Baseball history made: Robot umpires call Balls & Strikes
Baseball
history made: Inside the debut of robot umpires
PA announcer at Atlantic League All-Star game
directs fans to computer technology used to call balls and strikes and plate
umpire Brian deBrauwere discusses his role. (July 10) AP, AP
It came on the first
pitch in an all-star game in York, Pennsylvania, in a front of a few
thousand fans.
York
Revolution starting pitcher Mitch Atkins fired a fastball just off the
center of the plate.
The
home plate umpire signaled a "strike."
But a computerized
radar system actually made the call — for the first
time in professional baseball history.
It came
during Wednesday evening's Atlantic League of Professional Baseball
All-Star Game at PeoplesBank Park, home of the York Revolution
The
lead-off batter watched the first pitch of the game sail into the catcher's
mitt. Despite the historic change, most everything at least seemed to go as
usual, at least to fans watching.
This was the long-awaited debut
of the automated ball-strike system (ABS), the beginning of a testing ground
for the rest of this summer. This rules
initiative trial results from a recent partnership between Major League
Baseball and the Atlantic League.
Here's
how the new balls and strikes technology works: An official in the press box
monitors a laptop running the TrackMan radar system that electronically
determines balls and strikes. That information is immediately relayed to the
umpire using a wireless earpiece.
The
pitches are tracked through a large Doppler radar screen high above home plate.
The radar system measures a player's height and creates a strike zone.
No
doubt, the change will take a while for pitchers and hitters to adjust.
Atkins seemed unsure about it
after throwing his one inning on Wednesday. He said it will take a while to
adjust to getting high and low strikes called in his favor. Same for a truer
but tighter strike zone on inside and outside pitches.
He also
noticed a delay in balls and strikes calls that fans may have not.
“Some
of the pitches they call strikes (now) don’t look like strikes. It looks like a
ball and TrackMan calls it a strike," Atkins said. "It’s
just different.
"Every pitch I've thrown
(high in the strike zone) has been a ball my whole career, since I
was 6 years old until now. It's different to see them called a strike.
“I like
the human umpire, but I’ve been playing a long time. I’m old
school."
The
push continues for the balls-strikes system to follow instant replay into the
minor and major leagues. The potential positives include speeding up game play
by eliminating the urge for batters and managers to argue balls and
strikes.
A
main calling point is the hope for a more consistent strike zone for batters
and pitchers.
“We
want to get it right. So if this helps the game and the officiating
of the game, that’s what we’re here for," said Tuesday's home plate umpire
Brian deBrauwere.
"Yeah,
it takes something out of the umpire’s hands, but it places additional
focus on other things we’re responsible for. Every other decision
we have to make will now be magnified. Every check swing, every
fair-foul, every safe or out will be even more important now."
Umpires' jobs actually won't change much, deBrauwere said, because they must be
ready to make their own balls-strikes call if the new radar system malfunctions
or stalls.
He confirmed
that the computerized strike zone will expand in the upper and lower zones
but shrink a bit on the inside and outside. He said umpires are taught not
to call low strikes on breaking pitches that drop out of the zone.
Comments
Post a Comment