another person was talking about the satellite company that was sold to google how they are selling imagery around all the manufacturing plants in china where they can tell if they are manufacturing a new apple phone because they see the trucks going in and out. they are selling this data to different people. >> almost $100 billion of economic value. the faa saying in 10 years there are going to be 2000 drones. >> we have more than that in a month. >> i wondered why they were

coming up with a number so low. where is the value today? how is it going to evolve over time? clearly, there is money in hardware. >> it starts with hardware and then becomes data. it becomes services. right now, these things are basically a way to get sensors in the sky. what you do is a big opportunity. we make money from hardware today. we are essentially a software company. we are very happy to have other people make the hardware. at the end of the day, no one cares about the drone, they care about what he can do. whether that is video, pure data -- it's about the cloud service. >> fast forward what these guys are doing which is enabling the public to do what uber did for anyone to be a driver. you can be an agent and provide services to people that you couldn't do before.

it could be a a search and rescue person with a drone and utilize these drones to find people with the data. the amount of things that will show up in the next three or five years will be unimaginable today. >> the value will be services and date, not hardware? -- and data? it will not accrue to the hardware space? >> satellites are a precedent for this. climate corporations said they would take the satellite data and sell it to farmers but they didn't know what they would do with it. to their credit, climate corporation went back to ask the farmers what they wanted. the answer was they have this variability in their crops and they want cheaper crop insurance. they turned it to an analysis that allowed them to generate better crop insurance and became an insurance company and sold for a billion dollars. >> i cannot wait until the day when drones are boring.

i've been using these basically every day for a number of years. they don't -- i still get excited because they fly, but it is just a tool. when i am using these, i am not thinking about the drone anymore, i am thinking about what i am doing with it. i don't care about it. it is a thing that can take a camera or sensor somewhere. you see that in most people who use these things a lot. it changes a little bit. if you are a sport flyer if you , like to do flips and stuff, the technology is changing fast enough so you are always interested in what is coming out. i am interested in flying longer, flying more safely, and getting a better picture out of it. i don't think about other features. >> you see that with journalists as well. journalists are getting bored of just reporting drones. >> this is about robotics in general. robots are things that don't work. the moment it works, it is a dishwasher. i cannot wait for these things to serve as dishwashers.

they do a job. who cares? i would love to take the word robotics out of our company name. 3dr.com, by the way. it is like -- who cares how it flies? it flies. discuss. >> the cost of the hardware is coming down every so many months. we have the viewpoint that just consider the cost of the hardware free. if the hardware was free tomorrow, where is the value? it is in the software and software specifically that requires fewer people on the ground operating the aircraft and software that enables you to operate them in an autonomous way. software that allows you to decrease the risk associated with using the technology. software that allows you to be compliant with any regulations as they are coming out, and what the insurance requirements are. software and then, of course, the purpose of all the software.

these big, giant multinational companies are all interested in using drones. as you said they are not , actually interested in using it at all. they're interested in the data they could collect by using drones. drones is just one type of data collection mechanism and in many cases, these companies have many ways to get the data but they are doing it from the ground where it is usually overly personnel intensive, costly, dangerous, or very time intensive to do so. it could be decreased by doing it on the air. >> let's have some q&a. we have microphones. start over here. >> to questions. -- two questions. first, is there any definitive website or publication where all drone people go periodically? for example, if someone wanted to issue an rfp for a certain type of drone. and there is a new drone company every week so they would not know who to send it to so they

would post it there. that is the first question. the second is how would the new , faa rules be made? is there going to be a notice of proposed rulemaking? what is going to prevent the bozo factor? for example, having a two pound limit on drones to me is kind of dumb because you can get killed by a one pound drone falling out of the sky. what would make sense to me is the harm factor. what is its terminal velocity divided by its hardness? a 20-pound styrofoam drone would do less harm. >> interestingly, that is how france looked at the regulation. they have a number of total jewels you can have at any given time, which is a function of airspeed as well as rate. i think one of the biggest problems in the united states is that congress mandated that the faa come out with regulations and from the onset said one of the dividing points is 55 pounds. it is unfortunate.

what they should have done is they should've said to the faa, , you come up with regulations that you think are appropriate and the faa would've likely looked at this problem and say 55 pounds does not make sense as a dividing line. what may make sense is two pounds or five pounds or certain amount of kinetic energy. it is certainly the case that in other countries like france, they have dividing lines at much lower weight classes than 55 pounds. >> the way to think about it is really there is the manned , airspace territory. which is a thousand feet and up. where planes fly. then there is the unmanned. above a thousand feet, what you are worried about is plane collisions. what would take down a jetliner? 55 pounds would definitely take one down. two pounds is bird sized. if a jet engine ingested this, would this be a terrible thing? that should be the limit. below 1000 feet, you're talking about running into trees, power lines, and children. there you are talking about personal safety.

i don't want two pounds landing on my head which is why i would like this down to six ounces. >> the other thing that exists at lower altitudes and below 1000 feet is manned helicopter flights including search-and-rescue, police, as well as life flight flights. they're almost always below 1000 feet. helicopters are more efficient the closer to the ground they fly. especially in agriculture, cropdusting within the last two years has already been multiple incidences of small unmanned aircraft nearly colliding with cropduster aircraft. the two to four pound aircraft is a large obstacle to hit at 70 miles an hour in a plane the weighs 1000nly pounds. >> what is the right sandbox? 83 feets happens to be a number arbitrarily in the law. 83 feet was some chicken farmer back in world war ii decided that airplanes flying below 83 feet was scaring his chickens. that is not regulated.

whether that is enforceable or not. tell me what the number is. 6 ounces, 83 feet. whatever. i think we can innovate around that. >> how would the rules get made? >> there is a committee called -- >> the question was how will the rules get made? >> part of the proceess is there is a subcommittee in which there are people from the faa and several industry companies that are involved with coming up with part of the process and proposed rules. later this year the faa's , supposed to release the proposal of the rules will be which will not take effect until next year and that is for smaller unmanned aircraft. >> the other question was what is the forum that you go to? how do you keep up to date in the space? is that really yet to form? >> we sit on the standards committee which is tasked with

creating rules. once rules are in place what are , the standards your aircraft, software have to comply with? >> to the next question? -- patrickews site is here somewhere. he is in the back. he collects a lot of breaking news about this space. unfortunately in the consumer space, if you're interested in just hobby flying, you have to go to the forums and they are not very friendly. word of warning. >> the head of the faa talks about the challenges of setting up the laws. one of the biggest challenges -- we have a lot of relationships with the faa -- it is working with law enforcement and cities. how are they going to enforce these laws? it becomes extremely expensive if you start thinking about

having these guys fly around and police having to be responsible for enforcing these things. you will see courts filled up with people claiming they didn't break the laws and have no proof. so it is a big challenge on that end. we are tackling the private space area where a lot of companies we are working with have insurance for things falling out of the sky, hardhats, and there are massive companies having active work with the faa to work with them rather than circumvent them. >> next question. >> i am eric klein from lemnos labs. chris, you made a great comment

that we are digitizing the world. and my question to the panel is about privacy and ownership, which is, what happens when i digitize my neighbor, or my competitors? how do you guys look at that going forward? >> i get this question a lot. first thing, a lot of people just are not aware the faa regulations are what they are. flying over your neighbors is illegal, banned by faa regulation. whether that is a law or not is a matter of debate. but you cannot fly over populated areas, so anybody flying over your backyard is essentially in faa violation, subject to a cease and desist and a $10,000 fine. theacy aside -- privacy, in united states, is incredibly fragmented. it is based on a community standard, reasonable expectation of privacy, which varies from region to region. we have 80 cities and towns, legislative processes, to figure it out. and privacy is a moving target thanks to traffic cameras and facebook and camera phones.

i think that, at least in the united states, we don't have monolithic privacy rules like in europe, it will be more on safety rather than privacy. one thing we can agree on is we don't want it flying over our backyard, whether it is taking pictures are not. >> other comments? >> i would say there is a lot of existing tort law in the space around privacy. in many cases, flying over your neighbor's yard and taking pictures is more of a civil case than a criminal case, or a case where the faa needs to be involved at all. >> people do not really know what these are yet and do not know what cameras they carry. they assume that if they see one, it can see you. that is not really the case. you may be 10 pixels in the resulting picture. two weeks ago a guy was attacked , by a woman on a public beach because he was flying one. he caught it on video, and the

problem on his complaint was, it was vertical video, which should not be allowed. [laughter] she was attacked because she said he was a pervert. he posted the footage he got. it is like if you are looking at the grand canyon. that is the kind of shot you get. she did not understand what it was and what he was doing with it, and chose to attack him instead. >> something people don't think about until they actually see them is, you can put your camera phone, hold it over the fence and take a picture of your neighbor and they have no idea. you fly one of these buzzing things over them, they totally know. >> next question. >> are you getting pushback from industries you could potentially be disrupting? for example, if i made my business out of operating a crane camera or doing helicopter shots for movies, i would be looking at this as rather threatening. >> in many of the industries they are looking at this technology as a tool and something complementary to the

existing way they are doing it. and also as something that will increase total market size. companies doing existing power line inspections by manned helicopter are very excited about adopting this technology so they can actually do some of the miles of inspection of powerline that are not astronomical to do today with -- not economical to do today with manned helicopter, with drone. >> with cinematography -- >> is an increasing possibility. the space is bigger, and you have existing players. who are doing perhaps something the old way. there might be a good reason for putting a big helicopter in the air. there are many good reasons. the case of hollywood, they have already been using these. when you see aerial shots in movies, chances are they were not taken by helicopter. they were probably taken by a drone. or an optic up to her -- opticopter. they have been under the radar because you are not allowed to do it commercially according to the faa. but now that is starting to

change. we see conversations between hollywood and the faa and some exceptions to the rule. >> unlike most robotics, which you think about replacing jobs, these create jobs. it is hard right now to get cameras in the sky. it is dangerous and expensive. you need trained pilots, certification. as a result, the skies are largely empty. it's not like these are replacing pilots. they are doing jobs that are not being done. >> my own experience, we were working with uc davis. we went to one of their farms and we were introduced to the farmer. he did not like us at all. ugh.oked at us like, and the professor basically introduced us and said, we want to try out this new technology. this will help automate the process of agriculture. he was completely opposed to using it. he was like, i walk my farms. i don't use these tools. the funny thing, we went ahead and flew the drone around, got

imagery, and we were using -- we let him see with the drone was seeing. and we invited him to actually fly with us. he refused to do it. we were like, we have one last battery. do you want to try them on? he was fascinated with these goggles. he finally agreed and said, all right, i will put them on. he put them on and said -- can you fly to the left a little bit, to the right, can you go forward? that was beautiful. it is like, you are never going to get -- you always need someone to analyze the data. that is what he was doing. he no longer has to walk, but he can still analyze the data using these tools. >> next question? >> i have heard about facebook's new ngo. internet arc, something like that. and they want to provide internet signal everywhere. to remote places.

what is the biggest challenge you see here for facebook, to provide internet with drones, internet signal? >> one of the big challenges is flying at such a high altitude. the way they are proposing doing this is with solar powered aircraft at 70,000 feet. the benefit is that controlled airspace ends at 60,000 feet. that is helpful. the challenging part is to actually get up to 70,000 feet and operate, where there is very little air and where you need an incredibly light aircraft, which is in most cases not incredibly sturdy. but you have to fly through all the other layers of airspace to get up there. that is a difficult challenge. another -- that is an altitude that is nearing space, so you have to harden the electronics and software to deal with things like radiation.

>> it was interesting. after dinner, you were talking the peace dividend, it -- expanding the fundamental technology. similar to the technology of satellites. >> one thing we think a lot about, are we competing with satellite? the microsats, between elon musk and planet labs, map box, just bought by google, we saw this before. 15 years ago it was satellite phones versus cell phones. the satellite phones -- you put 64 satellites out there and cover the world. why would you put cell phone towers every three miles? that is crazy, so expensive. well, we saw how that ended up. it turned out the higher bandwidth and resolution of the terrestrial network beat the reach of the satellite network. right now, these things have 100 times better resolution than satellites.

and they are under the clouds, the data is free, and you can get anywhere, any time access to , the skies. but satellites are getting better. they're getting cheaper. i think this will be one of those kind of epic battles, satellites versus drones. >> you can get consistent coverage with technology like that. >> that is correct. one thing i want to answer, the question about facebook. getting social networks interested in flying things is phenomenal. it helps all of us. just like the innovations that got everyone excited, helped everybody. i think that ambitious projects like that are fascinating. challenging? absolutely. i think that a lot of the stories out there, specifically on that technology, i don't think -- none of it has been tested, necessarily, but at least we are thinking big.

and i think that is huge, being able to get there. going back to what chris said, and these guys ealing satellite -- eating satellite companies' nch, i think that will happen. it is becoming easier and easier. flying under the clouds. it is just going to happen. >> next question. >> whether analyzing a field in agriculture or photography, what types of interactions do you guys see of drones with nature? for instance a bird landing on , the drone, colliding with it? tell us about your experience. they are probably interesting. >> i am smiling because i wrote an article that talked about my 15 friends that lost phantoms the month after i flew over water and had the video go viral. there are interactions with wildlife, certainly. many protected areas have over flight restrictions. you are not supposed to fly over them at low altitude anyway, mostly for nesting birds and

other wildlife. they might be influenced by these. i have flown over a lot of wildlife. i find that for the most part these things are completely ignored. they don't know what they are. if it is a big animal, these things are small. if you are flying over a whale, which i have not done. i will point out. a lot of people will be listening to this. there are a lot of rules against these things in areas. bird strikes are a factor. this goes back to safety. i think if you can design these things so they are resistant to being struck by things. accidents can absolutely happen. >> regarding birds in particular, the copter is not a problem but the fixed-wings are perceived as intrusions into territorial spaces by birds of prey. hawks often attack planes. i can tell you, the hawks win.

[laughter] >> i have had be used, dragonflies. dragonflies. anything that flies will investigate these things. birds usually just fly away from these things. some elephants have been afraid of them because they sound like bees and elephants don't like bees. you have to look at each animal and see how it might respond, but mostly it is looking at where you are flying to determine if you should be flying there. that is the most important thing. >> one interesting thing related to birds -- we had a big company coming to us when we were basically saying we were about data. multiple companies came to us asking for different use cases that are incredible, which makes me believe this will be a massive space. this company basically wanted to hire us to dissuade birds away from these turbines. and we were -- you know the , contract and the deal was

attractive enough for us to say, let's try it out. we did a test. it is extremely challenging. you are trying to keep birds away from these turbines. birds get used to you. [laughter] they get scared first, but they get used to you and go right past it. it is sort of -- as you put more of these things in the air i think birds are just going to get used to these things flying around. >> one last story. the california condor is an endangered species. they have been attracted by -- attracted north by ranches, ike house and -- by cows, carcasses. the natural territory is down in baja. so people in charge of helping condor conservation want to encourage the condors to move down south. so they drop these cow carcasses on a breadcrumb trail down south. but how do you tell a condor there is a dead cow 10 miles away?

it turns out birds look for circling columns of other birds. how do you ensure -- you don't have a lot of time. you drop a dead cow, you want to get a circle of birds going. how do you catalyze a circle of birds? the answer is a drone. you get a drone to circle over a dead cow, and from a distance it looks like another bird of prey. the condors are like, food, boom. keep doing it every 10 miles all the way to baja. >> wow. [applause] next question, please. >> over here. way over here. you know, we have been talking a lot about drones as flying objects in terms of pound to pound, but as you said, they could become like dust. i'm wondering how you are interacting with clients, with the public like this, and thinking about the drone in our

centerpiece tonight, able to listen to our conversation. while privacy was an aside, i don't think that was the case. how are you thinking about the evolution of drones in terms of embedded sensors? into everyday experience. humans do not perhaps have the capacity, perhaps, to sense that there is a sensor. >> do you have a smartphone? because i have been recording you the whole time. [laughter] no -- the sensors have been here the whole time. it is maybe more obvious now, because you have to take this thing out and do it. this space will catch up to the phone. these are getting more interesting. more and more sensors are getting packed in, all the time.

we have only gone in one direction, historically. i don't know if it can sustain itself forever, but answering -- itself forever -- i would like to get more opinions about it. >> answering your question about drones everywhere, people are building drones for water monitoring. they navigate in the water, completely autonomous. so you will see a lot of innovation beyond flying things. it is just that the flying things get center stage. get the most attention. but there is innovation in robotics everywhere. mining, these trucks that are fully autonomous in australia. industries as a whole are looking for automation. remove -- when it comes to safety, remove the human from very dangerous places and put robots instead. that goes beyond just flying things. >> there has to be a privacy discussion, fundamentally, if you talk about miniature things that can move in space and record.

we have to think about privacy is a fundamental issue. no matter what tool you use to violate someone's privacy, you still violated their privacy. so i would love to get the discussion away from drones and just tools, sensors, and make policy around the entire class. >> next question? >> over here. >> this question is in response to jonathan's statement about hardware becoming free. i think that in the course of technology there has been the idea that software would become free. practically every new service i enroll in is with free software. you seem not so concerned about the trend. i am curious how the business model works around that. >> certainly a lot of web-based software begins as free and it is definitely the case that a lot of people, especially large enterprises paying for software

-- i know i pay for a lot of software, our company pays for a lot of software. >> this is just difficult. some scenarios you are talking about using, driving significant volume, significant volume is at stake here. >> i think about the drone industry today as having a lot of corollaries to the early computer industry. it is certainly the case that people started by building hardware, building in their garage, where what you really bought was a big brick of hardware in which there was very little software available. and the emergence of things like the personal computer, where a lot of, initially you are buying hardware and then there is the emergence of operating systems. i think we all saw both dos and

windows become the platform of choice for a number of decades, then software moved into the web and we began to see a model that was a lot more around software that is free, but data that is paid for. i would not be surprised if there was a similar progression in where a lot of value is in this space as well. >> i agree. our model, we give away all our software, all open source. we make money by instantiating software and hardware. we sell some of that and other people sell some of that as well. we get our share. i agree. ultimately the data will be where the value lies, and the services around the data. >> you mentioned that a lot of the services you signed up for our free. -- are free. they are not free. you are, the product is you and you are paying in a different currency.

the data is most important. the other thing about hardware becoming free, there are consumables and all this stuff, the batteries. all the other stuff may it free, but the batteries you will have to replace and they will not be free. >> next question. >> you mentioned a few times that the drone is just a tool. we have heard how it is a tool to collect data. but i'm curious about in the world of art and cinematography, whether it be a scorsese film, espn, the next "blue planet," what will the cinematographer be able to do that they have never been able to do in the past? ignoring legality and privacy. >> there, the great thing about creative arenas is it's really up to the people out there with the tools. whatever they can dream of, they can do. we think about these as cameras you can arbitrarily position.

so it's mostly low altitude stuff. anything beyond reach is new territory. and we see now a mad rush for people to collect as much of that footage as possible because it is all new. the first video i had that went viral was just of surfers. that was it. i went out for a morning for fun and shot it. no one had seen that. no one had filmed surfers from 15 feet up before and tracked them as they go down waves. it was not a particularly great video, but it captured the imagination of a lot of people. cameras that can stay in one place at low altitude creates all these new opportunities. there are significant challenges. these things make noise. they are big. they have the possibility of crashing. you do not want to damage a fragile environment, or people. so there are challenges, but if you just do a youtube search on

drone videos. you will find virtually every kind of low altitude imagery imaginable. some of it is incredibly creative. a lot of it is just people having fun in their backyards. the whole spectrum. >> if you look at the rise of gopro being used professionally, with "the deadliest catch," one of the things that is amazing about gopro is it is kind of disposable. it can get damaged. when will drones be considered disposable in that context? >> we are sort of already there. they are similarly priced. this costs less than a high-end gopro. you have to add a gopro to it. they don't cost very much, and i think about them as being tools that are essentially disposable. if you are working in imagery, you already spent a lot of money and time and gear on travel, and these are relatively inexpensive compared to all the other costs.

the thing i am worried about when you talk about them being disposable is littering. you do not want to consider them to really be disposable. if you go to national parks now, see a beautiful arch, you will find phantom propeller parts all over it because everyone has tried to fly through it. you really want to think about these things. the batteries can catch fire. there's potential for bad things to happen. one of the things we are working -- >> one of the things we are working on with the scientific community is disposable drones made out of biodegradable corn-based foam. you send 100 out, and none come back, but the data comes back. they did things in the arctic measuring temperature. what happens is, when they don't have to come back it doubles the range. they land in the water, foam melts, a very small amount of metal floats to the bottom. the batteries are an issue.

we have not resolved that. but we resolved the foam. >> one last thought on the creative elements. we have set our expectations -- with the golden age of videography we have in our pockets the most extraordinary cameras and software, and a standard where we are able to tell her own stories, record our own lives in cinema quality. this is just one more of the tools. if you watch an nfl game, there are cameras on wires, you get these incredible aerial shots. why shouldn't your kid's soccer game be recorded in the same fidelity? now, you can. >> one more question. >> good evening. regarding the application of drones for delivering goods in rural or urban areas, where we have hundreds of drones flying, how do you consider the problem of air traffic?

also, the air traffic control. who's going to monitor and manage it? is it going to be a private or a public agency? >> we are working with nasa to explore options of building out what is considered a low altitude air traffic management system for very small uav's for this futuristic application of something like aerial delivery. i think some of the key elements of that, connectivity, internet connectivity with the drones themselves so they can all be relaying in real time where they are positioned and coordinate like the robots in kiva systems, all communicating in real time so that what looks like a near-miss between two robots is actually a well-orchestrated system where they never could have hit each other. even if one of them had lost communications. i think we will see something

similar built out four small uav's, essentially. >> we are doing the same thing. there is a standard called adsb, basically a transponder. aircraft carry this thing. it is a peer to peer air traffic control detection. it doesn't have to be a physical device. we already have a telemetry link. it can be a virtual signal by which the aircraft sends its position, broadcast by the adsb network that the faa may run. we are actually already implementing virtual adsb. our vehicles can already report their position. >> like cars have registration and are tracked by cameras and police, i believe early days -- we are working on this thing called air highway. we talked to the city to see how they can benefit from these things flying around. we basically created a structure

to focus on how the city benefits, and from registration, toll payment, tracking every move so the cities benefit from this thing flying around, then we layer on top what the technology would be to lay out a very ambitious project. sort of like, 15 years from now. that's why i never did it. >> that is great. thanks. back to karen. >> i want to say thank you to our speakers so much for being so sharing with your perspectives. really appreciate it. [applause] also to robin for guidance before and during the program, guiding the conversation. you did a wonderful job. [applause]

we have a small gift for you. the speaker t-shirt of the churchill club. please wear that in good health. video should be available on our youtube channel, and you have been a very wonderful audience, as usual. thank you so much. we hope to see you next week. good night. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> members of congress will return to washington this week after their fourth of july recess. the senate returns monday to vote on a judicial nomination and whether to move forward on a bill that would open more federal land for hunting and

fishing. the housemates for legislative business on tuesday. numbers will work on several suspension bills, including one that establishes preclearance conditions for the homeland security department, and another that deals with antiterrorism standards at chemical facilities. thelways, you can watch house live on c-span, the senate live on c-span 2. cnn has an op-ed piece written by house speaker john boehner, defending his efforts and filing suit against president obama. the speaker says the house will move forward with legislation that would allow the lawsuit to be officially oiled. the lawsuit is in objection into some of the executive actions the president has taken through the course of his term. speaker boehner writes that the president has consistently overstepped his authority in the constitution, and eroded the power of the legislative branch. the legislative branch has the obligation to defend the

interests of the american people and constitutional balance of powers before it is too late. withu can keep in touch current events from the nation's capital using any phone, anytime, with c-span radio. publicsional coverage, affairs forums, and today's washington journal program. recapweekday, listen to a at 5:00 p.m. eastern. thecan also hear audio of five sunday public affairs programs getting sunday's at noon eastern. sunday c-span on audio now. long-distance or phone charges may apply. >> supreme court justice and avid baseball fan samuel alito took part in a recent discussion on baseball at the university club of washington. the other speakers included usa today sports columnist christine brennan and you -- all of them

-- and new york times columnist david brooks. all of them spoke about the sport's place in american society. this is a little over an hour. >> good afternoon. as belle allen used to greet his audiences, hello, everyone, and how nice to see you. as ernie banks might say, let's play two. how wonderful it is to see you and wonderful to welcome you to the luncheon on the subject of baseball, america's game. some people seem confused.

they actually think pro football is america's game, but it's not. baseball is america's game. this is sponsored today in part by the boston red sox. i chair for the red sox. [applause] i chair for the red sox the great fenway park reuters series. this is an extension of that series. the red sox are the only team in professional sports that sponsors a literary series. i'm also president of the city club of san diego in the denver forum, which are two american public forums collectively of 70 years and more than 2200 programs presented in the public interest and the dialogue of democracy. this is our second washington event. if there are more that lie

ahead, you will help us make that decision. in many ways, if you are going to do a literary series, this is one of the great duties in which -- great cities in which to do it. there are a number of writers here today. jack ferrell who did the great , book on clarence darrow and tip o'neill. he is right there. hello, jack. jane luddy, who did two of the books ever, one on mickey mantle, and the other on sandy koufax. and ms. levy is down here. [applause] and to every writer in the room, we want particularly to tell you how much we appreciate you and the art form in which you are engaged, because there are very few, if any, that are more important. i have several other introductions i would like to make. first, the former director of the federal bureau of

investigations, the honorable william sessions. [applause] and the former council of the president of united states, mr. george w bush, miss harriet miers. [applause] i also want you to meet the co-chairs of the washington writers series, two extraordinary individuals, huge -- hugely successful in the field of business. first, ike field. ike, stand so we can greet you. [applause] and greg rosenbaum. mr. rosenbaum is somewhere -- there he is. [applause]

i also want to acknowledge the presence of one of the owners of the washington nationals, faye field. [applause] on the senior director for the ballpark experience of the nationals, maggie cussler. [applause] we have one book that is available for signing at the end. there are a few left. don't leave the university club without getting mr. will's book and having him sign it for you. now let me introduce our panel. beginning with, from the united states supreme court, associate justice samuel alito. [applause]

and you can -- come on up. next from "the new york times" and cbs, david brooks. -- pbs, david brooks. [applause] somebody who wrote a book entitled "is this a great game or what?" which was the funniest book i ever read from espn, the one and only tim kurkjian. [applause] and one of my all-time favorites. to know her is to love her, from "usa today," christine brennan. [applause] and finally on the panel, the

incomparable -- the incomparable george will. [applause] in the book is on the 100th anniversary of wrigley field, a nice little place on the north side. now it is my privilege to introduce our moderator, who has become a very great friend. you have a copy of one of his books. he has written two others, one on baseball, one on leon jaworski and james baker. he is an attorney from dallas, texas. an extraordinary fellow, he's here with his wonderful family. i would ask that you welcome please, talmage posten. [applause] >> before we begin, i'm going to take a little personal privilege. you see the rangers cap here. at the front table, we have part

of the ownership group and executive vice president from the rangers -- from the texas rangers, who have come to town this weekend to play a series. it's the first time that the texas rangers have played a game in the nation's capital since they left town 41 years ago as the washington senators. [laughter] this is an historic occasion this weekend. as george will points out in his marvelous new book "years ago," a man who probably knew nothing about baseball, with sir winston churchill, spoke about parliamentary ideals using words we hope to achieve in the next hour. churchill said a good dialogue is quick, informal, and conversational, and requires a very small space, and on great occasions there should be a sense of crowd and urgency. with a tip of the cap to sir winston, our esteemed panelists

today are all people at the top of their field, and are quick and informal and conversational, particularly as it regards our national pastime. we have a good sense of the crowd and a clock that compels a sense of urgency, so let's talk baseball. the first topic of conversation, your initial passion for the game. bart giamatti once said "the appeal of baseball is intimately wrapped up with the place where you got to know it in your youth." the question for the panel, where did you first get wrapped up in baseball? and in that place, briefly describe the place the game takes up in your heart. justice alito, do you want to lead off? >> when i think about summers when i was young, they seem to have lasted forever. that is what my friends and i would do all summer.

we played baseball. we collected baseball cards. unfortunately, my strategy then was not to collect a lot of mickey mantle cards or willie mays cars, -- cards, which would now be valuable. i would trade my extra all-star cards for the card of some guy who played one game. [laughter] so i would have a complete series. and i remember going to games with my family. in those days, we would go to a doubleheader on sunday, i think, for under $15. we could drive to philadelphia park on the street, i tend to -- attend two games, bring our own lunch. we had a special spot where he was almost an obstructed view seats, but not quite, so it was a good bargain. and we tried to get into the two games before the sunday curfew in philadelphia. you could not in those days start an inning after 6:00 on sunday.

>> i'll be darned. >> christine brennan, how about you? the tiger fan. >> it really was the toledo mud hens. yes, there is always a toledo or two in the crowd. in any case, i grew up in the suburbs of toledo, ohio, and i'm the oldest of four kids. it was not older brothers. it was my dad. i had my own personal title ix. my father, jim brennan, became the republican party chairman in lucas county in ohio in 1988. the first george bush. a rockford republican and the biggest feminist i knew. anyway, here i am growing up in the 1960's and 1970's and i wanted to follow baseball and he encouraged that every step of the way, as did my mom and siblings. i got one of those scoreboards -- score books, which i'm sure many of you had, and i listened by my radio and listened to the toledo mud hens games. and i kept score, as a 10-year-old girl.

i daresay not only were there very few girls keeping score of minor-league baseball at the age of 10, but i was. -- but i daresay very few boys were. but i was and it was encouraged , in our household. we had season tickets to the toledo mud hens. my dad arranged those for us. and we also went to a lot of detroit tigers games, because those of you that know baseball well know that the tigers have, except for a few years, been the triple-a team of the detroit tigers. that 45 mile drive from toledo to detroit, we got a chance to follow our favorites of the mud hens when they would be called up by the tigers and then go see them play at venerable tigers stadium. and like you, i also traded baseball cards. in fact we would do something , else. we would send the cards to the players and asked them to sign them, and every single time -- this is obviously a different era than now -- every time they did. and they sent them back. >> the good old days. >> my collection includes ted williams.

i have senators manager. i have hank aaron's signature on a baseball, one of those all-time leader cards you may remember where it still said babe ruth, 714, and hank aaron and his signature on it. a real piece of history. i still have all of those and i'm not giving any of them up. [laughter] >> there you go. george, we know of your love for the cubs. where did it all begin? >> i grew up midway between chicago and st. louis and age -- and at an age to tender to make major life decisions i had to choose between the cardinals and the cubs. all of my friends became cardinals fans and grew up cheerful and liberal. [laughter] i became a gloomy conservative. i played baseball all briefly and badly for a little league team that had commercial sponsors. all little league teams did, then. my team was the middendorf funeral home panthers. [laughter] our color was black. baseball at that time, i think

i acquired it from, as christine mentions, radio. baseball was literally in the air in central illinois. you had two teams with buddy brown and then two teams in chicago, and of course, the cardinals. st. louis being at that time the westernmost outpost of baseball i listened to a lot of baseball. , and i think i became a cubs fan because i could not bear the cardinals announcer, who was harry carey. [laughter] who is now the statue outside wrigley field. no good deed goes unpunished. >> and i will tell you, george's new book has a great little anecdote about harry carey, and i will leave it at that. do not miss it. david brooks, new york mets fans, how did baseball make a line drive into your heart? >> i was living in lower

manhattan and i discovered the new york mets. it was fine. they were not good. the skies opened up. .od appeared miracle of miracles. maybe the most magical year of my life, and certainly the most in metsyear of baseball history. every miracle that could happen, happened. frontack cat walking in of the chicago cubs dugout. the mets beat the orioles. it changed my whole religious philosophy. which is that life is sweet, miracles happen, the ball will go through bill buckner's legs. and you may become conservative, but you will be a sunny, optimistic conservative are. start as a child? >> baseball is all we talked about in my house, growing up.

nobody had a better feel for the game than my father. he was a really good player in his day. i had two brothers who were in the baseball hall of fame at catholic university. this is all we did. this is all we talked about, the sixth grade, my teacher stopped class at 1:30 in the afternoon so we could watch the world series game between the red sox and the cardinals. for a young guy like me, who was madly in love with the game at that point, to have a teacher say, we are not studying anymore -- we are going to watch the world series -- that was really important to me. i went to walter johnson high school, named after the greatest richer of all time. i played baseball and basketball there, but i also wrote for "the pitch," the school paper, and did some work for the yearbook, called "wind up."

i figured i have to make a career out of this somehow. the graduating from high school lot.2" did not help a i figured i better be a baseball writer. i am still a baseball writer. thank you. [applause] >> how about that? second topic, baseball heroes. among alltti said, the men who play baseball, there is very occasionally a man of such qualities of heart, mind, and body that he transcends even the great and glorious game. the question for the panel -- give us your perspective on the ballplayer who most has transcended the game. george, you want to start? >> no. [laughter] i will start. to think that

transcending baseball would be a vice. i will just tell you who my favorite player was. how is that? my favorite player is rickey henderson. football, withe a quarterback, or basketball, where a shooting back and take over the game, you cannot take over the game. except he could. with hisget up there strike zone the size of rhode island, and he would get to first base, steal second, and score on a sacrifice fly. game over. you look at his numbers, it seems you have to put him among the all-time greats. if you are putting together in team -- honus wagner, mikeme schmidt -- you get to the outfield, you have to have babe ruth. and then it seems to me if your going to play a game, the leadoff man has to be the

all-time outfielder, rickey henderson. >> i have a few. i grew up here. eddie brinkman was the shortstop for the washington senators when i was a kid, and he was brinkman was a shortstop for the washington senators when i was a kid, and he was great. when i met him as a scout, told him what a great fan i was of him and he looks at me like he could not believe that anyone actually watch him play. [laughter] and of course, frank howard was my hero here, because he hit home runs to places where they are still not hitting them today. and he had been there 50 years ago. during my prime as a kid, willie mays was the best player i've ever seen, and to this day he is still the greatest player i've ever seen. i learned more watching cal ripken as a baseball player come and as a basketball player and others than anyone.

and the other day i -- this is the beauty of the game, i sat next to that sampodria of the red sox, who is an inch and a half taller than i am. and trust me when i tell you this -- my hands, which are big for a little guy, my hands are twice as big as his. and he is the m.v.p. in the league a few years ago and he's still one of the best players in the game. and he looks more like me than anybody. if you were sitting in his room and you did not know who he was, you would not know that is destined for drogheda. that is the beauty of this -- that is destined for drogheda --dustin pedroia. and that is the beauty of the [applause] [applause] game. little guys can play baseball. >> tommy, what about you? >> one guy that i still admire and i think played greatly was dave madigan.

he had a great swing. the wall across the plate before he would begin his swing and he would still complete his swing somehow. just a short, beautiful little swing. it was just tranquil and serene. i am reminded of rickey henderson, which does treat -- teach you one truth about the game was up it is not a game that rewards thinking all the time. [laughter] i don't know where i got this story, i think most of my stories come from tim's book, so this could be a repetition. but i recall a story that i would not trust in the paper without checking this out. he was given his big bonus come his first big bonus in the majors. and the team noticed he never cashed the check. and they said, why haven't you cash this check? and he said, i framed it. i wanted to keep it as a souvenir. [laughter] and the other rickey henderson story i know is that he was playing -- he came to the mets and was playing a first base than that were a helmet on his head -- i hope this is from your

book. >> it is, it is. >> ok, you tell it. >> is your story. >> you wrote it. i'm not stealing it. >> the first baseman was john orman and he had a brain aneurysm, so he wore a helmet in the field just to protect his head. rickey played with him in new york, and then they ended up together interop so in he sees john l root -- in toronto and he sees john l root in toronto and he says, you know, i used to play with a guy in new york that laid with a helmet on. and l root said, ricky, that was me. [laughter] collect the check, by the way, was for $1 million. it was an expensive -- >> the check, by the way, was for $1 million. it was an expensive framed artifact. .when ricky was with the yankees, he got on the team bus one day and team rules vary from team to team. he sat down in the front seat and someone said, that is for people with tenure.

and he said, tenure? i've got 16 years. [laughter] later in his career he called kevin -- kevin towers, then the general manager of the padres and left the following message on his voicemail. he said, kt, this is rickey calling about ricky. ricky wants to play baseball. that is why he is my hero. >> justice alito, who is the person who most transcended the great and glorious game echo >> i think without -- glorious game? >> i think without question, the person who most transcended the game was jackie robinson. he was a figure of his stark importance beyond baseball. my favorite player growing up was richie ashburn. why i picked them, i don't know. he was a great player. i also don't know why i picked the phillies. my situation was similar to george's. i lived in trenton, which was halfway between new york and philadelphia. and in the 1950's, the yankees won the world series practically

every year. the phillies had never won a world series, so naturally i chose the phillies. [laughter] and i do think it has an effect on your thinking. but richie was a great lawyer. he was kind of a money ballplayer before his time. he almost never hit a home run, but he had a great eye. he walked a lot. and he could foul off pitches almost indefinitely. you reminded me of a great richie story as we were walking in. he would foul off. he was a left-handed hitter, so he would file off these line drives -- foul off these line drives into the seats. and on one occasion, the ball hit a woman and she was hurt. they were carrying her out, maybe in a stretcher. but they were carrying her out, and the next pitch is in and richie hits another foul ball, hit the same woman on the -- [laughter] >> all right, christine. >> these guys are a tough act to follow. however, in terms of transcendent can absolutely

jackie robinson. i think we all would agree. i also have to just throw out a name i mentioned a bit ago, babe ruth. i bet you there are kids today playing baseball, hopefully just for fun in their yard, boys and girls. and someone demanding to be babe ruth today. that transcends everything by decades, centuries, what have you. i certainly think babe ruth lives on in many ways in all of us, and for the best reasons. and again, my childhood favorites were the toledo mud hens who went up to the detroit tigers. and i do have a night brown. -- ike brown. we watched him catch a ball barehanded over the outfield fence. he reached out and caught it barehanded and then through the

runner out at second. you don't see that very often. and a fellow named tom timmermann. you might remove that name. he played for the tigers when they were not very good. -- you might remember that name. he played for the tigers when they were not very good. when he came from the mud hens, the clubhouse and the deck out were not sick -- dugout were not together. the players had to walk through the sand. and tom timmermann would say, you again? and it was, us again, as we got another autograph. he became a pretty good pitcher for the tigers during their lean years. those were my favorites. >> favorite teams. our giamatti grew up in massachusetts and his favorite was the red sox, 15 years before the curse of the bambino ended. he said "the red sox are an affliction. the annually reenact the fall of

humankind." that is what used to be. "more than anything they re-create the aspiration, inspiration, and the declining into exile." as george points out in his new book, the poet robert frost talks about the love affair that people have with their team, but they also have lovers quarrel. what is the worst lovers quarrel you've ever had with your favorite beloved team? who wants to go first? no lovers quarrel and echo -- no lovers quarrel? we've got some rangers stories. [laughter] but i will jump in -- >> i will jump in. i guess it would not be a baseball conversation if i did not mention the dreaded word cerro and performance-enhancing drugs. johnnie perl to last year for the tigers was suspended as part

of the bs drug bust in baseball history to stop -- biggest drug bust in baseball history. i think we can all agree that is a good thing. and in the tigers had him come back and play in the postseason. i did a column and i thought that was just awful that he could come back. his suspension was up, but it seemed wrong to me. as someone who follows the steroids era in the olympics and in baseball, it's such a huge story and remained a huge story in many ways because of the lesson it teaches our children. we want that scrawny shortstop, boy or girl, and one third of steroid users in high school according to statistics are girls. we want that girl a boy who was a sophomore in high school who thinks if they get a little bigger and try something different they will be like their heroes.

we want them to get the message by having these adults who are there "role models" tossed out of the game. i think it is a terrible thing for the tigers to do, to let him play, to let him have the joy of being in the postseason. as you know, major league baseball has now come up with the role come to be known as the johnny peralta rule, that if you are suspended, you cannot reap the benefits of the postseason, even if your suspension is up, which was the case with her all caps -- withperalta last year for the >> george, your book cover this. >> william butler yates said life is a long preparation for something that never happens. [laughter] basically, any experience of being a cubs fan, there are some any low light.

the most important thing that ever happen in wrigley field it turns out didn't happen. the called shot was a myth that as we say in journalism, was too good to check. [laughter] and i say this with some trepidation in front of my tent -- my friends from the texas rangers, because i was at game six in 2011, which i'm sorry. i was at the bartman game in chicago when the poor devil did what any fan would do, and indeed would a dozen other fans around him were doing, which was reaching for a foul ball that was in the stands. it was not an interference. and if moises had not had a little tantrum, which to this day he regrets, bartman would not be in the witness protection program, wherever he is. [laughter] leaving that night, this is game six, and we were walking down the ramps and someone shouted "mr. will, we will get him tomorrow." and i said, "not a chance." when the cubs were in the postseason in 1984, they were

playing the padres. this is the first two games of wrigley field, the best-of-five. the cubs won the first two games and would play three if necessary and sundry go -- in san diego. i'm walking out of the ballpark with another broadcaster who was a pitcher. and he said, now do you cubs fan believes -- now do you cubs fans believe? and i said, every cubs fan believes it is the best-of-five. the ball went through the legs of the first baseman durham. >> all right, tim. >> i guess my quarrel was with oral weaver of the orioles, who was with one of the three greatest managers of all time, a guy learned so much from. the first time i met him was in 1979. i was going to be the backup baseball writer at the washington star, and dan johnson introduced me to earl. i was a little nervous about all this. he said, earl, this is tim, and he will cover the team and help me out a little bit this year. and earl looks at me and says "bleep you, tim" and walks away,

and that was it. [laughter] but he taught me so much. [laughter] he made me laugh so many times. and the only stroll -- story that you need to know about earl is that while he was managing one of his outfielders, pat kelly decided to join the ministry while he is playing in the major leaks. -- the major league's. pat waits for the moment to tell his manager of this really big step in his life. he finally finds a perfect moment and he goes to earl and he said, "earl, i'm going to

walk with the lord" and earl says, "i would rather you walk with the bases loaded." [laughter] and this last story isn't funny, but tells you an awful lot about earl, and a lot about buck showalter. i was at a simulated game, which tells you what kind of life i lead. [laughter] two years ago, buck -- and i'm sitting with earl weaver at a simulated game. there are four people there and we are sitting next to the dugout. but calls me over and i know him really well. don't start me on him either, and because we will be here all day. buck says, we are going to run the pickoff play that he famously invented in the 1960's. buck knows that earl invented this. so he ran it during this simulated game. he said, don't tell earl.

buck did that for earl, runs the play and earl snacks -- smacks me on the shoulder and says, that is my pickoff play. meaning, out of respect for earl, they ran this pickoff play. and am a 60 years later, earl recognized it and recognized, hey, they are doing this for me. that told me a lot about earl, and even more about buck showalter. >> justice alito, did you ever have a lovers quarrel with the phillies? >> o, yeah, quite a few. [laughter] without question, the biggest was in 1964. the phillies were, after having a horrible team, some of the worst teams ever in baseball in

the early 1960's, somehow very improbably they were in first place with i think 12 games to go, 6.5 games ahead. it was almost impossible to blow that. they were going to go to the world series. it was incredible for me, having suffered through those years. and baseball has this ability to break your heart. i don't know if there's any other game that can do it quite the same way. because there are these moments when something happens -- and the ball through buckner's legs, or there is a decision someone makes an years later, you wonder if it was the right decision. the phillies manager, gene locke, decided he did not have confidence in the number three and ever for starters. in those days, they had a four-pitcher rotation. chris short pitched everyday for the rest of the year and they

lost. they went on a losing streak. the cardinals went on a big winning streak and the world series came around and the phillies were not in the world series. that really scarred my use -- my youth. [laughter] >> david? >> jim bunning was exactly the same kind of senator as he was a pitcher. [laughter] actually, i was at game six with you that night. it was in dallas at a big ballroom and we watched the game on a big screen. i spoke. it was probably the least attended speech i've ever given. and then six through nine, and pride it was before the fall. because the rangers were winning. ira member people saying, six more outs, 5 -- ira member people saying -- actually,

chanting, six more outs, five more outs. it was terrifying for me, because thomas was going to drive me home. [laughter] the champagne turn to harder stuff as the game slipped away. [laughter] fortunately, the better half of the family whispered to me, don't worry, i will take you home. with my -- with mets fans, there are many feuds. trading nolan ryan was a really good idea. [laughter] though will call the guy called me and said, you should really invest for this guide madoff. -- this guy, madoff. [laughter] the real question for reporters, i've always tried hard to stay away from the team for fear it would affect my love. the press passes used to get if you work for the newspaper. i've done it a couple of times and i've felt acutely uncomfortable in the locker room. i love watching these guys play.

i don't want to see them need not chose. [laughter] i've always tried to maintain a distance, but you guys have kept the love of the game even while still implement with them. -- intimate with them. >> right, cheating. ask of cheating are secretive, covert acts that seek to undermine the basic foundation of any contest and your -- destroy faith in the game's integrity and fairness. we had a rusher had another perspective on cheating. he said, i believe in rules, because if there were any rules, how could you break them? to the question. how does cheating affect your engagement with baseball? who wants to go first? but there are two kinds of cheating. -- >> there are two kinds of cheating. the cheating with performance

enhancing drugs is intolerable because it changes the playing field and requires people either to put their health at risk or their careers at risk. and therefore has been met with proper sanctions. and i think although we are in an ending competition between the good chemist and the bad chemist, the bad chemist producing drugs and the good chemist finding ways to test for them. it is probably correct her to say we can close the steroid parentheses in baseball, i think we are getting there. as far as cheating -- a great guy in broadcasting said, the only way to lewinsky t --ulowitzki can be playing like this is if he is stealing signs. i say, get better signs. [laughter] for those of you who have not

read it, there is an essay about as long as war and peace on the unwritten rules of baseball. don't steal if you are five runs ahead in the seventh inning, dumb stuff like that. it's a hilarious insight into what baseball considers if not cheating, at least bad manners. >> cheating, tim? >> cheat -- people have been cheating in baseball whether you like it for the last 130 years. interestingly, i have bobby valentine once -- bobby knows an awful lot about baseball. i asked him, is sticking a needle in your butts and doing steroids, is that cheating? and he said, is -- of course that is. and i said, is nothing a baseball cheating? -- is scuffing a baseball cheating? and he said, of course it is. i said, is sticking a needle in your butts more cheating than scuffing a baseball? and he said, absolute not. the pitchers who are really good at scuffing a baseball are

really good at it and can pretty much guarantee success. whereas sticking a needle in your but does not guarantee anything. he's dealing guy i've heard put it that way. -- he is the only guy i've heard put it that way. three years ago, derek dieter pretended to get hit by a pitch. derek cheater j -- dereketer is -- derek jeter is our best guy. however you multiply, he is our best. however, he got hit in the bat right here and he pretended like he got hit on the hand and he fakes like he got hurt and he ran to first base and got away from the pitch. and people were outraged. how could derek jeter do this? and i had to defend him in baseball terms that this is what they are taught from the day they get to baseball in high school, if not before. everyone out there is taught as a professional player, you've got to get on, no matter what. cheating is a little tricky for me. i'm not sure i understand exactly what it is, but i know that for 130 years people have

been cheating in baseball. and as tom always told me, if you are not cheating, you are not trying. [laughter] >> justice alito, where do you weigh in on cheating? [laughter] >> i'm going to defend cheating. [laughter] i think the steroids were a real black mark on baseball. baseball is based or -- baseball is a sport where statistics matter. everybody remembers who hit the most home runs, r.b.i.'s. statistics are any more missed part of the game -- an enormous part of the game. steroids should be disregarded, certainly for those who have admitted that they have taken steroids. you have to be suspicious of a lot of the statistics that have been compiled during that era. i think it really hurt the game a lot. tim makes an interesting point about the types of cheating that are accepted in baseball. certainly, pretending to be hit i a pitch is one of them. or tending to catch a ball that was trapped is another one.

that just seems to be accepted. it is interesting, why baseball's approach to those things is different from other sports. of course, there are aristocratic sports like golf and tennis, if you did anything comparable to that, it would be a scandal. but even in stocker -- in soccer, you get a penalty for diving in and in-hockey -- in ice hockey you get a penalty for diving. i guess the only explanation for that is, if the canadian sport. [laughter] -- it is a canadian sport. [laughter] >> christine? >> i would repost you that we are still in the steroid area. having is, sorry. -- i would propose to you that we are still in the steroid area. happy news, sorry. as a journalist, you are presented the news as it unfolds in front of you and you go with

it. we are in the steroid era of sports. 100 years from now, when students are studying holograms or ridding the wallpaper, or whatever they are doing to study history, it will be known, this time, as the steroid era. and that includes performance-enhancing drugs, what have you. the olympics started drug testing in 1972. and the olympics, of course, still have a performance enhancing drug problem. they still catch cheaters, as the lance armstrong solder a couple of years ago was unpleasant for everybody, certainly the cancer community and the rest of us. it was a sport strategy on many levels. it is also good that we caught him and he was brought to justice. if you think about it, the limbic started -- the olympics started that in 1972 and there

are still cheaters in the elliptic. baseball started in 1984 was up -- started in 2004. baseball is 30 years behind the old games. if we look at the olympics as our guide -- and i'm sorry for throwing cold water on the conversation, but if we look at the olympics as our guide, we know that at times are ahead. -- bad times are ahead. the bad chemist will try to stay ahead of the good chemist. i do think there will be designer drugs and new ways to do things and new ways to deal with genes. and when there is so much money out there, and there is way more money in baseball than the olympics, michael phelps would just be an average employee in the baseball locker room with his salary. there is so much money in baseball. my sense is that they are looking for new ways to do this. i hope i'm wrong, but i think

felix shows us we have some years to go here -- the olympics shows us we have some years to go here. >> david? >> i'm just thinking about the difference between scuffing and steroids. i think the reason we are not scuffing -- bothered by scuffing is that it is somewhat mitigated by cleverness. that is part of it. i think justice alito makes a decision -- the distinction that in golf, you don't cheat. it is a democratic game, baseball. it doesn't have some of the affectations of the upper-class post and finally, it's just a game. and for all we love it, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. it matters in our hearts, but not in the war and peace terms for the i totally admire the staffers. -- not in war and peace terms. i totally admire the ball scoffers. -- scuffers. in some ways, the showboating part of the game has offended me more than the scuffing. googling ryan sandberg and hall of fame speech, the speech he

gave at the hall of fame several years ago now was among the best hall of fame speeches ever given. he talked about how to play the game -- how he tried to play the game in order to live up to the standards of those who came before and was not about showboating. it was a beautiful moral speech about how to behave with the craft. >> next topic, instant replay. george will once said, "sport should be the triumph of character, openly tested, not of technology here cap -- of technology." what is your reaction to instant replay? >>. to. i was on the committee that came up with instant replay. although the heavy lifting was done by the committee. i was slow to learn and resistant to all change, until joe torre said, you go to a ballpark and there are 40,000

people there. the people in this week have television and they see the replay. the people getting a hot dog in the concourse have televisions and they see the replay. almost everyone is too poor to have a device in their hands and to the replay. with 40,000 people in the ballpark and four people want to know what happened. they are called umpires. [laughter] they have to learn how to spell bluetooth. so people don't have to walk over and put on headphones. that is so 20th century. it will get a little quicker. and it will be tweaked and refined. the other day, the pirates won a game on a walkoff replay call. in the curmudgeons said, it was a walkoff committee meeting. yes, but it was better than a walkoff mistake. i have come to like it. >> justice alito? >> i think it's a very good idea. chief justice roberts famously said a few years ago that judges are like umpires.

i think that is true. the umpires on the field are like the trial judges. and we know they get things wrong sometimes, so you have to have an appeal to the umpires in new york, who review the replay. the only thing that is wrong with the system is it only has two levels. [laughter] you need somebody to keep the umpires in new york in line. [laughter] >> anybody want to add to the subject of what has been discussed? ok, next question. the speed, or lack thereof, in baseball. last week in the "wall street journal" there was a article that rattle off these facts. in 1954, ball was put in play every two minutes and 29 seconds and wages every three minutes 30 seconds. game time in 2014 is 13 minutes longer than it was in 2010. baseball requires more patience from a society that has less of it. it might have something to do with the fact that between 20 --

2009 and 2012, the number of children playing baseball in america between the ages of 7-17 fell by 18%. if you are bud selig's successor as commissioner of baseball, do you do anything to address this issue of the games increasingly slower pace? >> use the right word -- you used the right word. it is the pace of the game, not the length of the game. people complain about the pace of the game to the sportswriters. the pace of the game matters, because tom or gucci has demonstrated that by now, only 81% of the pitches are put in play. the idea of going deep into the count where the starting pitcher will get into the middle relief, which is supposedly where

mediocrity is in baseball, and then you win the game. the per -- the trouble with the middle relief now is he a 6'4" and 195 and you don't get anything from this. what we are doing, however is having six or seven pitching changes in the game, and they take time was up -- and they take time. the guy who was warming up in the bullpen comes in and warms up again with eight pitches on the mound, ostensibly because there might be a difference between the bullpen mound and

the pitching mound and the field of play, when in fact in almost no ballpark is there a difference. if i could ban batting gloves -- [laughter] it is them believable. everybody has garcia parra disease. [laughter] john miller noll on a go watched -- not long ago watched kinescope of game 7, 1963 world series. yankees-dodgers. he said, not once did either a yankee or a dodger step out of the batters balks once he got in. the culture of baseball has changed. purdue g talked about -- var gucci talked about a bat that was 10 minutes because the batter would step out and the pitcher would step off and the whole nature of baseball has changed, starting in the minor leagues. you tell them that their

livelihood depends on a younger, more energetic, more impatient generation of americans wanting to see more energy on the field. >> and one way we can do that if we can have guys swing the bat a little more often, which is kind of what george is talking about. adam dunn, a few years ago, struck out looking 72 times in one season. had williams never struck out 72 times in any season, swinging or looking. joe dimaggio struck out 39 times. that was his career high. adam dunn struck out looking 72 times. mike trout is the best player in the game, hands down, and he went a one-year timeframe and struck out looking 53 times. i'm telling you, it's an epidemic in the game that we are also preoccupied with on-base percentage. hey, a walk is better than a hit. first off, a walk is never better than a hit. it is good. i love them. we have a generation of layered now who are saying, let's walk a hit. let's work a deep count was at

let's get it to 2-2. we get to 2-2 and we have not even swung the bat yet. rink robbins told me years ago that he's never seen so many fastballs right down the middle of the plate that people do not swing at. what is going on? this was eight years ago. and it gets worse every single year to the point now where the strike zone is as big as a license plate and the hitters are taking advantage of that and saying, well, i'm going to swing what i want to swing. if i strike out, fine. john greco always tells me, deep that that, if you strike out on a 3-2 count, that is not a good at-bad. if you struck out, you think. -- that is not a good at-bat. if you struck out, you stinl. [laughter] >> yesterday at the white house we were talking about concussions. and a lot of parents are saying to their kids, especially boys, i do want you playing football. and of course, the concussion rate for ice hockey for boys and for women and girls soccer are also huge. we see potentially parents saying -- not tomorrow, but maybe in the next 10, 15, 20 years, you know, baseball. obviously, there is a threat of injury and trouble for a child

in any sport. every time you walk out of your house, there's a chance you could get hurt or injured or what have you. will we see parents want to start directing their kids back to baseball from football? i don't know what the future holds. but this concussion story is going to be fascinating to watch how that plays out over the next few decades. likewise, one of the things that i have actually talked to the commissioner bud selig about is, you referred to have in the world series on in the afternoon and be able to watch on tv. how many of us had friends that would bring the transistor radio in to listen to the world series on an afternoon while we were in school. of course, no child today or for the last 20 years has been able to talk about that or say that, much less say what happened beyond what the third or fourth inning of any world series game is, because they have gone to bed.

how many kids are we losing because they don't get a chance to watch it? and one last thought. that is obviously concerned. one last thought, i'm actually glad that baseball is a little slower than other sports. and again, how many times i have taken kids to games and watch them enjoy it, watch them talk about it with their parents, maybe teach them how to keep score. use a pen and a piece of paper. it is a welcome relief from the computer and video games. i certainly hope the game doesn't start to try to attract those kids -- yes, video games are important, but just the joy of watching a game with a game with the child, there is still nothing better than that. [applause] >> i sort of agree with the need to speed up a little bit, but the mitigating factor is still the same and is well-known, which is that football is an action game and baseball is a drama game. a lot of the excitement of

baseball is the excitement -- is the stuff that happens between the pages. and they do a good job of the cutaway shots to people and the tension of what is about to happen, like so much in life, is more satisfying than what actually does happen. just a final point -- that is a comment on my romantic life. [laughter] no, it's not. i don't know where that came from. i just realized i'm on c-span. fantastic. [laughter] i just want to say one thing about the youth a small -- baseball -- let's move on, folks. [laughter] that is, for the last 20 years, my baseball experience has been about 80% youth baseball analyst one percent professional baseball. -- and only 20% professional baseball. in my view, the reason youth baseball is dropping off is in part a cousin of the float as of the game, but also the falling off of coaching at the early levels -- is in part because of the slowness of the game, but

also the falling off of the coaching at early levels. >> justice alito, do you want to weigh in on the pace of the game? >> i would like to see it sped up. the time between pitches -- the pitchers bear part of the fall. the batters bear part of the fault for stepping out. and the television between innings. i think that is probably a factor in the problem that baseball has with young people. but i don't know whether -- i don't know how important it is. i will occasionally record a football game. you can watch an nfl game in probably 15 minutes. i might be exaggerating. because the time when something is actually happening is very short and the rest of it is time between plays. baseball is an acquired taste. it is not a sport that is appealing to people who don't have a background in baseball. somebody comes here from europe, for example, and you take them to a baseball game come and they don't know what is going on. it is not as interesting to them as it is -- it is about as interesting to them as it would be for us if we went to a cricket match.

but something is definitely happening. i will tell you this little story. my son and i went to a game last year and sitting behind us was a young man with a date. i could not help hearing what they were saying. he was definitely trying to impress her with how much he knew about baseball. she didn't know much about baseball because she wanted to know whether a ball was a fair ball or a foul ball if it started out in the air over fair tears tory and landed -- over fair territory and landed in foul territory, so she was not going to call him on anything he said. she said, what is the batting average? he said, that is the percentage of pitches that the batter hits with his bat. [laughter] and i thought, this is the biggest sign of cultural decay in the united states. [laughter] . .

>> when president nick and -- president nixon was on talk shows, the lawyer for the abby hoffman anti-vietnam nixon vietnam, these people had been talking about each other in hating each other for years but they had never met. here they are in this room by themselves, no one else is around and they talk about the one thing they could feel good

about, baseball. i will ask the panel -- do you have a situation where you thought maybe a door was closed? or there was some reason you were not going to connect with someone but the subject of baseball brought you into harmony? [laughter] >>, on. well, as the woman on the panel, it was certainly great on early dates with the guys. [laughter] when they found out you could talk baseball and keep score? i went to northwestern and had several wonderful dates at release -- wrigley field and they would keep score with my date for the evening or afternoon. we had a great time. so, certainly that helped. i would also say that the thought that comes to mind going back to the detroit tigers, i was nine or 10 years old then, i the 68r it fairly well,

detroit tigers, many of you remember, won the world series at the same time that detroit was ablaze. so many of our cities were dealing with the aftermath of the martin luther king assassination and the reaction to it. to this day people in detroit ,nd even people around michigan including the coach of the mitch against a basketball team, he was in the upper peninsula at the same time and we talked about this, i was in toledo, of course, we remembered hearing about the tigers and how they unified that city even has the city was almost defying unity with all the trouble. one of the things about the tigers team -- there were three african-american players who played major roles for that 68 , including willie horton and grace brown with earl wilson.

so, even as the community was erupting -- understandably, the issues of that were present in detroit were the same ones present in so many cities around the dash around the country back then, you had the african-american population of detroit rallying around the tigers because of those three african-american players, and i think that's a nice story. >> george? on yourl take a tangent question -- i think that democracy is served because tempered and this is served by baseball. because there is so much losing in a 100 62 game season, every team that goes to spring training knows it will win 60 games, lose 60 games. you take the whole year to sort out the middle 52. if you win 10 out of 20, you are by definition video card, if you win the 11 out of 20 you may play in the postseason. -- democracy is

the system of the half loaf, baseball is the system of the half loaf. >> speaking of losing, i covered the 88 orioles, who lost their first 21 -- 28 games in that season. no team had come close to doing that. frank robinson took the writers out to eat after loss number 18 in minneapolis. i guess he needed some support. casually at dinner i said to frank -- is there any interesting call or advice for this? he said the president called him. he was a big hitter and i said -- really? he said -- look, the president called me. i said -- what did he say? he said that he knew what i was going through. and he said that he had no idea. [laughter] >> david, has baseball ever

a doorup a friendship or for you? a >> i have never been out of harmony with other people. [laughter] friendships. mark shields and i do this show on the news hour, it is called shields and brooks, and we want to call it took shields. about shields is that he has been doing a show -- doing the show for a while and before that it was shields and coolidge. start us -- it started as shields and tom quite as many centuries ago. on the air we talk about politics, off air we talked about sports. just to have that facility to talk sports constantly is a cementing, joyful, unselfconscious way to spend the time together before we go on the air. -- first, if civility requires self-restraint, one of the great books of philosophy i have read is a book by a man

called dorfman. the mental abc's of pitching. it is really a book about how to control your mind. like a lot of baseball, it is about controlling what you are paying attention to. one is about recommendations for pitchers. first of all, he's always for offense. don't waste the pitch, just go forward. very simple. if you are on the mound, you should have two things on your mind -- pitch selection and location. if there is something else on your mind, get off the mound. i am going back years since i read this book am a but i am recalling a conversation he said he had with greg maddux. he came to him after the game and said that how'd it go today? according to him he said -- 73 out of 87. what he meant was that the ball left his fingers 73 times out of 87 pitches. after it leaves your fingers, you have no control.

it is about focusing what you control and limiting your own thought process to what you can do. that remains the essence of baseball. maybe of civility. the final thing i will say -- i am always resistant to mix baseball with the rest of life. the rest of life is messy and unpleasant and for me baseball is a hobby. i don't do anything with it professionally. to name drop a bit, between the bush years i was invited to have lunch with the president. i drove down to southern virginia where my son was playing baseball and across the field one of the players from the other team was the son of jim leyland. dad, before he came back to the game. i remember thinking -- i am so thrilled to see that guy. [laughter] see him across this youth baseball thing. the presidents, they come and go. [laughter]

>> justice alito, we will let you close. >> well, mixing baseball with the rest of life, i think that for fans what a small does is to channel natural aggression and tribal instincts that people have. david and i are sitting here with the phillies hat, a mets hat, and we are very civil. [laughter] thearantee you that if price of a ticket having gotten higher with things changing, but akin the not so old days if i went to shea stadium with the phillies hat and cheered too loudly and the phillies were winning -- or if david came to the vet and we were sitting in the cheap seats and he was cheering too loudly for the met, in the vet they actually have

him locked up in the stadium -- which tells you something about it. there would be fisticuffs. channels people's natural tendency to fight with each other into something that isn't as important as opposed to fighting about something that is. >> great. i want to turn the program over to george. [applause] >> quickly, let me just first thank c-span. in my lifetime, 46 years in politics, no more significant thing happened then c-span. if you believe in the necessity of government and the process of soernment, c-span has been extraordinary and what they have done. we are grateful that c-span decided to share this time with us today and we will share it

with the nation. and then i want to acknowledge the president -- the presence here of homeland security assistant secretary allen griffin. are you here? maybe he had to slip out. my appreciation to my wonderful , my very greatas , mr.ciation, mr. tim brooks, justice alito, ms. brennan, mr. will. now let's do the appropriate thing and thank this extraordinary panel. [applause] >> looking ahead to monday, the center for strategic and international studies will host a summit on gas production. a panel of energy executives will be one of the speakers. at 1:30 p.m. on c-span.

later the same day, the wilson center host the discussion on the israeli-palestinian conflict, including discussions on the stalled peace process and of threet deaths kidnapped israeli teenagers. live, beginning at 4:00 on c-span. >> for over 35 years c-span has broad public affairs of vents directly from washington to you. offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry dirty five years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local or cable satellite provider. follow us on twitter. next, a discussion on the origins of the universe with brian greene, the author of such "otes as "the elegant universe and "the fabric of the con --

fabric of the cosmos your code this is 25 minutes. >> the universe parts. brian greene has written "the elegant universe," "icarus on the edge of time," which i love, and "the hidden reality. the trio of books that deal with multi-verses, the fabric of the cosmos, relativity. we are supposed to -- within 20 minutes give you the whole story of the cosmos and the universe. brian, let's begin at the beginning. how did it again? >> good question. we don't know. but we have some ideas.

is that it expanded? >> the most refined idea, which in my opinion no means -- by no means confirms it, it is about inflationary cosmology, which tries to enter into a more refined version of the question -- how did it begin? that the universe is expanding. observations support that. what got the observations started? in theory it is that gravity itself is the culprit. even though the gravity we are familiar with attracts and pulls things together, einstein's theory, which you wrote extensively about, shows that in certain exotic circumstances battle can be repulsed -- repulsed. >> you have a repulsive force that pushes things out. does it create space and time as well as particles and matter? >> it is again a hard question, but the best answer at the

moment is that space and time needed to exist already for this phenomenon to take place, but inflation leverages the pre-existing space and time, which could be a tiny nugget, turning it into a large cosmos. so, it basically takes space and time as a small input and yields big space, time, matter, and energy at the output. >> if time already existed as this happened, what happened the day before? >> i know that -- i knew that you were going there. that's why i said five times that i don't know. so, we don't know, but we have ideas, right? one possibility is that the notion of before is a concept that doesn't actually make sense when it comes to the beginning of the universe. a good analogy is -- think about heading northward on earth.

if you are headed northward you pass by and you say -- that point me in the direction of further north. when you get to the north pole itself, if you have someone there, ask them how you go further north. they look at you quizzically. the notion of going further north on the north pole doesn't make sense, so going back in time makes no sense. thate beginning of time, may be where the concept of time only comes into play and there is no notion of before when it comes to the beginning. >> how did we get from general out, both to figuring maddock map -- both mathematically and theoretically, the notion of a ?ig adding >> and exciting and curious story. einstein himself, after he fashioned the equation of general relativity, which people can read the wonderful history of in your book, he started to apply the theory to a variety of variety of circumstances.

the orbit of mercury being one of them. he also noted that if you apply the equation to the whole to anse, it gave rise unfamiliar, unexpected result, the fabric of space itself should be stretching or contracting. the universe could not be static. that cut against a philosophical perspective of the timing, including einstein. einstein changed the equations to ensure that that result would not come out, that the universe could be unchanged the largest sales. fast-forward to 1929, when edwin hubble turns up powerful telescope to the sky and sees that distant galaxies are rushing away, the universe is expanding. einstein euphemistically's fact -- smacks himself in the for had wondering why he changed the equation when he could have predicted this amazing fact about the universe from his own

mathematics. >> he calls it his big -- biggest lender. then they walk the cat backwards, saying that it had to evolve on this single point. >> that's right. the belgian priests were the first people to articulate this so precisely. math, thenstein's face value math, not the math that he mingled to meet his own philosophical president -- prejudice, he turned it in reverse. it gets smaller and smaller and it comes to a primordial not get. -- nugget. the name "big bang," which came later on in a radio interview with fred hoyle, he was a critic of this theory and was talking about it on the radio and said -- the big bang in this derogatory description, but it is the name that stuck and it is our best understanding of how things started. >> you mentioned that they get walking through

mathematical equations, which is sort of what you do. i don't know if people know that you are also a professor of mathematics, which is a guidepost to figuring out that this is how physical reality is is that where math takes over and becomes the guide of physics? >> for reasons that we cannot yet fully understand, math seems to be the right language for describing phenomena in the universe. math is the shining light that can illuminate the dark corners of reality that we have not been able to access directly, right? we cannot see the beginning, but we can use the math to peer backwards and get an understanding of what happened at the beginning. >> at some point do we need to have evidence of a physical reality? >> no. [laughter] -- >> what about the constant --

>> no, it is crucial, and that some point we are just speculating. the evidence comes from so many places. first of all, einstein's mathematics makes fictions about things that we can directly access -- predictions about teams we can directly access, like bending the star light by the sun, which is tested in 1919 during a solar eclipse. just as einstein predicted, the stars were slightly shifted in the sky because of the sun's presence. you know the story well, but perhaps not everybody does, einstein gets a telegram alerting him his ideas were confirmed through observation and somebody asked him, professor einstein, what would you say if data showed that theory was not confirmed and he i