Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for November 09, 2023

Considering the slight broadcast delay, that might make the games longer, which, apparently, baseball leadership hates.

We were limited by the technology of our time. Match it up with those Boston Dynamics robots as umpire and now you have a gate attraction.

What about the " umpires " ?

I like the sweatshirt, but dark lettering on a dark background just doesn’t seem to work…

An interactive baseball game? Sounds pretty interesting.

“Honey! Come in and help us change the call.”

The flesh and blood umpires must have asked for a raise.

Although rumor has it there’s one PARTICULAR umpire who deserves to be replaced by a machine

That voting system would, I assume, exclude fans who don’t have cell phones.

When you see ball four being called a strike even though it’s half a foot off the plate….

Not good! Teams with the largest population will get all the close (or even not close) calls!

Didn’t the PGA eliminate the practice of taking calls from home viewers about alleged infractions they think they saw during broadcasts. Side note: I never understood how these people knew who to call in the first place.

There is a solid stance of continuing with the current ancient system of the umpire making the balls or strikes call, with the nuance of some umpires have a big or small, wide or narrow, tend to call this or that or just MISS THE CALL.

Opposite is an automatic system that is very accurate, but is it two dimensional at the front, middle or back of the plate or three dimensional (Zack Grienke’s eephus or moonball) where the pitch is a strike if in the zone ANYWHERE over the plate?

I understand MLB is going for a compromise. The automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system.

“Rather than using “robot umps” (powered by Hawk-Eye tracking technology) to automatically call balls and strikes, as the AFL experimented with in 2021, the umpires make the calls as usual. Hitters, catchers and pitchers (and only them) then have the ability to challenge a call, which triggers a decisive visual of the pitch on the video board. Each team gets three challenges per game, with successful challenges retained for future use in the game.”

they should just set it up for every pitch. red light ball, green light strike. That would stop the catcher cheating with the framing too. Some catchers are ridiculous with pulling up off the ground 2 feet and holding it there for seconds even after the ump calls it a ball.

It would be relatively easy to add electronic tracking of footballs at the goal line and, eventually, all the way up and down the field. RTP and leading with the helmet, on the other hand…

I’d like them to legalize challenging if it’s a swing or not. Too many bad calls for obviously not a swing.

Bill Klem is spinning in his grave