The Carlos Beltrán Interview

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.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson and this is a special edition of StarTalk. A sports edition. And I've got with me my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck? Hi Neil. And Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey Neil.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary, I have both of you here at the Southampton Art Center. Carlos Beltran. Carlos?

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Oh! Good to see you Neil.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give it up for Carlos! Yeah! Oh my god. We're not worthy. We are not worthy.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me here guys.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not worthy? We are not worthy. So, so what do you have planned for us today?

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  Pretty much we're gonna talk about baseball through the art.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? Baseball? No, no.

• 1:00Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, spoiler.

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  I'm lying. We're gonna talk about hockey.

• 1:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Carlos has always been a big hockey fan. Uh, I think really what we'll get down is to Carlos's 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 learnt 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.

• 1:50Gary O'Reilly?

  So that's why he sat down with us and we're gonna extract an awful lot and hopefully have a great show.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Well, this is gonna be a learning experience for me also, so.

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. By the way, I gotta say Carlos, uh, doesn't this guy look great? Al, retired? Look, he wears retirement well. You can look at him and tell. He's like, look how relaxed he is.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Let me tell you, I have a lot of bad, you know, examples out there. Players that retire.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  They became a little heavier. So, I just wanna make sure that I don't fall off those footsteps.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, you're, uh, you're looking good, man. Retirement's treating you well.

• 2:26Gary O'Reilly?

  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.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Never.

• 2:38Gary O'Reilly?

  But a player he idolizes. And later in your career, those paths actually cross and we'll get on to 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 postseason that are frightening.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, they called you Mr. October?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Well, Mr. October, for me, it's Reggie.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Reggie.

• 3:14Chuck Nice?

  That's Reggie.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's Reggie.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  He was Señor Octubre. Or Mr. October Junior.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  They tried to call me, they tried to put like a little Spanish into that, but I will call myself Little October.

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little October.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Because Mr. October, you gotta give that to Reggie.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go Reggie because you can't, you know, Reggie, Reggie, Reggie Jackson, Mr. October. So Señor Octubre, that works too.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You like it?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're happy.

• 3:41Gary O'Reilly?

  You're like, I'll take it, I'll take that.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  When it counts.

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it counts.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  When it counts.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. But before we get into it, why don't we just, speaking of when it counts, look at some of Carlos's accomplishments like, of course, 2017 Houston Astros. You cap off your career with the 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 dead.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was an incredible, incredible moment in my career. After playing, you know, 20 years, the year that I decided to retire, that's got, 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.

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it can't be that great if you're not wearing the ring.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  This is more important than the worst.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, his wedding ring.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  I got it, I got it.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The wedding ring.

• 5:06Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. Oh my God. And you know what? Your wife ain't even here and you still did that?

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I still did that.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  She's been good to me.

• 5:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, let me tell you something.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Respect, respect.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  That's crazy good right there. But on top of that, only one of four players to have 2,500 plus hits. I think 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-Rod, Barry Bonds, and Say Hey Kid, okay, Willie Mays. That's a, you know, that's okay company, I guess.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  That's a club.

• 5:43Chuck Nice?

  Right?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  That's a company that I never thought in my wildest dream I will be able to, you know, join them. But I have to say that all of them, you know, were inspiration for

• 5:54Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 5:55Speaker 02

  our younger generation.

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice, yeah.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I just want to add that, again, 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.

• 6:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's certain combinations of performance in baseball that if you cross certain membranes of, of certain spheres of performance, then that's, you're combining talents that you don't normally find in one package.

• 6:27Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And which is why I, and I'll, I mean, I think it's a foregone conclusion, but most people think that Carlos is definitely in the Hall of Fame without a, without a doubt, shadow of a doubt. First ballot induction is, is the word on the street, the scuttlebutt, you know. I know you're not.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  I just think the fact that to be considered is an honor.

• 6:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, you have to say that, Carlos. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, come on, share it.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, if I had said, like, you know, pretty much everybody thinks first ballot induction Carlos Beltran will be there, and you were just like, damn right.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, 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." You know, no, no, no, we nominate. We're just joking with you.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Nah, it's definitely gonna happen, man.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  We'll see what happens.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Right on.

• 7:20Gary O'Reilly?

  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?

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure, let's do it.

• 7:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, 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 thirty 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?

• 7:53Speaker 02

  It is a fact. It is a fact, and it was the love for the game, you know? Honestly, coming from a 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, from school, I used to pick up that bag, that bat, went to the ballpark, hit the baseball, play catch, you know, by myself. And, 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,

• 8:35Speaker 02

  become a professional ballplayer, one day being able to help my family. By one day being able to turn the, pay back my mom, my dad, all the sacrifices that they did for me and my brothers.

• 8:48Chuck Nice?

  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."

• 9:04Speaker 02

  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 comes the little crazy kid is coming again to throw those baseballs in the air and hit them."

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Homeless people are looking at me like, "What's wrong with this kid?"

• 9:20Chuck Nice?

  The homeless people were like, "Yeah, that's the kid that plays with the imaginary baseball team."

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  "Yeah, that kid is crazy."

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, yeah. And I don't blame them, you know, I don't blame them. See, you see- You gotta 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, uh, you know, and, you know, God knows that I was putting every effort of every ounce that I have to try to get better.

• 9:47Gary O'Reilly?

  See, you see the crazy kid.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:49Gary O'Reilly?

  I see the potential major league player who's building that platform brick by brick, throw by throw, hit by hit, on your own.

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  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.

• 10:09Gary O'Reilly?

  And I did-

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  That's why.

• 10:10Gary O'Reilly?

  I, I used to go out on my own and kick soccer balls. So when I read this about-

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With your imaginary friend, yes.

• 10:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah. I was better than him, though.

• 10:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Not much. But, okay, 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?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I got drafted when I was 18 years old.

• 10:33Gary O'Reilly?

  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?

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Gulf Coast League, I played my first year, 1995 rookie ball. Coming from Puerto Rico, not speaking the language, so it was a very challenging moment for me.

• 10:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Uh, 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, uh, 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, uh- 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.

• 11:23Chuck Nice?

  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? Now, how does that happen? Is it like somebody saw you playing with your imaginary friends in the field and like bought you, like, how's that actually work? How do they approach you? How's that go down?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Well, I was playing, um, 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, uh, 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 ballplayer. 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, uh, doing when I was a player, then, you know, I got to see that, yeah, I did have a, a talent, uh, based on the things that I was doing that other kids were not doing.

• 12:28Gary O'Reilly?

  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.

• 12:44Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he is. Yankees are famous historically for their switch hitters. Yeah. And just to, 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. And so you're, the room you have to maneuver and put the bat on the ball is diminished. And generally batters do not do as 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.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you can confound what would otherwise be the advantage a pitcher has in a lineup. If you're one of you're a switch hitter.

• 13:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so so Mickey Mantle was a switch hitter, for example, one of the greatest. So you just decided you wanted to be a switch hitter?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Well, yes, uh, I mean, I remember my first rookie year, I hit from the right side. I went to Puerto Rico, play winner ball, and Bernie Williams was playing centerfield.

• 13:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's also Puerto Rican.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is, yeah. He was playing centerfield for the winner ball team and I got to see him and I got to ask him question and I got to say, Bernie, if you 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. Uh, I was 19 years old. Uh, it was the decision that I made. I had good coaches, thanks God. Uh, 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 thanks God I was able to do it, man.

• 14:33Gary O'Reilly?

  So Neil, what's the physics of what Carlos is trying to attempt here and what's the optimum angles, velocities and forces that he's going to be?

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, what's interesting about baseball, 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, so if you're gonna now be a switch hitter,

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  where you have to have the precision of laying a bat on a ball with strength and agility, this is a, the other half of your body is now engaged in something it had never done before.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did that feel like to you? Your muscles, did you have to, did they have you trained in certain ways to boost one half of you relative to the other?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  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 until you know it's a curve ball. But from the left side, I didn't have that, so I needed to train myself to try to get that.

• 16:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so the, so the, the catalog of pitches looked different?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, everything looked different.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the other side of the, the plate?

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Everything looked different and it was a challenge, it was a challenge and, but you know what, man, I really thank God that I was able to commit, put 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.

• 16:32Gary O'Reilly?

  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 hit to a level that you were confident and comfortable with?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Well, I remember that games in the minor league used to start at 7:05 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 there's no way that I was gonna be able to find the swing, find the stroke and being able to adapt and adjust to to change ups, curve balls, slider. You know, there was a lot of things that I was I wasn't able to feel comfortable right away, so I needed to work on them.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just gonna interject here, the just 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, 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.

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you find out that you just can't, it's just not there.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  It's wrong.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's wrong. There's something wrong. It's wrong.

• 18:14Chuck Nice?

  That's why I suffer from tooth decay.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, another, 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 dishwashing is a handed thing, right? If you're right-handed.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Dishwashers, Neil. Dishwashers.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yes, you mean the machine, the machines?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but still, there's some things you wash by hand. So I tried that. And that's a little, it 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?

• 19:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Intuitive.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Muscle memory. Muscle memory got me there. So now I am a, I'm a switch hitting dishwasher.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  That's great, that's great.

• 19:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Did your left side get stronger than the right side? Or were you able to keep it close?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  You know what, hitting, because I'm a right-hander, uh, 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 on the right side, I had to make sure that that hand stay all away. But from the, from the left side, that hands get to the contact point super easy. So I felt like, okay, this is, it's gonna take time for me to get it, but once I get it, I feel in my heart that I was gonna be able to hit the ball for power.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, 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, you know, 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?

• 20:13Speaker 02

  I was symmetric, I was.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Symmetric, that's hard, that dude, that's hard!

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Super symmetric and, uh, but I, I did.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your average was about the same?

• 20:20Speaker 02

  I would say, I would 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 kinda like see, look at the number from the right side, and look at the number from the left side, you know, it, it.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pretty much the same. You know what, you and I have that in common. Uh, my numbers are equally bad from the left and the right.

• 20:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Equally zero?

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what side I'm on, the number is zero.

• 20:46Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, we are gonna take up.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It suck, that's a, is suck a number? Okay.

• 20:51Gary O'Reilly?

  You're happy now? You got that off your chest? Right, we are gonna take a break.

• 20:57Gary O'Reilly?

  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.

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 21:20Gary O'Reilly?

  What is it you say? I love me some data?

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love me some data, and we will get right to that when the second segment of StarTalk Sportiverse continues.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition. We are visiting the Sportiverse, and I have help, Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly.

• 22:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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. It's great. Yeah, soccer player from the UK? Yes, I am. Yeah, alright.

• 22:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, let's sort of fast forward just a little bit. Ninety-eight, you get called up to the big leagues with the Royals.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Gary O'Reilly?

  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 it, B, affect the organizations around Major League Baseball?

• 22:41Speaker 02

  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 on trying 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 firsthand that 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

• 23:25Speaker 02

  to update myself to the time that I was leaving. So I never, I never closed the doors on new information that was going to help me to get better.

• 23:34Gary O'Reilly?

  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?

• 23:45Speaker 02

  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, so.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but what Moneyball did, it changed what people understood that you had to do to be better. 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 at bat, it takes 14 pitches to get you out.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you just wore out the pitcher. You, you have value to the team.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  You now have a different value to the team.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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 Moneyball, nobody was thinking that way.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Right, you know, and the way the, the tendency of a hitter being able to hit the ball to the pull side 70% of the time, then 30% to the opposite side. So that's when you start seeing the shift on the infielders.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they did all the shifting in the defense.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After Moneyball.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  I mean, there is, 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.

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so you are.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  I'm an advisor for the New York Yankees.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Advisor, very nice, very nice.

• 25:14Chuck 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'd that go?

• 25:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Cashman is the general manager.

• 25:41Chuck Nice?

  General manager of the Yankees.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was, 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, 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, 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 and said, man, you want, you want to do something for our team?

• 26:27Speaker 02

  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 a advisor and have the flexibility that I have today.

• 26:36Chuck Nice?

  You still have interest in coaching though? I mean, I mean, in, in managing?

• 26:39Speaker 02

  You know what? Honestly, now that I get to see, uh, what managers go through, uh, the responsibility, the commitment is, I mean, it require crazy time, so.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus you gotta know how to argue with the umpire.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, but honestly, I, I love, I love to, to do what I do now. You know, I think now I get the opportunity to talk to the players, uh, talk to the organization, give them my, what I think about players, share my, you know, my experience with the, 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.

• 27:14Gary O'Reilly?

  See, what I'm hearing here is what we used to refer to, I think back in the early eighties 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 gotta keep this in the game. Because how many players do you know have had stellar careers, numbers that are superb? And they go, I'm done, thank you, and go.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  You got that right. And also if you go away for too long from the game, you know, when you try to come back, you're not gonna be updated to the time, you know, in the game. So a lot of guys that went away from the game and now they're trying to get jobs is 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 baseball, 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.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  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 gotta go through in order to overcome slump, you know. So there's a lot of things that analytics cannot quantify.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So they can't qualify the spirit of the game?

• 29:02Speaker 02

  The heart of the player. You know?

• 29:05Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, that works.

• 29:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The spirit of the game, the heart of the player. That should be on a poster.

• 29:11Gary O'Reilly?

  It's gonna 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.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I wanna get back to Moneyball for a minute.

• 29:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, please do.

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moneyball is 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 then he start giving that to you.

• 29:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you see that, you gotta adjust.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so if you can't adjust.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Then you're dead.

• 29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're dead?

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're dead.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They figured you out.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  That's, that's, 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 gonna 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 gonna see the same pitches that you saw the night before. So you have to be able to make your adjustment during that bat.

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nor the same pitch that you hit out of the ballpark the previous time you were at bat.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:16Chuck Nice?

  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.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's right.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  In order to get the same results, right?

• 30:39Speaker 02

  That's why I decided to retire.

• 30:43Chuck Nice?

  Dude, that is awesome.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  I took advantage of the game. But you know what, honestly, no, no, I don't, I don't wanna put it that way. I just wanna say that.

• 30:52Chuck Nice?

  You just did.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Organization these days are more prepared based on.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Info, data.

• 30:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Things that they didn't have back in the days. For example, back in the days, if an owner wanted to win, he was gonna pay that player whatever.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  Whatever it took.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  To get him, you know, because he felt that that guy was gonna 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 organizations are more cautious and more careful about, okay, we have a budget, so we wanna make sure that we stay around that budget. And you know, and they're gonna move the pieces to try to put the team together. And for example, the Yankees are the, it's a team that, you know, they look at that, but they'd also wanna 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 wanna win, so that's.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pride of the Yankees, yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So to that point, an interesting element that I think is underappreciated. If you.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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? 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.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The 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.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't come to bat every, all the time. As good as your bat is, I see you four, maybe five. So, so this is an interesting fact about how you value somebody relative to everything else that's going on on the field.

• 33:11Gary O'Reilly?

  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.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you were Golden Glove.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Now you mention, now you mention the G.G., right?

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Golden Glove.

• 33:27Gary O'Reilly?

  This gentleman wins his first Golden Glove, right? Two mistakes, that's all he makes.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the season.

• 33:36Gary O'Reilly?

  For the season.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two errors.

• 33:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Two. That's... There's a swear word in there somewhere. 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.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  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 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 guy making mistakes defensively is because they carrying the result of their bat to the defense. So now they're thinking about the process.

• 34:27Gary O'Reilly?

  The whole at bats on the loop in their mind, they can't shed it.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  The game, the ball come to you, catching you and you're like, oh my god, I'm not prepared.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sounds terrible. It's like you're living, it's like you're living a nightmare. You're living your own mistake while you're actually still playing the game.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  I was by by that a lot of times, believe me or not.

• 34:47Gary O'Reilly?

  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?

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Well, you know what, I always was pretty good letting things go. There's no doubt that in baseball, you need to have a short memory. You have to let things go.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting wisdom there. That's wisdom.

• 35:07Chuck Nice?

  So it's, yeah, so you don't, you don't remember your mistakes. You just keep moving.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  I try, I try to remember them, but I try not to spend energy on them.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  Right. See, I would have been a great baseball player. I don't remember any of my mistakes. I just keep it moving.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to, I want to thread a, I want to put a thread through this.

• 35:24Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bernie Williams.

• 35:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Played center field. You played center field. Okay. You're both good base stealers.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, the center fielder is generally the faster of the three outfielders because they have a more area to cover.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  You got to cover a lot of ground, yeah.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 35:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Good person to ask.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. If you are a fast center fielder, do you make fewer or more spectacular catches?

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Fewer.

• 36:11Chuck Nice?

  Well, that makes sense. Because you're getting to the ball quicker.

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get to the ball, you stand there, and the ball comes. It's a slow outfielders that make all the shooting.

• 36:17Chuck Nice?

  He's diving.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Diving. Those are the slow-ass players, but they get on the Sports Channel.

• 36:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  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.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he's waiting for the ball.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  I'm always getting to the baseball, standing up. I'm not diving for the baseball. And when you look in SportsCenter and now you see all this diving cash, and I'm thinking, wow, man, you know, what I need to do in order to win a Gold Glove? Like, what I need, do I have to fake it?

• 36:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  To win a Gold Glove? 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 is fewer...

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Occasions to make a...

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Fancy places you are good at.

• 37:02Chuck Nice?

  See, 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 gotta take this. And then you like, take a phone call. Then you go catch the ball. Then go catch the ball. That would have made it, you made a highlight.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that'd be a highlight, really.

• 37:18Chuck Nice?

  That'd be a highlight.

• 37:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Hundred percent. You'd have been hated throughout the leagues if you did. Don't listen to him, he's a bad influence. All right, we aren't gonna, just hold that thought.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take our next break.

• 37:29Gary O'Reilly?

  We are gonna take a break.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when we come back, what do you have up next in the third?

• 37:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, we're gonna talk about vision training in baseball. Because Carlos said, "I always kept an open mind to change things." It'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 gonna deal with, Winnie.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Whoa, so this is like, this is like Bionic Man stuff, right?

• 38:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeeeee, maybe. So, we're gonna take that break. Carlos and how to be a better hitter on the way back.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When StarTalk returns, we're gonna learn about how to alter your body physiologically to do better at the sport of your choice.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson and we're coming to you from the Southampton Arts Centre. Yes, yes.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 39:14Gary O'Reilly?

  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 centre of the eye of the pupil. So there's a guy called Dr. Bill Harrison who Chuck and I have had on the show, yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  He passed away.

• 39:29Gary O'Reilly?

  So 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?

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Well, you know what, everything started for me when I got to hear that Erika 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 a 120 mile per hour with dots, with numbers, red colors, black colors.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, no one has ever thrown a ball 120 miles an hour. So you're training at a higher speed.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  So he's training at a higher speed, trying to pick up a color, trying 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...

• 40:27Speaker 02

  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 exercises 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.

• 41:01Chuck Nice?

  That's it. So it slows down.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, 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.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  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 see, 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 when you're eating.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  It's a split second.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  It's a split second, but that's the feeling, you know, when everything's going well.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's four tenths of a second or something.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what you, so, so first of all, it seems to me that, yes, the easy way to say it is that you're training your vision, but you're all, but I think what you're really doing is training your mind.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Your brain.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your brain.

• 41:54Chuck Nice?

  Training your brain.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your brain to process information differently.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  100%.

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you gotta 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.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the brain has to now figure out how to ignore that. Am I, this is what's going on?

• 42:22Speaker 02

  100%.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and so fascinating that you put markings on the ball because actual baseball has stitches, right? So that's something to look at.

• 42:30Chuck Nice?

  Right. And you say, and, and, and we've heard many pitchers tell us this. You know, as a matter of fact, Ron Darling told us the same thing about the...

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Batters like you, the guys who could see the rotation of the ball.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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?

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Well, at least in my case, it was different. Why? Because if I was gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna throw fastball. When the glove moves a certain way,

• 43:42Speaker 02

  and if the glove open, then you're gonna know off speed is coming. So now you make your own study 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.

• 43:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're playing... So that little, any little advantage is gonna help the batter.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Any little advantage.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you kinda know it's a fastball coming, then, oh...

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get you.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Bring it on.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Honestly, that's a mentality. So just let me state the obvious. Since you don't know what ball is coming, if a pitcher doesn't reveal it by these tactics...

• 44:22Speaker 02

  No tipping.

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't know, some percent of that four tenths of a second is kinda wasted figuring out what kinda pitch it is. And then you gotta figure out, how am I gonna hit this pitch? But that extra fraction of a second with prior knowledge, you're all on it.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Oh, 100%.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the announcers will say this, "He was looking for that curve ball the whole way."

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "He was looking for that fastball the whole way."

• 44:48Speaker 02

  And a lot of times, you're not looking, you just know that it's coming.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Zen, he's getting Zen now.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  No, honestly, a lot of time, 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 I gotta, all I gotta do is just make sure that it's in the strike zone, make sure that I put a good swing on it.

• 45:10Gary O'Reilly?

  What, 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.

• 45:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's the, 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.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  I fail 72.

• 45:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  72%? So you bat at 298.

• 45:48Gary O'Reilly?

  So when those, when those odds are stacked against you, if you can now bring that towards you, that makes, I was reading an interview.

• 45:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I didn't calculate that right.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  280.

• 46:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  280, that's right, not 298, it's 280.

• 46:02Gary O'Reilly?

  There, 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, how do you do that?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  All my career, all I did was study pitchers. You know, I studied a lot of pitchers. When I first got to the big leagues, was putting the cassette into the USA.

• 46:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's a cassette?

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's how it was when I, when I first got to the big leagues. And then later on, technology came, and now it's like all these fancy computers. 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 spent hours, you know, looking at film.

• 46:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just looking at VHS tapes. I gotta interject here. Alright, as an academic, I will say that the mantra, well, how do I get to Carnegie Hall? Or whatever? Practice, practice, practice. Practice, practice, practice. No, excuse me, we just added something to this. It's practice, practice, practice. Study, study, study. Study, study, study. Okay? Alright? Because it's too easy for us watching the game. Oh, they're a natural. Or they, he just, he just, no, you're behind the tapes. There's a lot of work on it.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  I was, and by talking a little bit about 2017, I remember when I got there, I'm four years old, all my teammates are 21, 22, 23, very young.

• 47:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're the old man.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I'm the old man there, putting hours on the, you know, watching films, and the younger guys are coming to me and they're asking me, Carlos, what are you doing? I say, I'm staring at these guys. So, week after, now you see seven or eight years of the younger guys studying.

• 47:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sitting there, studying with you.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  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 would do it, but I would prefer you to spend time doing it, because if I'm not here, next year...

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't cheat off of my paper.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  No, because next year I won't be here. So, I want you to create the habit that this is important and it's going to benefit you in your career.

• 48:16Gary O'Reilly?

  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?

• 48:40Speaker 02

  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 springs that because I want them to be prepared, more prepared than I was when I was a professional ballplayer.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  So it's a full bilingual school. We try to teach them, you know, the language so when they over, you know, they go to colleges or sign a professional ballplayers, they're more prepared. I have a lot of friends in baseball that, you know, 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, back in the day.

• 49:56Gary O'Reilly?

  It's always evolving.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  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.

• 50:07Chuck Nice?

  And in addition to the, 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?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yes, we are. 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, 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 gonna 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, so that's, that's, that's one of the reasons why we're here today.

• 51:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, before we let you go, Carlos, do you have a question to throw? In that direction to Neil.

• 51:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because what we try to do is, there aren't many astrophysicists in the world. There's about, maybe 10, uh, what last I checked, somewhere between 7 and 10,000 astrophysicists. About 7 billion people, so 1 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.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  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. Like, understanding the technology that is happening in baseball, uh, how do you think should be the approach, uh, and adjustments that those players need to do in order to change their career for the best?

• 51:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think there's a generation of people who are growing up only ever knowing the role of technology in their lives. Uh, and that generation, I think, will be much more responsive and much more, uh, 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, I don't think it's going to be a problem. I think it'll be smoothly embraced and that, and, 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

• 52:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  in 40 years and say, what can I say? Back in 2000, Carlos Beltran, any of us could beat him back then.

• 52:44Chuck Nice?

  I love Carlos, did you see Carlos's face? This is a true competitor. He, he actually just went like this, "I don't know about that."

• 52:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but we don't know what, we, we don't know. No, 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, "Y'all were just some slobs." You know, that could happen and I like thinking about the future in this context.

• 53:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you know what's beginning to happen?

• 53:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 53:11Gary O'Reilly?

  The athletes themselves are actively seeking to use the technology. Whereas before

• 53:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was had to be forced on them.

• 53:20Gary O'Reilly?

  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.

• 53:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 53:34Gary O'Reilly?

  It's this nice thing in the clubhouse.

• 53:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a nice collision.

• 53:37Gary O'Reilly?

  It is a positive collision.

• 53:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where they both win.

• 53:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, 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.

• 53:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't look good for the geeks.

• 53:49Chuck Nice?

  I am so sorry.

• 53:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so Carlos, you asked me some questions.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 53:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I want to ask you a couple of questions. Ready? Okay.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  I hope I can answer to that.

• 54:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 54:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if ball four, if 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.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Because, because of what you're saying?

• 54:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  I think, I think, I think that it should be the way it is. Go to first. I think first is okay.

• 54:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go. That's one of your questions.

• 54:32Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, this is a man that stole bases for a living.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  It's a free base that you're giving.

• 54:35Gary O'Reilly?

  You're gonna give him a base.

• 54:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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 are we, when, when?

• 54:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When can we rename the foul pole the fair pole?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Exactly, I don't understand that.

• 54:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good. We got, so, okay. Because if it hits the foul pole, it's a fair ball.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we should change that.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Exactly, we should change that for sure.

• 54:58Chuck Nice?

  Nice. I like that one.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  I like that a lot.

• 55:01Chuck Nice?

  That's a, that's a good one.

• 55:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right. Now, I got another one. I got another one. You ready? If you walk on six pitches...

• 55:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a walk. But if you walk on 10 pitches, it's a hit. Because you, it meant you had a good enough eye to waste pitches of the...

• 55:23Chuck Nice?

  To battle the pitcher?

• 55:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a bat, to battle the pitcher, and you earned the base. It's not that, because it doesn't show up in your average.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  You know what? I love anything that reward the hitter. I was a hitter, so.

• 55:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, he's taking it.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Anything that rewards me as a hitter, I will both yes.

• 55:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He'll take it, he's going for it.

• 55:40Chuck Nice?

  I'll take it.

• 55:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it meant you have a good eye and you're waiting for the good pitch, and they couldn't keep, keep you down.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 55:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 55:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, excellent. And I just gotta put this out there. People don't talk about it.

• 55:51Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 55:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A 95 mile an hour pitch.

• 55:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 55:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has twice the kinetic energy of a 70 mile an hour pitch.

• 56:00Chuck Nice?

  I wonder why people don't talk about that.

• 56:04Chuck Nice?

  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?"

• 56:16Gary O'Reilly?

  You don't say.

• 56:17Chuck Nice?

  I do say, sir.

• 56:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Twice, twice the kinetic energy.

• 56:22Chuck Nice?

  Why is no one else talking about this?

• 56:24Gary O'Reilly?

  They're buffoons.

• 56:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's why. No, but just a couple of things regarding that, right? It means if you're a 95 mile 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.

• 56:41Gary O'Reilly?

  You're gonna send him to sleep with a 70 mile an hour ball.

• 56:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's waiting for the ball.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  I can make a comeback on a 70 mile per hour pitcher.

• 56:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we could 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, 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... You're like, you're advising the Yankees, because I want to advise the Yankees, but I don't have any talent to do so.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  I think you do have a lot of talent, a lot of knowledge. I think the Yankees are into that direction when they want to understand more about the technology.

• 57:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It might be something I could contribute. I'll see you in the back office one day.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  I would love to see you at the ballpark.

• 57:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. All right, guys.

• 57:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My playing with science duo, Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly.

• 57:51Gary O'Reilly?

  To everybody here in our audience, Carlos Beltran, simply the best of.

• 57:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, sir.

• 57:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, so much for that. Thank you.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  Appreciate it.

• 58:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.