, you're hugging! Look at that! Oh, his wedding ring! I got it, I got it. The wedding ring! Oh, yeah, hug him! Look at that! Oh, my God. And you know what? Your wife ain't even here and you still did that? I still did that.

She's been good to me. I'm telling you. Oh, let me tell you something. Respect. That's crazy good right there. Very good. But on top of that, only one of four players

to have 2,500 plus hits. I think you're around 2,700. I don't know. I don't have the exact number here. 400-plus home runs. I think it's like 430-whatever. 300-plus stolen bases. And just so that you know, the other three are A-Rob, Barry Bonds, and Say Hey Kid.

Okay? Willie Mays. That's a, you know, that's an okay company. That's a club. Right? That's a company that I never thought in my wildest dream I would be able to join them. But I have to say that all of them were an inspiration for our younger generation. Nice.

Yeah. And I just want to add that, again, for folks who are slightly newer to the anatomy of baseball, for folks who are slightly newer to the anatomy of baseball, it's you don't often find the base-stealing statistic with people who have the high home run statistics. Right. So there's certain combinations of performance in baseball that if you cross certain membranes of certain spheres of performance, then you're combining talents that you don't normally find in one package.

Absolutely, absolutely. Which is why, and I mean, I think it's a foregone conclusion, but most people think that Carlos is definitely in the Hall of Fame without a doubt, shadow of a doubt. First ballot induction is the word on the street, the scuttlebutt, you know.

I know you're not… I just think the fact that to be considered is an honor. Well, you have to say that, Carlos. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, come on. If I had said, like, you know, pretty much everybody thinks first ballot induction, Carlos Beltran will be there, and you would just like, damn right. ballot induction, Carlos Beltran will be there, and you were just like,

damn right. Plus, if first ballot, he doesn't get in, you know he's not saying, well, it was good to be honored in the first place. No, no, no. We nominate. We're just joking with you. It's definitely going to happen. We'll see what happens. Right on. Should we do a little time travel?

Go back in time to when Carlos is a younger person growing up in Puerto Rico? Should we do a little time travel? Go back in time to when Carlos is a younger person growing up in Puerto Rico? Should we do that? Sure, let's do it. All right. So there is a story that said if you couldn't get a pickup game in Manatee, your hometown, you'd get a bag of balls,

a bat and a glove, you'd walk to the nearest field, which was 30 minutes away, and you'd hit every ball, go get it, throw it back at home plate, hit them all again and do rinse repeat until it got dark. Now that's an urban myth or is that a fact? It is a fact. It is a fact. And it was the love for the game.

You know, honestly, coming from super humble beginnings and understanding, you know, where we're coming from. Baseball was in our family. You know, my dad played baseball, my brother played baseball, not professional, but they played baseball. So I got to see them, you know, loving the sport growing up and being able to see that. Every time I used to come from school, I used to pick up that bag, that bat, went to the ballpark, hit the baseball, played catch by myself. But at the same time, in my mind, I had a mission. I feel like I had a mission.

And that mission was to hopefully one day become a professional ballplayer, one day being able to help my family, by one day being able to turn the payback, my my mom my dad all the sacrifices that they did for me and my brothers yeah man and let me just tell you something that is a tremendous amount of dedication at such a young age like playing baseball by yourself because you know anybody walking by that field or driving by was like that is the loneliest kid i've ever seen yeah you know what honestly i had two guys that you know they were homeless and every day they sit on the stands and they were

thinking oh here we come the little crazy kid is coming again to throw those baseballs in the air the homeless people were like yeah that's the kid that plays with the imaginary baseball team. Exactly. Yeah, that kid is crazy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I don't blame them. You know, I don't blame them. You got to be a little crazy in order to do those things.

But at the end of the day, I felt that, you know, in my heart, I was doing the right thing. And, you know, God knows that I was putting every effort of every ounce that I have to try to get better. See, you see the crazy kid. I see the potential major league player who's building that platform brick by brick, throw by throw, hit by hit, on your own. See, that's why both of them are professional sports players. So Gary was a professional soccer player. Carlos, of course, a major league baseball player. And I tell jokes. And I did. That's why. I used to go out on my own

and kick soccer balls. So when I read this about. With your imaginary friend, yes. Oh, yeah. I was better than him, though. Not much. But OK, so fast forward, you've got major league scouts, they come to the island and you get drafted. You're still a teenager right now at that point? Yeah,

I got drafted when I was 18 years old. Okay, Kansas City Royals come knocking. Bring you to their organization then immediately farm you out.

You go to a rookie league in the Gulf Coast? Yeah, Gulf Coast League. I played my first year in 1995, rookie ball, coming from Puerto Rico, not speaking the language. So it was a very challenging moment for me.

Being able to try to figure out what the guys were talking or something that I did to try to kind of catch up with what the coaches were explaining. I always was the last one. Used to try to make sure that I follow what coaches were explaining, I always was the last one. Used to try to make sure that I follow what they were doing, you know, without understanding what they were saying. So it was a very challenging moment. But at the end of the day,

it was something that I needed to go through in order to, you know, now these days, being able to appreciate the struggles got me to the point where I am today. I want to ask you just, I mean, because this is something that is so foreign, I think to most people, especially to somebody like me, but I mean, you know what this is like too,

but how does it work and what is it like when they draft you in? How does that happen? Is it like somebody saw you playing with your imaginary friends in the field and like bought you, like How does that actually work? How do they approach you? How does that come out?

Well, I was playing literally baseball in Puerto Rico. And literally baseball have these different categories where you play. And Puerto Rico is one of those places where every scout, every organization have a scout over there looking around the island so some of the scouts approached me and they told me Carlos you have a good potential one day to hopefully become a professional ball player so at the beginning I was like well you know sounds great but you know once I kind of like started seeing the talent that I was doing when I was a player then you know I got to see that yeah I did have a talent based on the things that I was doing that other kids were not doing. Cool. So, strange, you said you weren't

able to understand fully what coaches were saying, but at the end of this rookie season, you take things into your own hands. He co-ops Bernie Williams, the Yankees legend Bernie Williams, who, known, I believe, is a switch hitter. Yes, he is. Yankees are famous historically for their switch hitters. And just, again, for people who might be sort of new to the anatomy of baseball, the value of a switch hitter is that if you bat right-handed against a right-handed pitcher, the ball starts coming at you before it enters the strike zone. the ball starts coming at you before it enters the strike zone.

And so the room you have to maneuver and put the bat on the ball is diminished. And generally, batters do not do as well against the same-handed pitcher as they bat. So what you do is you become a switch hitter. Just go to the other side of the plate. The pitcher's not going to switch hands. And now the ball is coming from the other side into home plate. And so you can confound what would otherwise be the advantage a pitcher has in a lineup if you're a switch hitter. Yeah. And so, Mickey Mantle was a switch hitter, for example, one of the greatest.

So you just decided you wanted to be a switch hitter? switch hitter for example one of the greatest so you just decided you wanted to be a switch hitter well yes uh i mean i remember my first rookie year i hit from the right side i went to puerto rico play winter ball and bernie williams was playing center field he's also puerto rican yeah yeah he is he was playing center fielder for the winter ball team and i got to see him and i got to ask him question and i got to say bernie if had tried how do you think it's going to help me so he said Carlos you know it's going to help you and it was a lot of work honestly I became switch hitter in 1996 I was 19 years old it was a decision that I made I had good coaches thanks God one of the coaches is a hitting coach in the big leagues right now kevin long he's with the

nationals so we spent a lot of hours working from the left side to try to pick up the swing and thank god i was able to do it man wow so neil what's the physics of what carlos is trying to attempt here and what what's the optimum angles velocities and forces that he's going to be for me what's interesting about baseball uh unlike so many other sports, is almost everything is about the handedness of what's going on. Okay? There's no such thing as a left-handed third baseman because you can't position yourself to throw. So, for example, I'm at third base and the ball comes to me, but first base is over there. So now I have to turn my body like this to throw.

Whereas if I'm right-handed, it comes to my right hand. I'm already positioned to do this. I would have lost a fraction of a second having to twist my body around. Little things like that operate in every part of the field. And so if you're going to now be a switch hitter, where you have to have the precision of laying a bat on a ball with strength and agility, the other half of your body is now engaged in something it had never done before. 100%.

What did that feel like to you? Your muscles, did they have you train in certain ways to boost one half of you relative to the other? Well, for me, it was more like trying to work on my hand and eye coordination from the left side. I know that from the right side, I could put the bat on the baseball. But from the left side, I was also able, being able to adapt to change of speed, you know, because from the right side, you know, normally you see a ball coming on the air, so you notice a curveball. But from the left side, I didn't have that, a ball coming on the air until you notice a curve ball. But from the left side, I didn't have that.

So I needed to train myself to try to get that. Oh, so the catalog of pitches look different from the other side of the plate. Everything looked different. And it was a challenge. It was a challenge. But you know what, man? I really, thanks God that I was able to commit

with the work and the effort. And at the end of the day, I feel like my career was turned out to be the career that I have because I was able to make that adjustment. How many hours does it take for someone like you? Forget me. There's no hours, it's years.

How many hours did it take you to learn, to switch it to a level that you were confident and comfortable with well uh i remember that games uh in the minor league used to start at 705 and i used to get to the ballpark around noon to hit and we hit from noon to three every day until i start feeling comfortable at the play because at the end of the day, if I would have not done it that way, there's no way that I was going to be able to find the swing, find the stroke, and being able to adapt and adjust to change-ups,

curveballs, slider. There was a lot of things that I wasn't able to feel comfortable right away, so I needed to work on them. I'm just going to interject here the just to to appreciate what this required if anyone here is sort of strongly handed right are you strongly right-handed or left-handed that's probably true for most of us I did experiments with my left and right side of my body just to see what I was more capable of without training and what I was able to train. So one of the most difficult things I found was, I'm right-handed,

was to brush my teeth with my left hand. If you're listening and watching, try this at home tonight. Use your other hand to brush your teeth. Something simple. That's not hitting a 90-mile-an-hour fastball. That's just brushing your teeth. And you find out that you just can't, it's just not there.

It's wrong. It's wrong. There's something wrong. It's wrong. That's why I suffer from tooth decay. So I did some simple things. So I started, I said, because I wanted to train the other side of my body, just like what you were doing.

So I said, let me try to train as i wash dishes okay because this dishwashing is a handed thing right if you're right-handed dishwashers neil dishwashers so yes you mean the machine the machines yes okay but still there's some things you wash by hand so i tried that and that's a little takes less coordination than brushing your teeth. But I did that, I just kept doing it. It took me about a month, and then I came to the sink, and I was, I didn't notice that the dishes went from one hand to the other smoothly without me even thinking about it.

It became, what do you call it? Intuitive. Muscle memory. Mus muscle memory got me there. So now I'm a switch hitting dishwasher. That's great. Did your left side get stronger than the right side or were you able to keep it close? You know what?

Because I'm a right-hander thrower and everything that I do these days, I do it from the right side. So having the right arm in front to hit from the left side, I felt like I could hit the ball a little bit stronger from the left side than from the right side because in the right side, I had to make sure that that hand stayed all the way.

But from the left side, that hand gets to the contact point super easy. So I felt like, okay, this is going to take time for me to get it. But once I get it, I feel in my heart that I was going to be able to hit the ball for power. So forgive me for not knowing these numbers in advance, but many switch hitters, by the way, I think there are fewer switch hitters today than decades ago. But for any switch hitter I've ever seen one side of the plate they have a higher average and the other side of the plate they have more power and were you more symmetric i was symmetric i was symmetric that's hard dude that's hard

super symmetric and uh but i i did so your average was about the same i will say i will say the average is about 280 from the right side, 280 from the left side. Numbers, I mean, I face more righties than lefties. But, you know, when you kind of like see, look at the number from the right side, look at the number from the left side, you know. Pretty much the same.

You know what? You and I have that in common. My numbers are equally bad from the left and the right. Equally zero. No matter what side I'm on, the number is zero. All right, we are going to take a... You suck. You suck at number?

Okay. You happy now? You got that off your chest? Right. We are going to take a break. No wonder he's headed to the Hall of Fame. When we come back, we will be touching on your experiences of Moneyball because you're starting to find your groove

just around the time Billy Bean is revolutionizing the Oakland A's. Reminding people Moneyball as a book became a movie. And it's the analysis of baseball in another dimension that's confounding how people ever did it before. What is it you say? I love me some data? I love me some data. And we will get right to that

when the second segment of StarTalk Sportiverse continues. We're back. Star Talk. Sports edition. We are visiting the sportiverse, and I have help. Chuck Nice. Yes. Gary O'Reilly. Yes.

And Gary, we've got Carlos Beltran here. I know. A retired professional baseball player. You're a retired footballer. Yeah. Or a soccer player, excuse me. That's great. Yeah, soccer player from the UK?

Yes, I am. Yeah, all right. All right, let's sort of fast forward just a little bit. 98, you get called up to the big leagues with the Royals. Yeah. You are crushing it. But at this moment, the game around you is changing. As we said before the break, Moneyball arrives.

Billy Bean is changing the landscape of baseball. How does that A, affect you? And how does B, affect the organizations around Major League Baseball? You know what? By that time, not too many organizations were doing what Oakland A's were doing. So it was new for baseball. Honestly, as a player, I never thought about it.

I focused and tried to do my routine, get to the ballpark, do the things that are working for me. So I didn't really put attention to it until basically my second phase of my career. After 10 years in the big league, I got to see first-handed like more teams being able to involve and try to think about how they can get better using analytics and all that type of information. So I felt personally that I was able to last 20 years in the big leagues because I was able to update myself to the time that I was living. So I never closed the doors on new information

that was going to help me to get better. So because of the way Moneyball, Sabermetrics, call it what you wish, looked at each individual player, did that change the way that you looked at you? Well, I always was open to try to make adjustments and to try to get better. I always felt that as a player, I wanted to get better. I wanted to continue to prove myself.

Not because what I did in the past means that it's going to continue to be like that. Yeah, but what Moneyball did, it changed what people understood that you had to do to be better. So, so can I just give, again, for those who didn't read the book or see the movie, let me just give one example, which is something no one, I don't think people really thought about before. Let's say you don't, you're not a very, let's say you're bat 200. That's a very, that's not a very good

player. Okay. But if every time you get it it bad it takes 14 pitches to get you out right then you just wore out the pitcher you you have value you now have a different value to the team because if there's a pitcher who's really shutting down your team you can knock the pitcher out innings earlier by having someone like that on the team and i think before money ball nobody was thinking that way right you know and the way the the tendency of a heater being able to hit the ball to the pool side 70 percent of the time then 30 percent to the opposite side so that's when you start seeing the shift on the infield so they did all the shifting in the defense exactly after moneyball yeah oh my gosh i mean there's there's no doubt that there is a lot of valuable information.

Now that I'm working, you know, for the Yankees and I get to spend time. So you are. I'm an advisor for the New York Yankees. Advisor. Very nice. Very nice. It's funny when you say you're an advisor for the Yankees. And I just found this out that when you were being considered to manage the Yankees,

I thought that was something you wanted to do. But then I found out that Cashman called you. It wasn't your idea, which is what most people would say, like, you know, I think I'd like to manage. He actually called you and said, hey, Carlos, what do you think about how that goes? Because Cashman is the general manager. General manager of the Yankees.

Yeah, that's the year that I retired from the game of baseball. So all of a sudden, I just decided to retire. And a few months after, Cashman called me and said, Carlos, we want to interview you for the job. And I'm like, I told my wife, I said, you know, I'm looking forward to travel, to enjoy time with the kids. So now the Yankees are calling me to manage. So honestly, I felt that it wasn't important, you know,

for me to take that interview and and uh you know it's not any team it's the Yankees so I felt that it would have been an incredible story but at the end at the end of the day it didn't happen so but you know I took the year off I traveled with the family now I'm missing the game so second time around Cashman called me again saying man, man, you want to do something for our team? I said, yeah, I would love to do something

that doesn't really take a lot of time out of my family. So we end up agreeing on being an advisor and have the flexibility that I have today. You still have interest

in coaching though? I mean, in managing? You know what? Honestly, now that I get to see what managers go through, the responsibility, the commitment, I mean, it requires crazy time. Plus, you got to know how to argue with an umpire.

Yeah, I mean, but honestly, I love to do what I do now. You know, I think now I get the opportunity to talk to the players, talk to the organization, give them what I think about players, share my experience with the guys that are going through certain situations. So I really enjoy what I'm doing. Plus, it doesn't require a lot of time.

See, what I'm hearing here is what we used to refer to, I think, back in the early 80s, called the brain drain, right? If you walk away from baseball and you go on a world cruise, you go to all of your bucket list spots, your game intelligence, your experience walks away and the game is less. So what Cashman has done to my mind is gone,

I can't let that walk away. I got to keep this in the game. Because how many players do you know have had stellar careers numbers that are superb? And they have I'm done. Thank you and go You got that right and also if you go away for too long From the game, you know you when you try to come back. You're not gonna be updated To the time exactly, you know in the game so a lot of guys that went away from the game uh and now they're trying to get jobs it's hard you know

because they have this mentality where oh no my mentality is i was an old school player i did it this way i did it my way and that's the way it should be done man my friend you got no room in baseball you know in, the guys that have room are the guys that are willing to adapt to what is new, new information, and being able to see it. You know, at the same time, you know, I got my arguments with guys that, you know,

all they think is about analytics. I say, man, you know what? I understand that and I appreciate that. And that's valuable information. But at the same time, you know, as a player, you've never been in my shoes. You don't know how to feel mentally, physically the things that you got to go through in order

to overcome slump. You know, so there's a lot of things that analytics cannot quantify. Right. So they can't qualify the spirit of the game. The heart of the player. You know? Spirit of the game. The heart of the player. Ooh. You know?

I know. The spirit of the game, the heart of the player. Right. That should be on a poster. That's going to be on a T-shirt by the time we leave here. There'll be a guy outside

with T-shirts with that exactly on it. But I want to get back to Moneyball for a minute. Yeah, please do. Moneyball's not just what you do to play a better game.

Somebody is analyzing you, the batter, so that you become a lesser batter when they face you. So all of a sudden they figure out, Beltran, he can't hit the low outside fastball. So they start giving that to you. And then you see that. You got to adjust. And so if you can't adjust, you're dead.

You're dead? Yeah, you're dead. They figured you out. Yeah. That's the game of baseball. The game of baseball was a game of adjustments. You know, every day for me was different. I couldn't say to myself, okay, what I did yesterday, I'm going to do today. No, maybe I will do the same thought process. I will have the same preparation. But at the time to face that pitcher, you have to understand that you're not going to see the same pitches

that you saw the night before. So you have to be able to make your adjustment during that bat. Nor the same pitch that you hit out of the ballpark the previous time you were at bat. Exactly. So, but also too, I think people forget the fact that

with player development now and Moneyball, the money part, it's the organization saying, if we're able to get these particular players in this particular alchemy, we don't have to spend this much money in order to get the same results, right? That's why I decided to retire. Dude, that is awesome.

I took advantage of the game. But you know what? Honestly, no. I don't want to put it that way. I just want to say that organization these days

are more prepared based on info, data, things that they didn't have back in the days. For example, back in the days if an owner

wanted to win, he was going to pay that player whatever whatever it took to get him you know because he felt that that guy was going to help that team now these days that i could tell you a lot about the player and about the projection of the player so now organization are more cautious and more careful about okay we have a budget so we might want to make sure that we stay around that budget. And they're going to move the pieces to try to put the team together.

For example, the Yankees, it's a team that, they look at that, but they also want to put a good product for the city. So every single year, because they have a lot of pride, the organization have a lot of pride, they want to win. So that's the story. The pride of the Yankees, yeah. So to that point,

an interesting element that I think is underappreciated. If you... If there's an expensive player that you could get, you say, instead,

I want to get these two players at half price of that expensive player. Can I now put them together? Like, I love the word you use, alchemy. What is the alchemy of that expensive player. Can I now put them together? Like, I love the word you use, alchemy. What is the alchemy of that

to try to put out a winning team? So here's my question. No, no, first I want to make a statement and then I have a question for you. All right. Statement is, you come from the world of soccer. There are 11 players on a team at a time. Baseball has nine.

Basketball has five. There's an analysis that shows that a lot of money for a single player matters much more to basketball than it does to soccer and in between for baseball. Because in soccer, that person is one

eleventh of the bodies on the field. Baseball, you're one ninth of the bodies on the field. Basketball, you're one fifth.th of the bodies. Basketball, you're one-fifth. So LeBron James' value in basketball, he's 20% of what's out there. So, and plus he's there in every play. Right. Just about.

You don't come to bat all the time. Even though they wish you did. As good as your bat is, I see you four times. Maybe five. Yeah, maybe five. So this is an interesting fact about how you value somebody relative to everything else that's going on on the field. And that's where the sabermetrics came in. It took the same thing, just changed the angle at which it looked at it

and came up with a different result. Plus, you were golden glove. Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate. Yeah, I was golden glove. Now you mentioned the GG, right? Golden Glove. This gentleman wins his first Golden Glove, right? Two mistakes, that's all he makes.

For the season. For the season. Two errors. Two. That's, there's a swear word in there somewhere, but that's ridiculous. That's what I meant to, but that's ridiculous. That's what I meant to say. That's ridiculous.

What kind of mental power do you have going on in there to concentrate game in, game out on your field? Because we know you're good with a bat. Now we know you're something else in the field. Yeah, I mean, I always have a lot of pride when I play the game. And for me, it was, if I'm not doing my job offensively, I have to make sure when I play the game and for me it was if I'm not doing my job

offensively I have to make sure that I help the team defensively so when as a player you're able to let go one thing and focus on the other thing

because baseball you use a lot of times when you see guys making mistakes defensively it's because they're carrying the result of their bat

to the defense so now they're thinking about the process. The whole at-bats on the loop. Exactly. So now they can't shed it. The ball comes to you, catching you, and you're like, oh my God, I'm not prepared. That sounds terrible.

It's like you're living a nightmare. You're living your own mistake while you're actually still playing the game. I was bited by that a lot of times, believe me or not. How long did it take you to shake it off? Because that's it's very rare a rookie or a younger, less experienced player can shake that bad moment off. How long did it take you? Well, you know what? I was pretty good at letting things go.

There's no doubt that in baseball, you need to have a short memory. So you have to let things go. There's no doubt that in baseball, you need to have a short memory. You don't have to let things go. Interesting wisdom there. That's wisdom. Yeah, so you don't remember your mistakes. You just keep moving. I try to remember them,

but I try not to spend energy on them. Right. See, I would have been a great baseball player. I don't remember any of my mistakes. I just keep it moving.

I want to thread a... I want to put a thread through this. All right. Bernie Williams played center field. Mm-hmm. And you played center field. Yeah.

Okay. You're both good base stealers. Yes. And if I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, the center fielder is generally the faster of the three outfielders because they have more area to cover. They've got to cover a lot of ground. Okay.

So now I'm going to ask you a question. I've tried to calculate this, and I've not gotten an answer to it. So maybe you know it intuitively, even though I couldn't get to mathematically. Good person to ask. Okay. If you are a fast center fielder, do you make fewer or more spectacular catches?

Fewer. Well, that makes sense. Because you're getting to the ball quicker. You get to the ball, you stand there, and the ball comes. It's the slow outfielders that make all the shooting. Diving. Diving. Those are the slow-ass players, but they get on the sports channel.

Right. That was one of my argues when I was with the Royals. You know, I used to get to the ball. I never made fancy places when I was my first. Because he's waiting for the ball. I'm always getting to the baseball, standing up. I'm not diving for the baseball. And when you look in the sports center,

and now you see all these diving cash, and I'm thinking, wow, man wow man you know what what i need to do in order to win a gold glove yeah like what i need today do i have to fake it right yeah to win a glove right you know but you know thanks god i never did that but what i'm saying is like when you're a faster outfielder there's fewer uh occasions to make a fancy places yeah that would have been cool though just to see a highlight where somebody smacks one deep center and then you're like, hold on, I got to take this.

And then you're like, take a phone call. Then you go catch the ball. Then go catch the ball. You would have made it. You made a highlight. That would be a highlight reel. That would be a highlight.

100%. You'd have been hated throughout the leagues. Don't listen to him. He's a bad influence. All right, we are going to just hold that thought. We got to take our next break. We are going to take a break.

And when we come back, what do you have up next in the third? Oh, we're going to talk about vision training in baseball because Carlos said, I always kept an open mind to change things. That's easy to say. He actually went about doing it. And there is a way to train your vision. We have peripheral vision and we have

a thing called foveal vision that comes straight out of the pupil. It's sharper and it's faster. Kind of thing as a hitter you need. That's what we're going to deal with when he... So this is like bionic man stuff, right? Maybe.

So we're going to take that break. Carlos and how to be a better hitter on the way back. When StarTalk returns, we're going to learn about how to alter your body physiologically to do better at the sport of your choice. We're back on StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and we are coming to you from the Southampton Arts Centre. Yes, yes.

We'll get to it in a moment, but later this evening, there's a fundraising event in the service of those who are still in need from Hurricane Maria in the island of Puerto Rico, which, last I checked, is part of the United States. Indeed it is. So, Chuck and Gary, this is the sport edition of StarTalk, and you're going to take us forward. We are.

As promised just before the break, there's something called vision training in baseball where you take the foveal vision that comes out of the center of the eye of the pupil. So there's a guy called Dr. Bill Harrison Harrison who Chuck and I have had on the show. Pass away. I'm sorry to hear that. But as a hitter, if you can see clearer the pitch that's coming at you, you're taking it. How did you come about finding the good Dr. Bill Harrison?

And how did he teach you? And what did you find useful? Well, you know what? Everything started for me when I got to hear the Erica Martinez. He was doing this hand and eye coordination drills, and he used to have like a tennis ball machine flipping baseball at him at like 120 miles per hour with dots, with numbers, red colors, black colors.

Just to be clear, no one has ever thrown a ball 120 miles an hour. So you're training at a higher speed. So he's training at a higher speed, try to pick up a color, try to pick up the number on the baseball. So I asked him, I say, you know, what do you do this for? And he said, well, you know,

a lot of people train their bodies. And when we're hitting, our eyes are the most important thing because if we don't see the baseball, we're not going to be able to hit the baseball. So since that day, I really was able to make that adjustment and say, you know what, I have to find a way to train on that so hopefully I can get better at the plate. And I got to meet Bill in Anaheim,

and he gave me some drills and exercise that I still carry with me. And hopefully one day I could pass that on to my kids. And I was able to do those drills. And honestly, I got to the point where I was able to narrow my vision. That's it. So it slows down. You're able to slow the game down. You're able to see the ball better.

You're able to see more details on the baseball than when you are in a position where, you know, anxiously you're there, but you're just trying to make contact. When you feel in that groove, you feel like you're seeing the ball good.

You see the ball coming out of the hands. You see rotation. You're capable of letting things go or being able to attack the baseball so i'm talking like if you have a lot of time you know i know you don't have a lot of time it's a split second it's a split second but that's the feeling you know when everything's a second or something exactly yeah so what you so so first of all it seems to, yes, the easy way to say it is that you're training your vision, but I think what you're really doing is training your mind. Your brain.

Your brain. Training your brain. Your brain to process information differently. 100%. And find the information that matters in that moment. Because, you know, we evolved on the Serengeti where everything matters in front of you because something might kill you yeah so you got to really that's why we have good peripheral vision the last thing a batter needs is peripheral vision you can see more than 180 degrees in baseball when you're at bat you don't need that so the brain has to now figure out how to ignore

that am i this is what's going on okay and so fascinating that you put markings on the ball because actual baseball has stitches right so that's something to look at right and you say and and we've had many pictures tell us this you know as a matter of fact ron darling told us the same thing about the batters like you the guys who could see the rotation of the ball oh yeah and so in that split second like four tenths of a second you're processing rotation and actually figuring a pitch for swinging in that little bit of time or is it just a reaction that that's the way the process happens well at least in my case uh it was different why Why? Because if I was going to face Ron Darling that night,

I needed to make sure that I watched films of Ron Darling. I watched a lot of films of him to see what the ball was going to do before I get there. So I do a lot of visualization. So by me watching the film, now I'm visualizing where the ball is going to end up. And if I can see something on the glove, meaning tipping, they call it tipping,

where you could see the glove moving, and now you know that he's going to throw fastball when the glove moves a certain way. And if the glove opens, then you're going to know all speed is coming. So now you make your own start before you get there. So when you get there, for me, that doesn't guarantee me success, but it guarantees me that I'm going to feel very comfortable in that at-bat.

You're playing... So that little, any little advantage is going to help the batter. Any little advantage. Because if you kind of know it's a fastball coming then oh my I'm going to get you.

Bring it on. Honestly, that's a bet. So, but so, so let me state the obvious. Since you don't know what ball is coming if a pitcher

doesn't reveal it by these by these if you don't know, some percent of that four-tenths of a second is kind of wasted

figuring out what kind of pitch it is. And then you got to figure out how am I going to hit this pitch? But that extra fraction of a second with prior knowledge, you're all on it.

Oh, 100%. And the announcers will say this. He was looking for that curveball the whole way. Right. He was looking for that curveball the whole way. Right. He was looking for that fastball the whole way. And a lot of times you're not looking. You just know that it's coming.

That's Zen. He's getting Zen now. No, honestly, a lot of times because if I know that he's doing something with his glove and I know it's coming, I'm not looking for that pitch. I know it's coming. So all I got to do is just make sure that it's in the strike zone, make sure that I put a good swing on it. To my mind, what Carlos is doing is taking away the element of gamble.

There's more advantage to me because I'm reading the tail on the glove. There might be a hand movement that you've noticed as the pitch is coming through. And then you're locked on to the rotation on the ball. And what doesn't seem to be... Because you always say about if you're hitting 300, you're doing really great. Yeah, that's the thing you read about baseball,

where you say, okay, you can get into the Baseball Hall of Fame by failing 70% of the time. I failed 72. 72%? So you batted 298. So when those odds stacked against you, if you can now bring that towards you, that makes

it... I was reading an interview... I didn't calculate that right. 280. 280. Not 298. The Astros pitching coach said you were talking, when you won the World Series in 2017, you were talking to some of the relief pitchers

and he got a little bit upset because they were listening to you more than they were him. But you were calling pitch after pitch after pitch. Now, you're either psychic or you… What are you looking at? How do you do that? All my career, all I did was study pictures. You know, I studied a lot of pictures.

When I first got to Big List, was putting the cassette into the VSA. What's a cassette? I'm just kidding. No, no, but that's how it was when I first got to the Big List. How old are you? And then later on, technology came,

and now it's like all these fancy computers. Yeah, yeah. You know, you could do it frame by frame. Beautiful. I mean, I really enjoy doing that study. But what I'm saying is that as a player, I spend hours, you know, looking at film. Just looking at VHS tapes.

Yeah. I got to interject here, all right? As an academic, I will say that the mantra well how do i get to carnegie hall or whatever practice practice practice practice practice no excuse me we just added something to this it's practice practice practice study study study study yes okay right all right because it's too easy for us watching the game oh they're a natural or they he just he just no you you're behind the tapes there's a lot of work i was and i by talking a little bit about 2017 i remember when i got there uh i'm four years old all my teammates are 21 22 23 very young you're the old man so yeah i'm the old man they're

putting hours on the on the you know watching. And the younger guys are coming to me and they're asking me, Carlos, what are you doing? I say, I'm storing these guys. So week after, now you see seven or eight shares of the younger guys. Sitting there studying with you. Looking, yeah. Okay, how I can take advantage. Before it was like, Carlos, when you finish, please, can you pass the information to me?

I say, I will do it it but I would prefer you to spend time doing it because if I'm not here don't cheat off of my paper because next year I won't be here so I want you to create the habit that this is important it's going to benefit you in your career so you're in this fabulous role as an advisor in the front office of the Yankees organization but you also have another side to your post career, which is a place dear to your heart, is Puerto Rico. You have a baseball academy, the Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy. Are you teaching science and technology and all of those things,

not just baseball? Believe it or not, our school is a high school that we specialize in baseball. You know, I talk about the high school with a lot of pride because I felt

that as a player I really used the talent that God gave me to hopefully do something to impact future generations.

So, we impact a lot of kids in our country. We help them. We give them a lot of information. With that school, the way that I did it was like all the things that I was able to live that there were challenges. I try to make sure that they go through that.

They experience that because I want them to be prepared, more prepared than I was when I was a professional ball player. So it's a full bilingual school. We try to teach them the language. So when they go to colleges or sign up professional ball players, they're more prepared. I have a lot of friends in baseball that they're being willing to share all the kind of information about technology, about all the data, about the players. So we try to teach the kids that baseball is going into,

it's a different generation of baseball. It's not what it was back in the day. It's always evolving. Yeah, so it's evolving. So we want our kids to evolve with the game and to make sure that when time comes for them, they're ready and they're prepared and they're able to make good decisions.

And in addition to the school, you're also doing stuff for the island of Puerto Rico with your foundation. I know you guys are still building homes, right? Yes, we are. Right now, we're in the process of building seven new homes for seven families that, you know, believe it or not, there's still people struggling in the island. You know, it seems like Puerto Rico is back in their feet, and in some areas they are,

but there's a lot of areas that are in need. And our foundation, you know, we try to be active. We try to see the situation and act on it. And, you know, that's why we do events like the one we're going to be having here tonight because I believe that it's good to pass the message

that it's important you know we're all capable of doing something for somebody that is in need

so that's one of the reasons why we're here today right before we let you go Carlos do you have a question to throw in that direction to neil

yeah because what we try to do is yeah there aren't many astrophysicists in the world there's about maybe 10 uh last i checked somewhere between 7 and 10 000 astrophysicists about 7 billion people so one in a million people walking this earth is an astrophysicist so if you're ever sitting next to one that's just a good time to ask whatever question you might have been harboring on the universe. Well, you know what? Honestly, I just want to ask a question, but I don't want to ask a question for myself. I want to ask a question for the new generation

of ballplayers these days that are playing the game. By understanding the technology that is happening in baseball, how do you think should be the approach and the adjustments that those players need to do in order to change their career for the best? I think there's a generation of people who are growing up only ever knowing the role of technology in their lives. And that generation, I think, will be much more responsive and much more accepting of advice that could come informed by technology.

So I don't know that you have to make special arrangements for them to be influenced in that way. So I don't think it's going to be a problem. I think it'll be smoothly embraced, and a new era of baseball will come up and chuck's version 40 years from now will be they'll be talking to some superstar in 40 years they say they're gonna say back in 2000 carlos beltrane any of us could beat him back because i love car. Did you see

Carlos' face? This is a true competitor. He actually just went like this. I don't know about that. No, but we don't know what, we don't know. If there's some new thing, they throw 110 miles an hour, you know, there could be something that could happen

and they'll look back at this generation and say, y'all were just some slobs. You know, that could happen. And I like thinking about the future in this context. Do you know what's beginning to happen? What? The athletes themselves are actively seeking to use the technology.

Whereas before, they would- It had to be forced on them. In the clubhouse, they had to push it in the direction of the athletes. Now the athletes are saying, no, no, no. Can I get this and this and this? Because I need to know about what I'm doing.

And that is beginning. It's where the geeks and the jocks are colliding. It's this nice thing in the clubhouse. It's a nice collision. It is a positive collision. Where they both win. Because any other collision, we know who wins. Exactly.

Let's be honest. When geeks and jocks collide, one of them is laying on the ground. It doesn't look good for the geeks. I am so sorry. So, Carlos, you asked me some questions. But I want to ask you a couple of questions. Ready? Yeah.

Okay. I hope I can answer them. Yeah, you'll have an opinion. Okay. You ready? I think if you get hit by a pitch on ball four, you should get to go to second base. I don't think so.

No, ball four, you take first base. You get hit by a pitch, you get first base. You get hit by a pitch on ball four, you go to second base. Because of what you're saying? Yes. I think that it should be the way it is. Go to first. I think first is the thing.

Okay. There you go. That's one of your questions. I mean, this is a man that stole bases. It's a free base that you're giving. You're going to give him a base. No, I want two bases. See, if you hit me and it's ball four,

which it clearly is, unless I stepped in the thing, I want to take two bases. Anyway, okay. When can we rename the foul pole the fair pole? Exactly. I don't understand that. Oh, good.

Okay. Because if it hits the foul pole, it's a fair ball. Yeah. Yeah, we should change that. Exactly. We should change that for sure. Nice. I like that one.

I like that a lot. That's a good one. Okay. All right. Now I got another one. Fair pole. I got another one. You ready?

Yeah. I like that one. I like that a lot. That's a good one. Okay, all right. Now, I got another one. I got another one. You ready? Yeah.

If you walk on six pitches, it's a walk. But if you walk on 10 pitches, it's a hit. Because it meant you had a good enough eye to waste pitches. To battle the pitcher. To battle the pitcher. To battle the pitcher. And you earned the base. It's not that, because it doesn't show up in your average. You know what?

I love anything that rewards the hitter. I was a hitter, so. Anything that rewards me as a hitter, I will both guess. You'll take it. He's going for it. I'll take it. Because it meant you have a good eye and you're waiting for the good pitch. And they couldn't keep you down.

I love that. Okay. I love that. Okay. I love that. All right, excellent. And I just got to put this out there. Okay. People don't talk about it. All right.

A 95 mile an hour pitch Right. has twice the kinetic energy of a 70 mile an hour pitch. I wonder why people don't talk about that. That's so weird that people aren't discussing this. I mean, you know, I see people at the ballpark

all the time just like, did you know that a 95 mile an hour pitch has twice the kinetic energy of a 70 mile an hour pitch? You don't say. I do say, sir. I do say. Twice the kinetic energy. Why is no one else talking about this? They're buffoons.

Here's why. No, but just a couple of things regarding that, all right? It means if you're a 95-mile-an-hour pitcher, every time you throw the ball, it's taking you twice as much energy than it is a pitcher throwing 70 miles an hour. So pitchers who throw 70 miles an hour will have longer careers.

That's all I'm saying. You're going to send him to sleep with a 70-mile-an-hour ball. He's waiting for the ball. I can make a sleep with a 70-mile-an-hour ball. He's waiting for the ball. I can make a comeback on a 70-mile-per-hour teacher. So we're going to bring this to a close. Carlos, it's been a delight to have you on our StarTalk Sports Edition. You give us hope not only for people with ambition

and hope for what we can do with our resources to help others, others in need, others who are not in need but could make a better life for them later. The whole gamut. You're there and you're in the middle of that. And it's hard to say enough nice things about your career and what has become of it since then. And I'm jealous that you're advising the Yankees because I want to advise the Yankees, but I don't have any talent to do so. I think you do.

I have a lot of talent, a lot of knowledge. I think the Yankees are into that direction when they want to understand more about it. There might be something I could contribute. I'll see you in the back office one day. I would love to see you at the ballpark. Excellent. All right, guys.

My playing with science duo, Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly. To everybody here in our audience, Carlos Beltran, simply the best of. Thank you, Seth. Yes, so much for that. Thank you. Appreciate it. We're going to be signing off from the

Southampton Arts Centre and I've been your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist this has been StarTalk Sports Edition and as always I bid you to keep looking up Bye.