#ICYMI: Baseball: The Perfect Game

There have only been 23 perfect games in baseball’s 140-year history – and only one in the World Series, by Don Larsen in 1956. Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore what it takes to throw a perfect game, with guests Neil Tyson and Houston Astros announcer Geoff Blum. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscience Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/baseball-the-perfect-game/ Photo Credit: AP file photo via San Diego Union Tribune at http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/sd-sp-larsen-1008-story.html

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

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:12Gary O'Reilly?

  This is Playing With Science. Today, we go to the limits of sporting possibility and ask, is it so hard to achieve sporting perfection?

• 0:22Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 0:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Really? Is it that difficult to achieve a perfect 10 in gymnastics? So tough to go a whole season unbeaten in the NFL? Or even pitch a perfect game? I mean, no hits, full stop.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and if we're gonna go there, then we certainly need a co-pilot. And who better than the man himself, speaking of perfect, Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson!

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why'd you make me wear this now?

• 0:48Gary O'Reilly?

  You stopped by the store on the way in, don't you?

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I'm born and raised in the Bronx.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So for those of you who don't have the benefit of watching us on StarTalkAllAccess.com, if you're just listening, Neil is in full Yankee regalia.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I got the hat, the jacket, everything. But I'm a legit Yankee fan, born and raised in the Bronx.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  He's what we call a bomber legacy.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'll tell you this, in my formative kid years, where, you know, that's when you're most likely to be a Yankee fan, a baseball fan, when your dad takes you to the game, kinda thing. That was the driest episode of Yankee franchise there ever was.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  I was a fan during the awful, awful years. People don't know that the Yankees had, during the 80s, they were a bad, bad...

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm talking about even the 70s before Reggie Jackson.

• 1:42Gary O'Reilly?

  There are baseball fans around the world welling up right now with laughter. Really, what, the Yankees were bad?

• 1:50Chuck Nice?

  They were terrible.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They went like a dozen years without getting into the...

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  A long, big drought.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a drought for the Yankee, I'm sorry. It's a drought.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm boiling in this jacket, I gotta take off.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  We'll take the jacket off, yeah. And while you're doing that...

• 2:04Gary O'Reilly?

  We'd better get to our guest.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Yes, 'cause...

• 2:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Our other guest.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  Our other guest.

• 2:07Gary O'Reilly?

  And joining us via Skype is Houston Astros announcer, our very good friend Jeff Blum. Oh, previous show, Home Run Science. Jeff, how are you, my friend?

• 2:18Speaker 03

  I'm doing extremely well until you showed Neil with that jacket on. I'm good.

• 2:24Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, there's some things we can do and some things we can't do. It was the latter.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's get into this game, right? This game meeting our show, right?

• 2:31Gary O'Reilly?

  The most difficult thing to achieve in elite sport was as a baseball player hit a fastball. And then you sat us down and said, I have another idea.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:42Gary O'Reilly?

  You came up with the perfect game to pitch the perfect game.

• 2:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the hardest thing in sports, period. Well, so what led me there was if you're just trying to find something that's hard to do. Let's look at the singularly hard things that have happened in sports, right? So you can say, how about a hole in one in golf? All right, so you could go your whole life and not hit a hole in one, but they kind of happen often enough. They'll make the news a few times in a golf season and maybe not the pros, but it's some. Somebody's doing it. Somebody's gonna hit a hole in one. So, so it's, it's rare, but not impossible. And you don't take that person and build statues to them, right? So whereas I just thought a perfect and, and yes, hitting a baseball with a round object. Yep.

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Going 90 miles an hour when the person who threw it, the whole point of why they're throwing it at you so that you don't hit it. And the fans are screaming and Jeff, you know, back me up on this. Here you are on a field in a, in a, in a, in a, and you're in a, you're a visitor in a, in another stadium. And they're throwing a 90 mile an hour and everyone is booing you. And you're exposed, you're supposed to hit the ball where in golf, the ball is sitting at your feet, not moving. And they're telling people to shush. And they're telling people, quiet, please.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how do you guys feel about that? Just wondering.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  It's all experience. It's a matter of going through that process, but you're right. I mean, it's one thing physically and scientifically to actually try and manipulate a bat to hit like a round bat to hit a round ball. But then you add on top of it, the added pressure of the fans, just they are just waiting for that moment when you swing and miss.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, absolutely. So here's what happens. So, so rather than look at, uh, yes, it is. It's it's odd that we have a sport called baseball where if you succeed a third of the time, you are a Hall of Famer. That's just kinda really weird, right? You're batting 333 your whole life. You're the best hitter, you know, top 100 hitters there ever was. That's just, that's, that's an extraordinary fact.

• 4:46Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such a thing exists in this sport. But then I thought, how about other kinds of achievements? And let's look at the perfect game.

• 4:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To remind people what a perfect game is, it is you retire 27 consecutive players, three per inning, no one successfully reaches first base. And so that, that's, so not only is the pitcher awesome.

• 5:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But your fielders are backing you up.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your fielders, they can't make an error.

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Hey Jeff, let me ask you, since Neil just brought that up, you were an infielder. Were you ever a part of a perfect, did you ever contribute to a perfect game?

• 5:20Speaker 03

  I was never witness or played in a perfect game. I played in a no hitter and oddly enough, it happened in Yankee Stadium when I was with the Houston Astros. We had six pitchers go out there and throw a no hitter against.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that game. I might have even been at that game because at the end, they, they, because it was kinda a little bit.

• 5:38Chuck Nice?

  You hear someone booing really, really loud.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  No, this is funny.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was just weird because it was a little bit anticlimactic, right?

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Yankees get no hit, but there are like four relief pitchers in there. And at the end of the game, they all gathered, I'm looking in the field, they all gathered for the cameras. I said, why are they interviewing? And I said, then I looked up at the scoreboard, holy shit.

• 5:59Chuck Nice?

  That's a, and we said Yankees got no hit. It's a no hitter.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, and it's a no hitter by committee.

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  By committee. That's pretty funny. What was the reaction of the whole club? What, the whole club, how did the whole team, how did they react to that event?

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Well, well, to Neil's point, the replay that we continue to show throughout the years is Billy Wagner closes it out and gets a ground ball to first base. Jeff Bagwell, Hall of Famer, flips it to Billy and he steps on the base and Billy's got two hands in the air, yeah, we did it. And Jeff Bagwell has this look on his face like, man, dude, we just won a game. What's the big deal?

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  You know, and all of a sudden it kinda, it dominoed through the team and we were like, holy cow, we did something special, man.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, when I first, I wanted to do a reality check on how often you would expect a perfect game. Okay. And so, at the time I did this, there were like fifteen perfect games ever pitched. Okay. By the way, three of them pitched by Yankees. Okay. So that's extraordinary. One of them in the World Series, which we'll get to in just a minute. Right. At the time I did this calculation, there were fifteen perfect games. Okay. And I said, "That's not a big number, guys. Look at how many games are played." Over two hundred thousand games. How many years this has been going on. So I said, "Let me just do a sanity check on this calculation." Yeah. What you do is, you can say, "All right, let's say you're batting, uh, three hundred, just to, all right."

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that means the pitcher has a seventy percent chance of getting you out. Okay? Or you not getting a hit, okay? Okay. So, it's in my favor as a pitcher. So now, Gary comes up to bat, let's see, he's also a three hundred hitter. It's still in my favor, seventy percent chance, but for me to get both of you out? It's the joint probability of getting you out and getting you out. And mathematically, I take point seven and multiply that by point seven. That's the rest of what is in the average, taken away by batting three hundred, right? So, three, thirty percent chance you'll get a hit, seventy percent chance you're not gonna get a hit. Okay. So, all you have to do is multiply this twenty-seven times. Oh my god. Okay?

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you get a probability of, you get how many games that will happen, if all other things being sort of equal. Now, the first time I did this calculate, I didn't do it right, because I only took people's batting averages. But if you want a perfect game, you're not getting the first base at all. So on-base average as well. Yeah, but at the time I did this, on-base percentage was not a thing. When did on-base percentage become a, Jeff, become a statistic that people tracked?

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Um, you know what? They did track it quite a bit, but they didn't track it in the sense of adding it into an on-base percentage and batting average and slugging percentage. It wasn't until about four or five years ago.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That they got that other thing, that other number.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, they started, it's OPS.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, which makes no freaking sense, because it can be more than one, and it's no, no, I don't, I'm not buying it, just.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Well, the reason is because all these analytics, they wanna take batting average out of it. They wanna, they wanna show production, and they show production as far as getting on base and slugging. So they take slugging percentage and add that to on-base percentage, therefore you get OPS.

• 9:09Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense, because it's kind of like measuring productivity in the workforce. Like, you can show up to work every day, on time, and leave every day, ten, be the last guy to leave, but if you don't do crap while you're there, who cares?

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My point is, as, as someone who is mathematically literate, that, that statistic has no ma, makes no mathematical sense whatsoever. You can't just add percentages. It just doesn't work, okay?

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, think this through, okay? What, if you succeed 80% of the time, and I succeed 80% of the time, we both don't succeed 160% of the time. So, so, don't get me, wait, but let me finish this out. So, what I had to do was the, use it the on-base percentage, which is higher for everyone.

• 9:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because sometimes you get a walks. So it's just to be clear, on-base percentage, and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong here, it's your batting average, plus your walks, plus hit by pitch, plus catcher interference.

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, um, taking a base on a strikeout.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, is there any other way to get to first base?

• 10:16Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well, it depends on how much she likes you.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm sorry.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna carbon date that joke.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  You said you could edit this later, right?

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you said, "Hey, look, I'm a dad." That's a dad joke. Jeff, what stat do the players focus on? Because the- But he was gonna answer my question first. Is he? Okay, I'll get in line. Yeah, I, I, no, I forgot the question.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Is there any other way to get to first base?

• 10:46Speaker 03

  No, that's the only way to get to first base, uh, yeah, other than off the field. But, um, I'm not too sure if they actually take into account getting on by, uh, by strikeout, because that counts against your batting average. Um, and the, uh, catcher's interference is counted as an error against the catcher. So I don't think they count that. It has to be a walk, uh, and hit by pitch or intentional walk.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but if I got on base, I got on base. If I, if I freaked out the catcher that-

• 11:12Speaker 03

  There are limitations.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are always limitations. So, so we got, so regardless-

• 11:17Speaker 03

  You can't take credit for the other guy screwing up.

• 11:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's what it is.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so this is why I want to start a movement. If you walk on 10 pitches, that counts as a hit. If you walk on four pitches, it counts against the pitcher.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  So-

• 11:30Speaker 03

  I'm gonna change my numbers then.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no. What do you think of this?

• 11:33Chuck Nice?

  You're counting battling the pitcher, is what you're saying.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I can battle the pitcher and, and I exhaust all their strikes and I, and I have a good eye, I earned that base. That should count in my favor. It shouldn't be a non-at bat and count against the pitcher. I, I stole, I took that base. And so you gotta come up with some number of pitches, uh, for which you then get credited with that.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Jeff, on this show, I am always for changing games. So what do you think about this? That's, I mean, I kinda see what he's saying. What do you think about that? As a hitter?

• 12:03Speaker 03

  You, you, well, you, you talked about how hard it is to hit a baseball and get credit for it.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  You should be able to, you shouldn't be able to get a hit without getting a hit.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay. So you're saying that that cheapens the actual batting average? If you were to allow that to be a part of it?

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I got another one, just because that, that, well-

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're on the roll. Yeah, I'm on the roll. Uh, if you get hit by a pitch on ball four, you should be able to go to second base.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Ooh, okay.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He got him, I got him. No, no, whereabouts do you hit? Because it's different, you- No, doesn't matter.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Location.

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, I kinda like, I kinda, I kinda like Gary's thing. Because if you get hit in the balls, which is almost impossible-

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cruel to second base.

• 12:45Chuck Nice?

  You actually go to third base.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Well, if the ball hits you in the balls, it counts. That's three.

• 12:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's three balls. Hey.

• 12:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We love the math. See, this is how math works. You see? Two plus one equals three. All right, so come on, let's conclude the equation. Okay, so you do the numbers now with, um, uh, with on-base percentage because a perfect game, no one makes it to first base at all. Right. As opposed to a no-hitter, where just no one gets a hit, but you can give up a walk. Right. You can even have an error. Right. This sort of thing. Okay. And so, so I ran the numbers. So, so what you do is you can get sort of the average batting average for a team. All right? Mm-hmm. And it's actually lower than you think. I, I just checked this yesterday. So, the American League batting average, which is typically higher than that for the National League, because we have the, we, you know, uh, we have the, um, designated hitter, right?

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's not this sort of easy out with the pitcher batting ninth. So, our, our averages are just slightly higher. The average for the entire league is 250. Wow. The whole league. The whole league. Yes. The average of the team averages is 250. Jeff is nodding, yeah. Right. So, so that means you got some folks batting 240, 2 whatever, you know, they, and that, that rounds out your club. Okay. So, that means this is even more in the favor of the pitcher. If you're trying to pitch a perfect game. But you'll always have some batter that's batting three-something. Right? So, but again, I just wanted to do a sanity check on that number 15. Okay. That's all I did. So, you take 250. Right. And you say, all right, there's a 75% chance only get every player out every time I face them. Right.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Give everybody a 250 batter. Again, it's just a sanity check. All right? If you do the calculation perfectly, you would, you would stretch that out. But watch. So, you do it. So, .25 times .25 times .25. Do that 27 times. Mm-hmm. Okay? We're getting to some. Then you find out, how often would that happen? All right, it's like one in fifteen thousand games to some crazy, it's okay. So then, was that the number? I I I I'd better double check my notes on that, but it's some one in a huge number. Then I looked at all the games ever played. You have thirty teams right now and they play one hundred and sixty-two games, but a team plays another team. So it's half that number. Right. Right, because you're counting games now, right?

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um, it's, uh, thirty teams playing eighty-one games, total games, okay? If you want to think about it that way. Because they're playing each other. They're playing each other. And then you multiply, then you you add up all the games back to, you go stay in the modern era, that eighteen hundreds baseball. What the hell was going on back then? Dude, I don't know. They weren't playing with gloves and they were playing with like, you know, a sock ball, who knows, man? And some of the numbers are crazy. Yeah, so you want to stay in the the relatively modern era. Yeah, not the shoeless Joe Jackson era. So it's basically a hundred years of ball. So so when I did this, I came up with like the number twelve or something. I mean, it was it was a sanity check. The real number was fifteen.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got twelve and I said, oh, my gosh, this is actually working as a calculation. And so right now we are up to twenty or twenty-one. Twenty-three. Twenty-three. Twenty-three. Twenty-three perfect games. And I'm I'm just saying a perfect game is a stunning fact in baseball.

• 16:04Gary O'Reilly?

  We are going to take a break. Don't forget, coming up after, we will have Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jeff Blum. So that's one World Series winning hitter and your personal guide to the universe. Stick around, we'll be back shortly.

• 16:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. This, of course, is Playing with Science, and today we are talking about the hardest thing to do in sports. And according to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, that is pitching the perfect game in baseball. Not just hitting a hundred mile an hour fastball, but pitching the perfect game. Um, I suppose the most famous perfect game has to be back in nineteen fifty-six, Yankees versus the Dodgers?

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and Yankees, uh, yes, it was the Brooklyn Dodgers, I think they were at the time.

• 16:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Really something special, a real local event.

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because if you calculate, if you're gonna calculate the odds of pitching a perfect game using everyone's on base percentage, you would expect that you'd be more likely to throw a perfect game against a last place team.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The last place team, all their numbers are suppressed, right? They're not gonna be, you're not gonna have the good hitters. They probably don't even have any marquee players. So, I would bet, most, I haven't checked this, but I would bet that most of the no hitters in perfect games that have been pitched have been against sort of lesser teams in the rankings. Okay?

• 17:32Chuck Nice?

  Makes sense.

• 17:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  Statistically.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Statistically, you'd expect that.

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if it's different from that, I'd be very surprised, but, but, let's keep that for the moment. So, in 1956, in the World Series, the Yankees, the best team in the American League, are playing the Dodgers, the best team in the National League. And Don Larsen pitches a perfect game.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's play.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Play it.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  I know you love your numbers. Ninety-seven pitches, that's all Larson took.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the minimum, well, the minimum pitches would be twenty-seven pitches.

• 18:29Chuck Nice?

  We have three down all the way through.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yes, no, no, uh, one pitch.

• 18:33Chuck Nice?

  Three, right.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One pitch out, uh, so ninety-seven pitches.

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, oh, oh, so that, okay.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can throw twenty-seven pitches.

• 18:39Chuck Nice?

  Twenty-seven pitches, that means.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a minimum game.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  Contact on all twenty-seven and then you're out.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the fielder.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  And the fielder plays it and you're out.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 18:46Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ninety-seven pitches today, Jeff, they would, they would have taken, well, not in that game, but today, nobody pitches ninety-seven, no one throws a hundred pitches anymore, isn't that right?

• 18:54Speaker 03

  No, you're extremely right, yeah. You get to a hundred pitches, all of a sudden, bullpens are up and managers are freaking out and they take the guy out, yeah.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but do you, do you take Don Larsen out in this game?

• 19:03Speaker 03

  God, no.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You have to call a god for that way.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  No, no, honestly, uh, Jeff, is that hindsight speaking, or is that, uh, just the fact that when somebody gets to the seventh or eighth inning, no matter how many pitches they've thrown, if they're throwing a perfect game, you leave them?

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even a no hitter. Even if they're throwing more than their average per game and they might take him out of the next rotation.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly what would happen. There's actually, I believe it was Edwin Jackson with the Arizona Diamondbacks who threw a no hitter, had 10 punchouts, walked eight guys and threw 150 pitches, but the manager left him in and they did skip his next start. So yeah, that would happen, but in a perfect game, you are not touching anything. You're letting that guy play it out.

• 19:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, Jeff, so here we go. I'm gonna read you a list of names. Dick Williams, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese?

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pee Wee Reese.

• 19:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Reese.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Silent E, like DeGrasse.

• 20:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Roy Campanella.

• 20:01Chuck Nice?

  Which by the way, before-

• 20:02Gary O'Reilly?

  And Duke Snyder, all future Hall of Fame batsmen. The Larson flew past.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, they batted against Larson in that game. Give me that list again.

• 20:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, Dick Williams, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Duke Snyder.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Jackie Robinson is in that list.

• 20:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 20:24Gary O'Reilly?

  So when you said against lesser teams, that's why this is absolutely stellar.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. And I think Don Larsen is not in the Hall of Fame and not as a player for lifetime performance.

• 20:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yogi Bear is.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so my sense of this is, if you have achieved something so singular-

• 20:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -that no one has done it before or since, nor can anyone even think-

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  You get to go.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -that happening, that's, put the boy, this mention of him just and the history part, but I'm thinking, this, if that's all he did in his life-

• 20:55Chuck Nice?

  That he gets to go.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put him in.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Well, even for that, I mean, even if you were to, you know how they say, okay, Hall of Fame is now gonna have to have the asterix because, you know, blah, blah, blah. So do that. Put him in and put an asterix, like, yeah.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the singular thing.

• 21:09Chuck Nice?

  This is the singular thing that he did and no one else has ever done it and it's the hardest thing to do in sports and that-

• 21:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Going back to your point about Don Larsen and the Hall of Fame.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:18Gary O'Reilly?

  It is the only ever perfect game in a World Series.

• 21:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, yes.

• 21:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Stand alone.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's the only no hitter.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  The only no hitter.

• 21:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's even the only no hitter. And it's even more than the no hitter.

• 21:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Game five, game six, game five. And in game two, I think he had two innings and they pulled him out. He wasn't very good and he came back and delivered a game like that. It's awesome.

• 21:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the fact is that, I mean, the fact that he's not in the world, I mean, in the Hall of Fame lets you know that this singular accomplishment was his singular accomplishment.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like the one hit, it's like the one hit wonders, you know. Exactly. Let me hear the rest of that album. He's a really vanilla based.

• 21:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you're just, you're taking him out at the knees there.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. No, I'm just saying, you know, you hear the one hit wonder and you say, let me hear the rest of what's on that album. And it sucks. Right. Yeah, it's the singular, the, I, I like achievement. I like it when people's talent, artistic, physical, athletic rises up against everything else. You have to just stand awestruck in what they have performed.

• 22:22Gary O'Reilly?

  I've got, I've got his corner, I've got Don's corner, no matter what Chuck says.

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, okay, so, um, we talked about Don Larsen, only perfect game and only no hitter in World Series history. But, you know, it, it doesn't end there. Uh, let's take a look at Randy Johnson, who, uh,

• 22:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Your friend.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Who I, who I,

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Six foot nine Randy Johnson.

• 22:46Chuck Nice?

  I would so much rather be Randy Jackson.

• 22:48Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, give me a test here.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Six foot nine of him.

• 22:52Chuck Nice?

  I'll say, which by the way, I, one of the most dominant pitchers ever, right Jeff? I mean, seriously. Did you face Randy Johnson?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  I did, he's in my book, I got him. I, I hit a homerun off in my,

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, oh. Nicely done, my friend.

• 23:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Nicely done.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  And he, he MF'd me the entire way around the bases, it was great.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 23:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that must be music to your ears.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  That's gotta be great.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  It was.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  That's gotta be great, having Randy Jackson call you MF the entire time you're,

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Randy Johnson.

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, Randy Jackson.

• 23:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Randy was singing.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  He's Randy Jackson now, people. Notice, I keep saying it.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From this moment onward.

• 23:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Were you ever teammates? Were you ever teammates? Cause you were at the Diamondbacks as well.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  No, I missed him.

• 23:35Gary O'Reilly?

  No, okay.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 23:36Chuck Nice?

  So let me ask you, when you, when you face him, cause he was so tall, is, are you taking that into account in any way? How do you, how do you look at him? Where do you look for the release? What kind of,

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, he's pitched a perfect game.

• 23:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes, he has.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, which we're, we're gonna take a look at that in a second. But I just wanna know, well, maybe we should look at the clip and then we'll,

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but put him on the, on the,

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Let's look at the clip.

• 23:57Gary O'Reilly?

  This one's up against the Atlanta Braves for the Diamondbacks, so,

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Roll it.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  There it is.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  Look at his teammates, look at Randy Johnson.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dude's head came up to his nipples.

• 24:19Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 24:30Chuck Nice?

  It's just, it's really one of the coolest moments in baseball ever.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  You want the best pitchers to have one of those on their record, right? You knew he was a great pitcher and you kind of, that kind of completes the,

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 03

  The, the, you know, the total storybook of what could be someone's career. Catfish Hunter also had a perfect game.

• 24:49Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  These are great pitchers.

• 24:50Gary O'Reilly?

  The great thing about Randy Johnson's perfect game was he doesn't dial this up until he's 40. So it's not one of those early, see, early.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  He was 40 when he pitched this?

• 25:01Gary O'Reilly?

  The oldest player ever to deliver.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  And didn't look a day over 52.

• 25:06Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, Jeff, that's a mean looking dude, let alone the six foot nine, that's a face.

• 25:11Chuck Nice?

  So here's what I want to know, Jeff, how do you face somebody? Because when you look at how tall Randy Johnson is, how do you adjust your hitting? Because it had to be kind of weird and freaky to see this lanky giant. Where do you look for the release? Where do you do all that? How do you change your, your hitting?

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Um, it's tough. Typically as a hitter, you'll look at the logo on the hat of the hitter, of the pitcher, and then adjust to wherever that arm angle is coming from.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 25:38Speaker 03

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

• 26:22Speaker 03

  also. So you as a hitter, you got to create a different angle in your swing to try and combat how he's coming from so high.

• 26:29Gary O'Reilly?

  So how do you prepare? How do you prepare for a guy who's going to be pitching to you like that in in sort of practice? Or do you just think, well, you know what?

• 26:35Speaker 03

  You don't.

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  You don't.

• 26:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Simple as.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  You can't. Yeah, I mean, you could be, you go out there and put your batting practice pitcher on a on stilts, but there's really no way to replicate. And at the time, he was really the only guy that was over six foot five that I ever faced. So he was another five inches on top of that guy.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jeff, you're not old enough for this, I don't think. But I know this sounds like I'm father time. Here we go. But you maybe you're old enough to remember when it happened, you surely weren't playing when they reduced the height of the mound.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  That was around Bob Gibson, right in the, what, mid to late 60s?

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah. So the to reduce the advantage that the pitcher had over the batter so that there'd be more hitting and more action. And so what we're saying here, not to put words in your mouth, but he just took those six inches back, put it on the mound.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That gave himself his advantage again.

• 27:27Chuck Nice?

  He did. He gave himself the advantage.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The advantage that had been subtracted away from a whole generation of baseball players.

• 27:32Chuck Nice?

  So we could get more action and more more scores.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  That's great.

• 27:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Do Cubs scout the taller pitchers simply because of that?

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Um, they they may, but I mean, ultimately, it comes down to, we talked about it earlier, production. If you're going out there and getting outs, then you're going to be the guy that goes out there for me. And there's different guys that are tall that have, you know, lower arm angles and things like that. But it's a lot of the conversation. But if you're big, throw hard, it's going to be an advantage for you.

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pedro wasn't very tall. He couldn't have been even six feet.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah, he was five nine, five 10.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  It's all about production. Look at Fernando with his big fat butt. So I mean, seriously, you know.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Hey, that's the beauty of baseball.

• 28:11Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can have a gut and still.

• 28:16Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Beauty will be in the eye of the beholder when it comes to baseball, it seems. We will take a break. We will be back with total perfection with Jeff Blum and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Stick around. We'll be back shortly.

• 28:31Gary O'Reilly?

  I am Gary O'Reilly.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 28:33Gary O'Reilly?

  And we have Jeff Blum and of course Neil deGrasse Tyson as our guests today. And we've been chatting about perfect games in baseball, the hardest thing to do in sport, according to the man to my left.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, only because it's, it's, by the way, there are harder things to do. There are things that baseball players have done where they, no one else has done it. For example, Aaron Judge on the Yankees.

• 28:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has four strikeouts in three consecutive games.

• 29:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a playoff. That has never happened in the history of the sport. So you can say, that's the hardest thing to do.

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  No, no. Yeah, that's true.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's something, a record he holds uniquely.

• 29:12Chuck Nice?

  But isn't that because there's a statistic for everything in baseball?

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know why? Because of all the downtime between pitches that announcers need something to talk about, don't you?

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Oh, you nailed it.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Busted.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  You nailed it. Yeah. Hey, that's, that's the reason why I've got sheets, I've got stats. I mean, yeah, no, that's so true.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just called you out, dude.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  The beauty of baseball.

• 29:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Because baseball throws up some of the most unique statistics, events.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Say offers up rather than throws up.

• 29:43Gary O'Reilly?

  I will say offers up.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 29:45Chuck Nice?

  Crazy.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's a Brit.

• 29:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Get your English correct, Gary.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're teaching him English, American here.

• 29:50Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, sat in front of the class again for English lit. Right, so anyway, let's not mess about. Jim Abbott's no hitter. We are very Yankee centric, but I make no apologies right now. Play this clip, please.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Indians have not had a man pass first base. By Erga, batting .318. And a ground ball to short. Bellotti. He did it. He did it. No hitter for Jim Abbott.

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  Now, of course, what made Jim Abbott so very special?

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because they're a couple of hundred no hitters. Obviously, it's easier to throw a no hitter than a perfect game.

• 30:40Gary O'Reilly?

  I was unaware of this player, this event.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. So, did you notice that his glove was sort of resting on his arm?

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because he doesn't have

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  A hand.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A hand.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He has, he congenitally born with only one hand and has always wanted to play baseball. And imagine people saying, you know, you got, you're barking up the wrong tree, fella, you know? And he said, no, I want to play baseball. Figure it out a way to field as a pitcher with one hand.

• 31:07Gary O'Reilly?

  It's incredible.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he throws the ball and it, right out of that toss stroke, his hand goes into the glove. So that he's ready to field.

• 31:16Chuck Nice?

  And catches it.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then he will catch the ball, put the glove back into his right hand with no hand, his right arm with no hand, retrieve the ball and then throw it. And there, there's YouTube clips of him fielding.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  Doing that, fielding. Unbelievable. It's a triumph. So, Jeff, as, as an infielder, how frickin' awesome is Jim Abbott to do this? Or is it just brain and muscle memory?

• 31:40Speaker 03

  I, I'm sure brain and muscle memory has to go into it, but I mean, this is years of practice and him trying to figure that out. And obviously, don't ever doubt the human spirit when you say you can't do something and you've got the desire.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 31:51Speaker 03

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

• 32:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just why I get a little weird here, could it be that because he's missing a hand, that throws off the batter?

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Um, you know what? I don't think necessarily because as a hitter, you're focused on that release point.

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  You know, so I don't think it really throws off the motion. What's interesting to me is that he can't use that right arm as a cantilever to kind of help him pitch. So he was basically, everything was on that left arm.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a one side of a body thing.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. There's none of this sort of, you know, balance act that you do with both hands to get the pitch out at highest speeds.

• 32:54Gary O'Reilly?

  To be able to master the technique and not having the other hand.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Gary O'Reilly?

  And, and the fierce determination as a young person.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And like, and like you said, Jeff, the, the, the, the will to do, to, to accomplish when other people say you can't. Oh my gosh.

• 33:10Gary O'Reilly?

  You must have faced that can't word how many times a day?

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 33:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, absolutely. We have one last clip.

• 33:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh yeah, please.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's this?

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  So Neil, actually, you bought this.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Figure out the possibilities of that one.

• 33:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Neil, you brought this up.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the hardest thing to do.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  You brought this up earlier and that is, uh, Randy Johnson, uh, when we were off the air.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get that to happen on the radio.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. You, you bought, you, uh, you gotta, you gotta go to StarTalkAllAccess.com so you can see this.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so this is Randy Johnson.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  This is Randy Johnson.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a game.

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  A game.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Throwing a pitch.

• 33:42Chuck Nice?

  And?

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a highly unfortunate pigeon flies into the trajectory of this.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Ninety-five mile an hour fastball.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's nothing left of the pigeon.

• 33:53Gary O'Reilly?

  We've already discussed Super Bowl day being a bad time to be a chicken.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To be a chicken because of the chicken wing consumption. But Americans consume one million chickens per hour.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  Per hour.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For every hour of the year.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, now add one dead pigeon.

• 34:11Gary O'Reilly?

  It was a bad day to be a pigeon.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One million and one in that.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  Play that clip.

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Clip one more time.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, at least it was fast.

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  So. Yeah, Neil, do you have any statistics on how likely this is?

• 34:28Speaker 03

  Break that down.

• 34:29Chuck Nice?

  Can you, can you break that down?

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One in a zillion pitches.

• 34:32Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 34:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, that's, oh.

• 34:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's amazing. Uh, uh, and for those of you who want to see that, you can either go to YouTube or StarTalk All Access.

• 34:41Gary O'Reilly?

  And if you are a lover of all things feathered and flying, don't go there.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. Hey, listen, we, we are at the end of our show.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, just wait, wait, you're not ending yet because I gotta say.

• 34:51Gary O'Reilly?

  We are, but Neil isn't.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, Jeff, Jeff? All right, let me just, let me just compliment the Astros for putting, uh, you've got a space shuttle on the arm of the.

• 34:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is that one of the memorial ones or is it just a, a, a, a standard one?

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Yes. No, that was in memorial. I believe it was a 2003 jersey that we had and the space shuttle launched.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For Columbia.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Crashed, yes.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Columbia. And Houston is.

• 35:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Of course.

• 35:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is, is the.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  Place where we have a problem. If you ever have a problem, we ever have a problem, we have it in Houston.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. If you have a problem, you tell Houston about it and they'll fix it.

• 35:22Chuck Nice?

  And they, right.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they get that straight.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Thank you, Neil. Appreciate that.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The seat of the manned space program of NASA is Houston Johnson Space Center.

• 35:31Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and a little known fact, when the shuttle launches from Florida.

• 35:36Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, uh, all the control is in Florida until the instant the spacecraft leaves the gantry. Then all control goes to Houston.

• 35:46Chuck Nice?

  That's correct. Cause it's off the.

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's off the pad.

• 35:48Chuck Nice?

  It's off the pad.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get the hell out of here.

• 35:50Chuck Nice?

  It's like, it's like parents with children. Get out of my house. Done with you.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're done with you.

• 35:55Chuck Nice?

  Done. All right. Hey, listen, let's.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I've always liked, I just always liked the fact that Houston, uh, that space is in the culture of Houston. The fact you even call the Astros. I mean, that's the part of the culture, the Astrodome, there was AstroTurf.

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this comes from, uh, Houston. So, and, and, and, let me just, I.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  We have to stop because we have to do Facebook Live.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't put this on, but I just would say, uh, good luck to the Astros. I mean, we're all just baseball fans here. So.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's hope it's a really fun series.

• 36:23Chuck Nice?

  And I say just the opposite.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  That's all I'm hoping for is a good series.

• 36:25Chuck Nice?

  Jeff, here's the deal. I'm not just looking forward to a good series. I want the Yankees to win.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  Through you and Neil and your stupid, uh, sportsmanship, I hope they die a horrible death and I hope they lose in a sweep. Bang, okay?

• 36:40Speaker 03

  The possibility of that is about as much as Aaron Judge hitting another pitch.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  All right, on that note, we gotta end. Gary, take this out.

• 36:53Gary O'Reilly?

  There's not an Astros Yankee loving right now.

• 36:58Gary O'Reilly?

  But there's a whole lot of explaining to do with that. That is our show. It's been an honour to have Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson with us and his perfect calculations. And of course, Geoff Blum, our old friend and good friend. Thank you, Geoff. Nouncer with the Astros, that's playing with science and the perfect game. Hope you've enjoyed it, we'll see you all soon.