Read an article that triple A baseball is experimenting with the Robot umpires this season with the possibility of use in MLB in the future. The Robot/computer would call the balls and strikes and signal quickly to the home plate human umpire who would signal the call almost immediately after pitch. Therefore the strike zone would be the same and would not differ widely between human umpires. I like the two alternatives that could be used. The first is the one I just mentioned above where the robot computer makes the call. The second is also interesting. Allow the human umpires to continue to call balls and strikes but have the robot computer simultaneously make the call as well. Each team would be given several challenges, say three a game, which they would maintain if the challenge was a success. The team would challenge the human umpires call compared to the robot computer. This could get rather embarrassing if a particular umpire was as bad as some of us think. Would be interesting to see if some of Jac Cags pitches on the road that were called balls were actually strikes. Funny how many more seem to be strikes at home then on the road. Even Sully mentioned last night that you used to get a ball or two off home plate called a strike but not any more. This system would eliminate that kind of judgment. They asked a triple A manager his feeling and he said it kind of takes away part of the fun of the game. It’s exciting to yell and scream at the umpire and tell him how bad he is. No more helmet throwing, no more dirt kicking. It will make the game boring! I had to laugh at that statement! Come to think of it, most fans favorite thing to do at a game is berate the home plate umpire. Hey Blue, here’s my glasses, you need them more than I do! And so on…….
Refs/umpires/officials bet on games and it goes completely ignored by the NCAA and leagues/conferences. Will AI robot umpires bet on games? Or will it not matter, since SkyNet will become self-aware first?
For some reason the Lenny Kravitz song Black Velveteen comes to mind. My youngest son was three at the time and loved the song even though it was VERY inappropriate.
I am sure that there would still be some that would argue that the robot had been programmed to screw the Gators!
At least we know the robot couldn't be made in Knoxville. Only thing out of there is the teeth... I mean toothbrush.
So the strike zone would be 3 dimensional. A breaking ball that nicks the zone at the back end would be called a strike?
I haven’t researched it, so don’t know exactly how the robo-caller sees it, but at least the calls would be consistent. If the pitchers can find a kink in the system and then consistently hit it, more power to em. Much easier for a hitter to adapt to that, than to have the same pitch hit the same spot four times, two for balls, and two for strikes. That doesn’t work for either side.
I vote to have you, lurk, and wing handle all the reviews, live, on air. Lurk can bring the food, wing brings the beer, you bring the bourbon. People will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the next challenge.
