Let me say at the outset that I'm not a baseball fanatic. I have no favorite team, can't recite any statistics, know the names of just a few storied players, and have only a passing knowledge of the state of play today. That said, like most American males who grew up in the sixties, I do have some familiarity with the game and rules. I played in Little League, eventually coached the same, watched games on TV and have gone to the occasional one in person. Yes, I did watch Game 7 of last year's World Series, because how many times does that happen, and it was a great contest even if you had no dog in the fight. I would characterize my relationship with The Show as I do with all sports: mild interest and curiosity. Certainly I don't have the same level of commitment to it as I do to naps and chunky peanut butter.
Still, it's hard not to be aware of the seismic change that happened this spring, as robo umpiring has been introduced to the majors. Officially called the "Automated Ball-Strike System" or ABS, it's the same technology used in tennis, soccer and others. It relies on a series of high-speed cameras spread around the stadium that track the ball in space. As needed, those images are compared with a preset set of parameters: in tennis, it's the lines on the court, in soccer it's the goal line. In seconds, that image can be shown to the officials and indeed everyone watching the match or game, to see if a ball is in or out, a goal or not.
The challenge in baseball is a little different as the strike zone varies, based as it is on individual players and not a physical line on the field. While the width hasn't changed (17", the width of home plate), prior to ABS the high and low was defined as follows: "the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the knee cap." In short, letters to knees, but the wiggle room was obvious, not to mention the umpire's judgement.
No more: ABS defines that zone empirically as being between 27% and 53.5% of a player's listed height, regardless of how they crouch at the plate. And players couldn't just report how tall they were. They were measured a minimum of two times by lasers and by hand. All measurements took place between 10AM and noon, with players standing straight up with no shoes or baseball caps, and with the measuring tool pressed against the head if a player had thick hair. No fudging the results as you do balancing on the edge of your bathroom scale in the morning.
So far it's been a success, though players, managers, officials and fans are still getting used to it. It's likely that, as with all technology, the more it gets used and accepted, the more it will spread beyond professional sports to us civilians. Just as the space program helped to popularize and normalize everything from cordless power tools to freeze-dried foods to GPS, it's only a matter of time before a robo judge and its unyielding standards gets applied to our day-to-day routines.
All those things you used to slant in your favor will now be subject to an empirical measurement. The alarms will go off if you even approach the express lane at the supermarket with more than 10 items. Amazon won't let you select a bathing suit if just you "hope" you'll fit into it. And that bathroom scale balancing? Forget it. You'll just walk in to brush your teeth in the morning, and your weight will pop up on the mirror. Cue the gnashing of teeth now.
It is worth noting that, at least at this point, in the big leagues the human behind the plate gets first crack at the call, and the automatic system is only invoked if the pitcher, catcher or batter thinks the ump blew it. In fact, in one early game, Umpire CB Bucknor was challenged 8 times in a single game, with 6 calls overturned. That presages the obvious, a time when the equation flips, and the machines take over with the humans checking them if needed.
You can bet that life will eventually imitate sport. Blanche DuBois may have depended on the kindness of strangers, but soon enough you won't get that chance. You can smile and plead all you want, but before long when you tell it to the judge, you'll have to make sure you are speaking into its microphone.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford was an enthusiastic, though not skilled coach. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
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