Baseball umpires have gotten worse, right?
So they should be replaced, right?
Well, science steps up to the plate next week:
The independent San Rafael Pacifics will use a computerized video
system to call balls and strikes tonight and Wednesday in their
games at Albert Park in San Rafael.
They’re billed as the first professional games in
which a human won’t call balls and strikes. Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt
has expressed his desire for an automated strike zone.
Calls will be made by the Pitch F/X system with three
cameras forming a triangular effect that judges a pitch’s trajectory
and speed as it crosses the plate. Pitch F/X is used on TV broadcasts to
determine a pitch’s location and also for umpires to judge their work.
Eric Byrnes, a former A’s outfielder and proponent of an
automated strike zone, will serve as the “strike zone umpire” and
oversee the Pitch F/X system, a product of Fremont-based Sportvision
Inc.
This should be an interesting live experiment of pitch zone technology. Since baseball viewers are used to Pitch Track on their television screens during games, most fans will accept the concept of a computer strike zone. Whether science makes a 3D box work is another question. And how will it slow down the game?
Tennis has had censors for serves for a long time. Initially, players and fans objected to the technology believing the human eye is faster and more accurate than a machine.
