Canned cheers, empty bleachers, and air-fives not high-fives; welcome to major league baseball in the COVID era. And Christine gets her wish when a listener requests descriptions of the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Canned cheers, empty bleachers, and air-fives not high-fives; welcome to major league baseball in the COVID era. And Christine gets her wish when a listener requests descriptions of the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Talk description to me with Christine Malec and J J hunt.
Christine:Hi, I'm Christine Malec,
JJ:And I'm JJ hunt. This is talk description to Me, where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description, rich conversations
Christine:We wanted to start today by talking about sports, professional sports, particularly in lockdown. So as with pretty much everything else in our daily lives, it looks quite different. And in, in Canada, for example, people are pretty excited because Toronto and Edmonton are hub cities for the NHL, which is starting up soon and there's basketball action. And there is baseball action and all of these things are happening in different ways. And they're also happening in a very turbulent social time. And I've been hearing things JJ, about the Toronto Raptors and things they've been doing with their uniforms. Can you say something about that?
JJ:Yeah, so the, the, the Raptors, I think it was at the end of last season there was some idea that, or, or it might not have been the end of the season, but when, before the shutdown that some players were, were suggesting they wanted to wear messages of protest on their jerseys, a lot of basketball players, when they arrive at the stadium, when they're having press conferences, they will have t-shirts or, or emblems of some kind that, that have political messages, lots of black lives matter, for example. And there was some idea that the league was gonna let them put messages on the backs of their jerseys instead of their names. So with the NBA kind of coming back the Raptors in particular said that they wanted to put their messages of protest on the back of their jerseys. And I I've been hard to find images of these being a little bit hush hush with exactly look like, but I believe these are going to be their black jerseys with gold lettering and with a gold message on the back kind of arching over the back of the shoulders where their name would normally be. Now they had some ideas for what political messages they wanted to put on them. And the league said, no, hold on, slow down. And so they gave them a list of approved messages that they could put on the back of their Jersey. So the Raptors, my understanding is it's been reported that they'll be wearing jerseys that say black lives matter, education reform, equality, say their names, and see us. Those are the messages that have been approved. And some of the Raptors are not overly pleased about this. You know, making a political statement that is approved by your bosses is, you know, not much of a political statement, I think would be the argument there
Christine:For purely informational purposes. Can you make a very rough guess of what proportion of NBA players look to be?
JJ:I'm going to get that number up because... I mean, it's going to be high. According to Wikipedia, which of course is the all knowing...
Christine:The fountain of all knowledge! I love Wikipedia.
JJ:All knowledge. So according to Wikipedia by 2020, nearly 80% of players in the NBA are black or dark skin players. Now ownership and management. That's a whole different thing. This has been a big problem for the league for a while because you've got a group of players whose contracts are owned, a group of players who are, you know, 80% of them are black and the owners are not, and the upper management is not so creates some tension.
Christine:Do you know if other NBA teams have been having a similar conversation about their uniform?
JJ:Yeah, I think there are. I think it's definitely something that that other markets are talking about. Other teams are talking about. Of course we get a lot of it here because you and I are both from Toronto. So we get a lot of that messaging, but the Toronto team does seem to be very political. For example, they, they painted their buses, their, their tour buses, all black and have big black lives matter you know, branding right across the top of the bus and then the, and then a logo at the back. Yeah, it's actually really interesting. I've seen those images being you know passed around on social media. And sometimes they're passed around with a political message that is like don't trust black lives matter. They say they're helping their communities, but they're taking all the money. That's donating, that's donated to them and they bought buses. So they can bus protesters in from city to city and they show a picture of these buses from the Toronto Raptors. It's like, that's that's yeah. You have to either ignore or digitally erase the Raptors logo from the back of the bus. Cause it's, you know, it's still branded, it's still a Raptor's vehicle. So interesting.
Christine:Whoa. So baseball games are actually being played. And now I was actually talking with a friend of mine who is sighted, about the audio that's been coming out because apparently they're putting fan fake fan noise and a blind person. Anecdotally, I heard about said, I hate that, but my sighted friend liked it. And so it made me conscious of the deep weirdness. That must be the contents of a modern pro baseball game. So what does it look like?
JJ:Weird is the word. It is so strange and yeah, my son's a big baseball fan and he and his buddy, they listen on the, on the radio and the sounds are different. So they are pumping these cheering noises. It's mandated. The league says they have to.
Christine:Yeah. I heard that. That's funny. I wonder, I wonder about that topic for another podcast.
JJ:That's right. It's a choice. It's a choice. But it's not at a super high volume. So one of the things that my son and his friend like about it is that if there's a, if there's a big play, you know, a crack of the bat, you can hear it clearly it soars up into the air and there's not, there's, there's a, you know, a quieter cheering noise that's being pumped in, but it's not loud and boisterous. So then you can hear the outfielders yelling. I got it, I got it. I got it. And you know, calling the others away.
Christine:And you've never heard that before. Right? Exactly. This is totally new. So it's, it's interesting. Cause you're hearing a different game than you would have heard before. Cause you get to hear some of the quieter sounds and you, you know, you can hear them congratulate each other, but where it gets really weird is, you know, when this is being filmed in, you know, so say that same hit big pop fly into the outfield. The outfielder runs back calls off his teammates makes the catch. Now the camera is filming the player, making the catch and you can see the stands in the background behind them, the bleachers, which are totally empty. And then he makes the catch and the cheer comes up. Yay. Oh, that's totally ghostly.
JJ:Oh, it was strange. Now, the New York Mets what they decided to do was they printed up thousands of cardboard, cutouts of supporters so that they could populate the stands behind the, behind the catcher. So when you, when they're filming this, like a pitch comes in, the batter, standing there and in behind are all these, like these cardboard torsos,
Christine:Did they make them look different? Did they have fun with it? Or do they just look like the same
JJ:They are all different kinds of people. And so I'm not sure what they did. Like did they ask seasons ticket holders to like mail in a picture of themselves and they printed them up or if they went on like a stock photograph like website and they print it up. But it reminded me of like, there's a, there's a scene in a great Steve Martin movie. I think it's the jerk where he has a, he's a lonely guy and he has a no, it's not the jerk. Anyway, he's got a, he has a party and doesn't have any friends. So he gets cardboard cutouts, and he puts them all around this house. And it's a little bit like that. It's kind of sad in baseball and you got to print up your fans and like put him in the stands, but it's so strange. So one of my favorite things is the drama in a regular baseball game. The drama, when the manager gets angry in a normal baseball game, and I know you're a huge ball fan. So you know exactly what I'm talking about
Christine:Actually no, that couldn't be farther from the truth, but I'm interested.
JJ:So in a, in a normal baseball game, if there's a call at the plate or, or the, the manager's angry in some way, the manager who in baseball, by the way, the managers wear the same uniforms as the players, that's a little weird. You don't see that in hockey. For example, like a manager in a hockey game is, you know, is wearing the coach is wearing a suit, usually, you know, on the bench, In baseball, they're wearing the same baseball uniform as everyone else's wearing. Right? Oh yeah. This is a little weird little tidbit for you there. So the manager dressed in the, in the baseball uniform storm, out of the like out of the dugout race, right over to the umpire and umpires, they're big because they've got all sorts of chest protection on, cause they're standing right behind the plate, right? So they gotta have big chest protection on big guys. And the managers come right up and they get right in their faces managers and this theatrical, like you yell at me, scream and beat red in there's spit flying everywhere. You might be poking the umpires chest, like, like poking at it. I don't think you can actually poke. And then if, if you're really angry, then you start slamming chests, right. Managers, bump, chests with the umpire and then kicked, Oh yeah, it's the theatrical. Because there are things that you are not allowed to do and things that you are, you know, defacto allowed to do. And so managers push it in some directions. Like they, they push this chest thumping because that's not fisticuffs. Right. So you're bumping chest and you're screaming. And then at some point the empire throws him out of the game dramatic. It's wonderful. It's hilarious. So now COVID era the manager, super angry storms out of the dugout. We just into his pocket and puts on his mask and the empire dorms over. He's gonna, he's gonna fight his call too. And he pulls out his mask and then they storm straight toward each other with their masks on and they stopped six feet apart. They have this fight, but like all the wind's taken out of their sails. They're six feet apart. And it's like, you get the absurdity of the show of these, these ridiculous fights when you're like, Okay, well you can't, we can't touch each other and you have to stand six feet apart and no spitting and getting too anrgy...
Christine:I totally get what you mean. It highlights the sort of absurd theatrics that it normally, it takes the veil off of that. I've heard that players aren't allowed to, what is it? They chew? Is it chewing tobacco? They were spitting. Lots of is that, that was banned. Is that right?
JJ:I hadn't heard of that. It makes total sense. Tobacco, some chew like big wads of gum, but spitting is a, is a big deal and same with like, so you're spitting all over the place. That makes sense. That that would be cut out there. Also some teams have unofficially decided they are not high fiving just to limit contact. So like, you know, home run, you run all the way around the bases. All your teammates are waiting for you at home plate and you like bump elbows or tap toes, or the do the air five where you like, you pretend to high five, but you miss on purpose.
Christine:Oh, I was very happy when one of our listeners asked about the space X launch, which totally enabled me to say, Hey, I have all these questions. And so this is a big deal because it's one of the first major collaborations between NASA and basically between a public space agency and private industry. And so the space ex dragon is coming back. And, and so we wanted to talk about the images of what it looked like going up or what what some of the great visuals were from the launch.
JJ:Yeah. I think, I think Debbie on Twitter who put in this request is your new BFF. Cause I know you were so happy when I saw that. And, and you're you're right, because this is a a private governmental joint venture. It actually changes the images quite a bit like this is because this is a private venture. There's a different attention being paid to the design of this of the craft and the, and the the uniforms, the, the space suits and whatnot. So it's an interesting thing to describe, but the launch was on May 30th, I believe. And it was a launch of a very tall, thin rocket called the Falcon. And the Falcon is shaped like a candle really long, tall, thin, and the crew dragon capsule, which is where Bob and Doug, the two astronauts.
Christine:I just have to say how much I love that they're named Bob and Doug, and no one ever said Doug and Bob.
JJ:Bob and Doug that's right. Coo roo koo koo...
Christine:I was about to do it and I stopped myself.
JJ:I can't, I'm too much of a Hoser. I can't.
Christine:Thank you.
JJ:So the capsule is right at the tip of this of this long, tall rocket, this the Falcon. So it looks like a, a tapered end to this tubular rocket. And when, when the Falcon with the capsule is standing ready for takeoff, it's standing supported by a tower of scaffolding. They do the countdown, you know, the, the, the, the rockets ignite, the, and when the, when the Falcon rockets ignite, the scaffolding drops away at the same time as a rocket begins to blast off the rocket shoots straight up into the air, straight up with a long tail of flames. That's pouring out of the bottom. And the flames are, in fact, this tail of flames are longer and thicker than the rocket itself. And it goes straight up. Then the flight path starts to curve a little bit, and they reach, I read something like 1500 miles per hour, 1,500 miles per hour. And then- I know it's incredible. And then like two and a half minutes into the flight, the rocket at this point, if you're filming from below, which a lot of people did, you're filming from the ground at this point, two and a half minutes, the rocket is really just a speck in the sky. You're zoomed in on it. It's just a tiny little speck. The most of what you can see as this is some flame is the, is the sparkling orange flame. And at that point, the views, if you are watching any of the media coverage that's online or, or on TV, the view switches from the, from from coverage on the ground to onboard cameras. And so at this stage, we switched to a camera that is inside the rocket itself, inside the long tube. So essentially what it looks like. Imagine if you're like looking down along toilet paper, towel, roll, that's what you're seeing and the way these sections fit into each other. It's kind of like, you got the long paper towel tube that would be your Falcon rocket. And then you took a toilet paper tube, and you stuck it on top of that. So you kind of, you know, you squeezed one into the other. So now you've got your shorter capsule on the tip of the longer rocket. And so as you're peering down that about two and a half minutes into the flight, suddenly the long paper towel roll gets pulled away and disappears because it's dropped and the, and the camera is filming straight down the inside of those tubes. So you can see down the tube suddenly the longer tube just vanishes drifts away, and the rest of the rocket continues to go. So now you've got the capsule with a smaller rocket engine on the back, and there are a few separations, there are different separations for different missions. And eventually what you get to is the dragon capsule. I'm looking more or less with, with one section, one tubular section, still on the bottom of it, which has a engines on it. And it looks at that point more or less like a bullet, right? A squat short bullet with four relatively small fins kind of spaced out around the base of the of the ship. So that, that, so that it's got some ability to, I don't know, I shouldn't even say why. I don't know, what do I know? I'm way out of my depth here, man.
Christine:You're doing great.
JJ:And so inside, inside this, this space, the dragon capsule, it's, again like this was designed in a different way than other space missions have been designed, right? They wanted this to be to be something that the public would really get behind. Cause they kind of have to sell it a little bit more, right? It's not a given that they're going to get these contracts. They need excitement. So they actually went to the makers, the space X people went to a legendary Hollywood designer, a costume designer who had worked on projects like Tron legacy. And he helped design the outfits that are being worn.
Christine:No Way!
JJ:Ya, they're Hollywood costumes.
Christine:Oh my god!
JJ:And so they apparently did a reverse engineering. They designed the, the space suits from a visual standpoint first, and then they reverse engineered and fit all the things they needed into it. Cause the visuals were so important. Wow. Oh my God. I know. So the ship itself, the dragon space capsule inside, it's all white and black and gray, smooth curves on everything. So everything looks like it's made of shiny molded plastic. Again, like we're talking 2001 space Odyssey kind of like a look to everything, this seats, which are apparently like race they're based on race, car seats. So they're they, they, they are smooth and curved up the hips. So as you're sitting down in these things and you're kind of sitting back facing up towards the point of this capsule of that makes sense. So like if you're sitting inside a bullet, you're looking up toward the point and the seats are kind of rounded, molded around the hips a little bit and molded around the head. So you're not being shaken or anything you're being kind of held in fairly tight and there are integrated foot rest bars on the seat. So that when you're, you know, when you're in this position, you put your feet down and you and your feet have somewhere to sit. And then there are around porthole style windows on either side, like right beside the, the two astronauts right beside Bob and Doug. And there I've seen images where there are four seats inside the capsule. I'm not sure if there are always four or if there are just for, for some missions, but I've seen two or four seats inside as well. And the suits. So these like Hollywood designed costumes, they kind of looked like futuristic fencing suits. So they're white that kind of made of a stiff fabric and it's a top and a bottom. So it looks like they're separate. I'm sure they're not, they must be sealed, but it looks like it's a white top and white pants, very stiff, very clean lines. There are some minimal gray like decorations on it. So like gray patches at the shoulder, it's like a, a sleek gray Stripe near the wrist and one around the around the neck. And and, and the, the suits have gray gloves, which are you know, you can, or they're, they're okay for using touch screens because all of this, all the computerization, all the computer panels inside the ship are touch screen panels. So I've got these gray gloves that are touchscreen enabled and black like dark, dark gray boots. They look a little bit like rubber boots.
Christine:When you're describing it, sorry you referenced, they look a bit like fencing costumes. And so that's not an analogy that would occur to everyone, but is it the kind of aesthetic where most sighted people would look at it and see martial arts? Is that what they're meant to evoke style?
JJ:I mean, it is a style, there's a futuristic quality to the cut, which is like very spare and very sleek and sharp lines on the shoulders. And clean and white. There's something minimal about these costumes. And so I would suggest that when you look at a costume like this as a sighted person, they're so futuristic, they don't even need all of the bells and whistles. You know what I mean? Like this is not like a space suit of years gone by when it's like, wow, this is a suit that would protect you from anything. It's like, no, no, no, no. This is just like clean white, stiff white panels of fabric down the front. And the helmets are integrated right into the suit. So these are like the kind of look like full face motorcycle helmets that go down around the chin and they've got the full face shield that comes all the way down, either tinted or not. So you can see their full face inside this helmet. And the helmet is connected to the, to the body of the suit with the panel of gray fabric that goes all the way around the neck. So in the past, when astronauts were in space suits and their helmets were connected, they'd have to turn their whole, their whole torso to move, to see from side to side. You couldn't just move your head. Oh, wow. Yeah. So there's a very stiff kind of movement that is associated with the, the visuals of, of people in space suits. And these don't have that these look like they're wearing like these fencing uniforms. And it is a funny one. I, I, I should mention that like the suit is integrated with the ship. So when they sit down in these chairs, there's like a little they call it an umbilical and it connects to the suit. And as soon as they click it onto their bellies, their suits puff right up. They, they, they pressurize and they are now connected in they're integrated with the ship. So they are, they are both from a visual standpoint and a, and a technology standpoint, part of the interior of the ship at that point.
Christine:Whoa, is that that what you just described there, that's quite vivid. Is that something you had, might've seen in previous shuttle or Soyuz missions with astronauts where there's a moment where they plug in and then they're part of the equipment that sounds very dramatic.
JJ:It is. I haven't seen anything like that before, but I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, at this point, your, most of the technology for these things is adapted from existing technology, right? So I would guess that that would, that would be something that has happened before with the integration of suit and ship. But again, not designed like this, not with this Hollywood, look with this really sleek, minimal very futuristic looking looking design.
Christine:Now, this is a terrible question. If anyone's listening, who works for NASA, but I'm curious as to whether Bob and Doug since you've emphasized the visuals, whether they might've been chosen. Cause they're good looking. No I'm Oh, I feel terrible to say that because I admire astronauts more than any other profession in the world. And so I'm sure that that's not true, but having said all of that about the importance of the optics, are they good looking guy?
JJ:They these, so these are two handsome white guys, middle aged white guys. One's a bit younger than the other. But one thing I can say about them, because most of the time you're seeing images of these gents and they're in their suits and you can just see their faces, but you can see their faces clearly, no hair, no beard, no mustaches or anything, just their faces. And they are always beaming. They are smiling. They are loving this and they are, they are, you know, yeah. They're handsome men and they got big smiles and they, they look you know, who's to say, but they, they, they look like nice guys. They look like a Bob and Doug
Christine:Well they're astronauts! They have to be nice guys
JJ:No one's going to wanna be up in the Space station with a... Oh, come on. You want to be up there with a nice Hoser.
Christine:I want to be! Have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about. Here's how to get in touch with us. Our email address is talk description to m e@gmail.com. Our Facebook page is called talk description to me. And our website is talk description to me.com. You can follow us on Twitter at talk description.