The Carlos Beltrán Interview

About This Episode

On this episode of StarTalk Sports Edition, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice sit down with an MLB legend. A 3x Gold Glove Winner. A future Hall-of-Famer. He’s a lot of things. But one thing is for sure – there’s only one Carlos Beltrán.

Recorded live at the Southampton Arts Center this past summer, our trio sits down with Carlos to explore his storied career. We start with his humble beginnings in Puerto Rico. You’ll learn how Carlos’ commitment to practice, even when he was by himself, eventually lead to being discovered by a major league scout and brought over to the United States to start his professional career as a teenager. 

Find out how Carlos converted himself into a switch hitter. He tells us about the advice he received from Yankees legend Bernie Williams. We explore the physics behind switch hitting. Neil gives us a simple experiment to demonstrate how difficult it is to do things at a high-level with your non-dominant hand. 

You’ll learn how Carlos had to shift his game again during the rise of the Moneyball era. Discover more about vision training. You’ll hear why studying the game is just as important as practicing the game. We also investigate how the rise of Moneyball impacted athletes and their trust of technology going forward. 

Lastly, Carlos tells us why he turned down the chance to interview to become the manager of the New York Yankees. Then, Carlos asks Neil questions about baseball and Neil offers up some ideas to Carlos on how to make the game “better.” All that, plus, we explore one of Carlos’ greatest achievements off the field – opening the Carlos Beltrán Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico. 

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.