I remember electric football being pretty lame.
Posted on 07/30/2019 5:11:46 PM PDT by Jacquerie
In addition to letting players steal first base, the Atlantic League — which serves as a testing ground for Major League Baseball — has employed a number of different changes this season which could eventually be adopted by MLB.
One of them? Robotic umpires calling balls and strikes.
In every stadium of the eight-team Atlantic League, there is now a TrackMan device above home plate which uses 3-D Doppler radar to register balls and strikes. Once the radar decides whether a pitch is in or out of the strike zone, the device relays its decision via wifi to an iPhone that’s connected to a wired earbud in the umpire’s ear. As of now at least, a human is still the one signaling “ball” or “strike.”
After working the plate during a recent game between the Long Island Ducks and Somerset Patriots, umpire J.B. Torres said he agreed with all but six of the calls which were made on the 259 pitches that were thrown.
Following the game, Ducks manager Wally Backman predicted that MLB will adopt the system within five years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “There have been a few pitches that are questionable, but not as many as if it was a human. The machine is definitely going to be more right than they are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at insidehook.com ...
I think just 7.
Two at each end (4)
One on the service end sideline at the baseline (1)
Two on the receiving serve sidelines, one at the baseline and one at the service line. (2)
Does that make sense?
I guess you could permanently place one at each service line, vs. switching back and forth between serves, for an eighth.
One more baseball feature removed from barroom discourse. The game continues to lose interest for the average fan day by day. Instant replay was a big, big loser for fans!
Right, that would be the rulebook zone to my understanding and how this should be called. Just use the zone as described in the rules.
This would mean no more speeding up things/manipulation in extra innings or blow out games by umps. Which is a good thing for integrity, but might make for a lot more extra innings and longer games. Which they are trying to get away from I think.
Freegards
Yes, thanks for the explanation. I think the Hawkeye has been a positive thing for tennis, and something like it for calling base and strikes would be good for baseball.
Go all the way:
Robot players. Robot fans.
Just read David Cone’s book and yes, pitchers experiment to see just how wide an umpire’s strike zone is on a given night. There’s also an annoying trend that, if the catcher gives a target off the plate, and the pitcher hits it, it’s called a strike.
I remember electric football being pretty lame.
With a few choice words
Wait, how does one steal first base?
Beats me. The article doesn’t explain.
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