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Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why beanball wars are stupid

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Even though Neil deGrasse Tyson is on record preferring Superman to Batman, he does retain at least some residual credibility in a few areas. Such as physics. And based on these tweets from a few minutes ago he was watching the Dodgers-Diamondbacks game last night:

In Baseball, a Pitcher who throws at a great Batter’s head, has confessed his incompetence the world.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 12, 2013

Not that anybody asked, but a baseball thrown 90 mph has about the same energy as a 0.22 caliber bullet fired from a handgun.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 12, 2013



.@toolpackinmama: I follow you to escape sports stuff. //But physics is everywhere. Even in places people wish it weren’t.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 12, 2013


I am not a physicist by a longshot, but I’m feeling like, even though I agree with his point, there’s something off about the comparison as it relates to the shape of the objects, spin and stuff like that. I mean, I don’t ever want to see guys hit in the head with a ball, but I sort of feel like 100 guys hit in the head with 90 m.p.h. fastballs would do better, on the whole, than 100 guys shot in the head with a .22.

Or am I falling victim to the old “which weighs more, 100 pounds of lead or 100 pounds of feathers” joke? I may be. There’s a reason why I was a social sciences major.