How climate change and physics affect baseball, America's favorite pastime
EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: You're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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REGINA BARBER, HOST:
It's baseball season, SHORT WAVErs.
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BARBER: As a kid, I loved the sound of the ball hitting the bat at the San Diego Padre games. I thought I could actually hear it when it was going to be a good hit and someone would be getting on base. I was also fascinated by curve balls. Like, how did the pitchers get those things to curve like that? And I had heard that there were stadiums that were easier to get home runs in.
Frederic Bertley was also fascinated by baseball as a kid, and he also loved science and math. And he would go on to get his Ph.D. in immunology. But when he was a kid, he loved rooting for his local pro baseball team, the Montreal Expos, which have since relocated to Washington, D.C., as the Nationals. And he was inspired to try his hand at it, too.
FREDERIC BERTLEY: And I'm embarrassed to say this on National Public Radio. I was terrible.
BARBER: (Laughter).
BERTLEY: I couldn't hit the ball. I like...
BARBER: Needless to say, he's not a pro baseball player now, but he is the CEO and president of the Center of Science and Industry, or COSI, a science museum in Columbus, Ohio. And he loves spreading the wonder of science, especially when it intersects with sports.
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BERTLEY: Did you know hockey players and figure skaters are literally gliding on a thin layer of water? A combination of pressure the blade puts on the ice and heat from friction of the blade going over the surface.
BARBER: He thinks making videos like these is one of the easiest ways to get sports fans into science. It's a pursuit he feels very passionate about. When Dr. B, as he's known in his videos, watches baseball, he now sees it through a different lens.
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BERTLEY: I can't watch any sport, especially baseball, without now looking at it through the scientific lens.
BARBER: There's physics, biochemistry, anatomy, science...
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BERTLEY: And even engineering all over that baseball diamond - throwing, hitting, running. Why are some people better at hitting home runs? And don't even get me started about math, because it's all about the box score and the analytics and mathematics.
BARBER: Now the dynamics between all that science and the game are changing because of climate change.
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BARBER: Today on the show, the science of baseball - from home runs to pitches - and how climate change is affecting it all. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to SHORT WAVE the science podcast from NPR.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Let the games begin. We came here to win.
BARBER: OK. So, Dr. B, climate change is affecting temperatures around the world, as we know. So more and more research is showing that climate change is actually causing, like, both faster pitches and more home runs. Like, what's the connection there?
BERTLEY: Dr. B, first of all, I'm just so excited to be talking to another Dr. B.
BARBER: Aw. I love it.
BERTLEY: And I'm super excited that you asked me that question 'cause people talk about climate change. Some people think it's a thing. Some people don't think it's a thing. But most people don't think it affects them. But not only does it affect climate and all kinds of things you can imagine; it actually impacts sports. And so that any given city state will be warmer than what it used to be perhaps years prior. And warmer air actually has a significant impact on sports that involve projectiles, like baseballs, soccer balls, etc.
BARBER: Yeah.
BERTLEY: And in the case of baseball, the warm air actually allows the baseball to travel faster through that air. And one of the reasons why is warm air is actually less dense than cold air. And so if you are playing baseball in a place that has warm air, where the air is less dense, the speed of that pitch coming to you will come faster. And what comes in fast - guess what? - goes out fast.
BARBER: Yeah.
BERTLEY: So your capacity to hit the ball out the park, metaphorically and literally, is that much better with climate change. Because the air is warmer, the ball that you hit will travel faster and further.
BARBER: OK. Speaking of home runs, what kind of pitch is needed for a home run to happen?
BERTLEY: Traditionally, fast balls are better at triggering home runs.
BARBER: OK.
BERTLEY: Why? The faster the ball comes to you, when you hit it - you know, with Newton's Law - you're going to transfer in the exact opposite direction the ball is going to travel.
BARBER: Right.
BERTLEY: And so the faster the ball comes to you, the better chance you have at hitting a home run. So that's number one. However, depending on certain curveballs and depending on how you actually hit the curveball, you can trigger certain spinning of the ball through the air, and that might make it carry it further upwards...
BARBER: OK.
BERTLEY: ...Or further downwards.
BARBER: So - but when we're talking about, you know, home runs, it's not just, like, the fast pitch that you're going to need - right? - to get that home run. You also need the angle, right? Like, there's a specific way in which you can get a home run that the batter needs to do, right?
BERTLEY: Absolutely. The cool thing about sports, again, especially sports that involve balls, they really follow classic Newtonian mechanics.
BARBER: The kind of everyday physics we experience - speed, acceleration, collisions.
BERTLEY: And so whether you're taking a basketball shot from the foul line, or anywhere in the court, or hitting a baseball, the ball will travel in what we call that parabolic shape.
BARBER: I love it.
BERTLEY: So think of an upside down U or a mountainy shape. It's going to upwards. Then it's going to hit a specific height, and because of gravity, it's going to slow up till it hits that height. And there's going to be a moment - a very, very fraction of a moment - where it literally is going to be still in the air.
BARBER: Yep.
BERTLEY: And then it's going to follow the exact opposite, parabolic arch, kind of flow right back down. So to your point, you can have a parabola that looks really steep. So if you imagine Mount Everest, you can have a parabola that's really shallow. Imagine a bunny hill at a ski slope, and you can have everything in between. Well, if we're trying to get a ball from home plate by hitting it over the wall for a home run, you want to make sure you optimize the angle of where you hit the ball. Does it shoot off exactly at 45 degrees off the bat? That might be the best. And that also depends on a different field, which - we may talk about that in a minute, different ballpark.
BARBER: Yeah.
BERTLEY: But do you hit it and leave your bat at 45? Is it slightly shallower, and it leaves your bat at 30 degrees? That will be optimized to get that ball out of the park.
BARBER: Right - because that 45-degree angle - that's going to get you the longest range, as we would say in a physics class.
BERTLEY: That's exactly right.
BARBER: OK. So let's dwell on home runs, OK? Let's talk about those stadiums. I've heard that there are some stadiums that are easier to get home runs in, right? Is that true?
BERTLEY: Like this is why I love baseball. It's such a peculiar sport, Dr. B. Almost every other sport on the planet has a standardized playing field.
BARBER: Right.
BERTLEY: For some reason, in Major League Baseball, the field is not standardized. Yes, the distance from pitcher's mound to home plate is the same. Yes, the distance from, you know, home plate to first base, second base, third base, home...
BARBER: Right.
BERTLEY: ...That's the same. But once you start going to the outer field, some of these walls are much shallower but really tall. Some of these walls are much shorter, but they're a little further out.
BARBER: Right.
BERTLEY: So people know that home field advantage teams have much better chances of hitting home runs. But spending a lot of time in Boston, we have the Green Monster. And the Green Monster is super tall, but that's a lot closer. And so what happens is, you know, the Red Sox are used to smacking them either right near the top, or sometimes, they get it over. But then people who play in Boston, who practice a lot in Fenway Park actually can learn to slightly pivot because the Green Monster isn't the entire outfield. It's just one side of it. So if you're used to being able to smack really well there and you can slightly shift and angle that ball to the other side, you have, by way of practice, an opportunity of being able to smack balls more in a home run fashion over that other wall because it's lower than the Green Monster.
BARBER: This brings me, actually, to my question about precision because I'm going to admit that I don't actually think home runs are that amazing. Games are won by hits - right? - not home runs...
BERTLEY: That's correct.
BARBER: ...Which brings me to the batting average, like, one of the most famous baseball stats. What does that batting average mean?
BERTLEY: It's so funny. And before - Dr. B, before we get to the batting average, which - I love that question.
BARBER: Yes.
BERTLEY: I really want to talk about what you just said of precision hitting. Placing the ball...
BARBER: Yeah.
BERTLEY: ...In a precise manner, having it drop right between center and left field...
BARBER: Yep.
BERTLEY: ...Or right through the shortstop - that is an art...
BARBER: Yeah, it is.
BERTLEY: ...You know, and a science. And to your point, the game is not won by home runs. It's won by runs, which are a consequence of hits, however they come.
BARBER: Yeah.
BERTLEY: And so the precision batter is infinitely a more threatening player than somebody who can just on occasion hit a home run.
BARBER: Right, right. So that batting average is just, like, out of all the times you're pitched the ball, how many times you're hitting it and getting on base. So it's the tortoise wins the race, right?
BERTLEY: The tortoise, the precise tortoise, with the indicators in their car changing lanes effectively, will win the race.
BARBER: It's true. I mean it makes me think of, like, my favorite hitter of all time, like, Tony Gwynn - well, and Ichiro, too, Ichiro Suzuki. They're just - they're so precise, right?
BERTLEY: Absolutely.
BARBER: They know how to get hits.
BERTLEY: Absolutely.
BARBER: And they have beautiful batting average numbers.
BERTLEY: Yeah. You know, this is one of the most beautiful things in sports. I mean, we know the concept of getting a test, right? If you got a 90 or 95, that's great. If you got a 60, that would be like, you know, OK, pass, but I'm just not feeling good. But in baseball, just to tell you how hard that sport is, there is nobody who's getting a 60% batting average...
BARBER: No, no.
BERTLEY: ...Right? There's nobody who's batting successfully 1 out of every 2 times at bat. No one's getting a 50%. If you bat 33% - or you have an average of 333 or .333...
BARBER: That's amazing.
BERTLEY: ...You're successfully hitting one-third of those balls. You have a multimillion-dollar contract for the next 10 years.
BARBER: Yeah. Can you explain why it's so hard to get a hit every - even every other time? Why is it so hard to even get it every three times?
BERTLEY: That pitcher, him or her, whoever - softball or baseball - they are throwing that ball so fast to you that you're not seeing it, eyeballing it, concentrating on it and hitting it. You have to be swinging your bat literally the instant that pitcher has released the ball because the time it takes your arm swing to swing that bat around is equivalent to the time it takes that ball to leave that pitcher and hit the catcher. So you're hitting the ball through experience, through intuition, through understanding...
BARBER: Prediction.
BERTLEY: ...And studying that athlete, that pitcher. And it's a best guess. It almost becomes - I don't want to say straight chance, obviously, because some batters are better than others.
BARBER: They're educated guesses.
BERTLEY: So if you hit 1 out of every 3 times, you're great. It's like, imagine winning the lottery one out of every three times you played it. Pretty darn good, right?
BARBER: Yeah. Well, Dr. B, thank you so much for talking with me about baseball. I had a wonderful time.
BERTLEY: Dr. B, I really appreciate you having me on the show. It's so exciting to know that an astrophysicist like yourself with a Ph.D. understands the importance of celebrating the wonders of sports while paying homage to science and celebrating the wonders of science while appreciating the great American pastime. This has been an absolute pleasure.
BARBER: Oh, thank you so much. That is so thoughtful. And I just want the Padres to do well this season, please.
BERTLEY: (Laughter) You got it. I'll let my Expos/Nationals now adopted Red Sox see how we do.
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BARBER: This episode was produced by Berly McCoy and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, who also checked the facts. Patrick Murray was the audio engineer. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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