About a month into a minor league baseball league’s experiment with computerized umpiring, the systems have shown their promise — as well as why, at the moment, they remain experimental.
The Boston Globe’s Dugan Arnett recently paid a visit to New Britain, Conn., to take a look at how the independent Atlantic League’s adoption of the TrackMan radar system for calling balls and strikes is faring. It hasn’t been without its hiccups.
“During one game, a hard slide nudged home plate slightly, affecting the strike zone for the remainder of the game,” Arnett wrote. “In another case, High Point (N.C.) Rockers pitching coach and former Red Sox pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Frank Viola earned the distinction of becoming the first coach ever ejected from a game for arguing computer-determined balls and strikes.”
To be fair, Arnett clarifies, Viola’s claim was that the umpire had “gone rogue” and was overruling the computer’s calls.
Still, the supposed problems seem to be minor, or at least not unexpected for an experimental system not even a half-season old. If the system proves successful and is one day adopted by Major League Baseball, the only regret would be doing away with epic, entertaining meltdowns by managers disputing a human umpire’s strike zone.
