Slashdot Mirror
Digital Baseball Umpires
Dekaner writes "Wired is running an article on an electronic umpire that tracks each baseball pitch and judges whether it is within the "strike zone" has been installed at 10 major league ballparks in the U.S. The QuesTec system uses several cameras that track each pitch and compare the machine's judgment with that of the umpire standing behind the catcher. At the end of each game it provides a summary of its ratings and compares them with the umpire's calls. In general there is reasonably good agreement. In a recent test the QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes. However, the umpires association has filed a complaint about the system's unreliability and incapability to replace the human 3-D, real-time view. "
I think they started talking about this on ESPN about a month ago. Way to get on top of those breaking stories!
Does anyone read:
"However, the umpires association has filed a complaint about the system's unreliability and incapability to replace the human 3-D, real-time view."
as, "It points out our mistakes!"
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
I can understand why they aren't exactly happy - this computerized system is a threat to their jobs. What I'd like to examine is every pitch in a game and see if the system made "better" calls than the human. In any event, I can understand the umpires' cause for concern.
Sounds like time for another strike! Yay for America's Pastime!
How do you kick dirt on a digital umpire?
we all knew who the base belong to!
Would they be able to spot corked bats BEFORE someone uses them?
The reason umpires don't want these machines on the field is that they make a KILLING doing their job.
Seriously, the average pay for an ump is well over $100k. I'm not talking about your little league ump, I'm talking about the "Big Boys", the major league umpires.
It's hilarious reading the article with this in mind, with the machine doing the same job better and the umps jumping up and down crying foul. Of COURSE they don't want these machines. They'd lose their Lexus.
Just something to think about.
There's nothing like having a batter stare down an ump or kick dirt or get thrown out of a game.
Of course, you'd still need an ump for the home plate tag calls...so it's not like the umpires are going to disappear.
I think the machine is fun for the home-viewing audience, but the ump is necessary for the game. Until you can put in a Johnny-5 to call the game, I'll take my umpires and their strike calls and punch-out flourishes.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Another profession lost to technology?
That is what the umpires are afraid of, and who can blame them.
It'd be just a matter of time before all umpires are digital, if this is not at least questioned.
It's "Buggy Whip" time.
Just like the line judges at Wimbledon when they added the electronic eye to measure player's servers against the lines. This is a good thing, though, because it takes the human judge element out of the game and makes it specifically centered on the players' abilitites.
It also makes it harder for the umps to ensure that their bets at MGMG Grand get covered.
I have been playing sports my entire life and I must say that it is the human factor that makes it interesting. To take all the errors out of sport is to take away something -- and as I have recieved many a bad call I can't believe I am saying this -- special from it.
Then again, with all the money that is in sports these days maybe it is a good idea -- from the point of view of owners, players, and sponcers. I think it takes something away from the fans.
I do not control the Sig, the Sig controls me.
I don't like the idea of a digital ump... no arguments, no bad calls, no leaning into the pitch to make it look more inside.... ...and worst of all...no more strikes
DKW
Can the strike zone be "augmented" by passing the system hundred-dollar bills...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Hrm, I wonder when or what will happen when someone hacks these things in favor of the home team? I mean, you just know it can be done, and thinking of the potential edge this could give teams, some malicious people would think of this.
Jason Lotito
Just like any sport (football, tennis, hockey) there is an element of human error. It's just one of those things that we come to accept.
I'm all for technology that helps to prevent game-changing bad calls, such as instant replay, but I think something like this is better suited for the ESPN analysts and home viewers.
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
I wonder if certain visual patterns on a uniform could cause the cameras to misread the pitch? Kind of like a radar jammer. I can just see some team coming out with uniforms that have a holographic pattern of a moving ball at chest level.
"But ump, the COMPUTER said it was a strike!"
The fact that people are COMPLAINING that there is a 0.7%(!!) margin between the accuracy of machines to humans is insane! I'd be congratulating my umpires for being so accurate!
If anything, I think it'd be an argument on why to KEEP umpires.
Digital Baseball Umpires??? What's next, glowing fish?
Have the human impairs judge things as usual, and if things get contested, see what the machine has to say?
Does this mean you get ejected from a game for uploading a virus into the Ump's hard disk, or yanking his power cord?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"These are proud professionals who don't want to be evaluated by a faulty apparatus"
Or even by a working apparatus.
This can go wrong in so many ways, false positives and false negatives along every border of the strike zone. But aside from the mathematical reasons, why take away the human element even more from baseball?
You know one of the most fun parts of playing sports in my neighbourhood as a kid was watching my big brother argue whether something was a goal or not, who was safe or out. It was subjective and it was fun!
Now we have photo radar and cars that will apply the brakes themselves too. Sheesh.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Doing away with the human factor in these judgments is the greatest benefit, even if the calls may not agree 100% with that of a human judge. No more arguing, consistency for everyone.
My karma ran over your dogma
At least I hope. In my mind at least, the umpire is as much a part of the game as any of the players. Sure you want them to make the best calls possible, but I also want to have actual people out there making those calls. Has nothing to do with thinking a few cameras and some software can't do this job, just that I think it would take something away from the game.
Also, what if the computer controlling this crashes, hits a bug in the code, loosees connection to a camera, etc... Sure an umpire could call in sick, or whatnot, but at least in that case it is very obvious what is going on. Whereas with a computer malfunction it might not be until the 9th inning that you realize the computer wasn't calling things the way it was supposed to.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
The ICC adopted a similar scheme some time ago, but it was to assist the umpires rather than replace them.
I would like to change the world,
but they won't tell me the source code.
Doesn't this kind of taint baseball as a tradition? You are not allowed to use aluminum bats in professional baseball because there's a long tradition of using wood bats. Now we get robotic umps?
I for one will miss seeing the coaches run out on the field kicking dirt everywhere throwing equipment yelling at the umpires. Now there will be no reason.
Computer UMP: Yes that's what I said a strike.
Computer UMP: Yes that's what I said a strike.
away in the stands: Hot dogs! Get yer hot dogs!
Ah the boys of summer. Wonder if they'll put a plastron on the sucker?
Steeeeeeeeerike.
QD
Replace the batter and the pitcher with robots, and I still won't give a damn about baseball. :)
Seriously, I'm not going to waste my time explaining how asinine a notion that is. Please do the collective gene pool a favor and remove yourself from it.
I'm not a big fan of automated officials in sports, or replay cameras.
Yes, I know humans will make mistakes, but questionable/bad calls are part of the game. The small bit of randomness that can have a surprise effect.
As long as the margin of error is as reasonable as it has been.
Yes I have heard all the technical arquements about this, but this is how I enjoy the game. I don't like astrturf or indoor games either.
As a kid I remember watching the browns play in snow. It is assome. There is nothing like watching a quarter back hit a reciever 20 yards away when the visability is 20 feet.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's not just the umpires who don't like this. The pithers don't like it either because they can't paint the corner. However, the batters probably won't like it because it will force the strike zone on them too (they just don't realize it yet). Right now the strike zone is called very side-to-side. The batters would be happy that the pitchers will be forced to throw it over the plate. But then the pitchers will remember that the strike zone is also knees to chest and the batters probably won't like it when the high hard stuff is called a strike when currently it's probably called a ball.
If I were an ump I would try to think about where you will be working in the next few years. If these things take off then there will be little if any need for them.
I remember a similiar situation in history books about the time the mechanized assembly line came around and the factory workers were laid off. This is nothing new, just getting applied to sports now. I would start to come up with a better argument than "we're 3-D", if I were you guys ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I am a baseball umpire (high school) and I doubt that the players - particularly the pitchers - would like this sort of device either.
At the major league level, there are pitchers who thrive upon umpires giving them a few inches off the outside corner. With a machine, their pitching careers would be over because now they'd have to throw all of their pitches within a tightly-defined strike zone to get a batter out.
With hitting being so much better than pitching (for most teams) these days, the balance would be thrown off that much more by having these machines call balls and strikes.
Do I even need to ask the question about what happens if the machine malfunctions? If you don't have a workable backup and there aren't any umpires who have practiced calling balls and strikes, that'll make for one ugly game!
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
This would be a great place of employment for all those robot soccer players that will be out of work in America due to yet another instance of the American appetite for soccer coming in well below expectations.
"Bender like Beckham" indeed.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Like Hockey. They replaced the goal scoring with an automated system but it didn't remove refs from the game.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Technology would have to progress a lot farther before it can remove umps. You still need someone to make the calls from homeplate. Ya know when a runner tries to steal home or whatever. But why am I not surprised that the slashdot crowd did not pick up on that.
I'm curious if there will soon be a system to judge the really close calls of tagging someone out at the base. Like someone sliding into 2nd as the 2nd baseman is stretched into the air receiving a throw from outerfield, or the runner and shortstop, with ball, running to make it to 2nd first. Some of these can be splitt second calls.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I can imagine the frustrating of the player on bate, he need to kick someone!...
"...mors tua, vita mea..."
However, the umpires association has filed a complaint about the system's unreliability and incapability to replace the human 3-D, real-time view.
... instead only giving an accurate 3-D, real-time view.
Pretty soon, when everything that can be replaced by computers has been replaced by them, and everything that can be done overseas by slave labor has been moved there, the only jobs left will be corporate moguls, and the rest of us will live in poverty! Yay!
Sports are about people going out and doing difficult things in front of a crowd. It's not just the atheletes who do that, especially in baseball. The umpires are out there performing too.
Part of the fun of baseball is second guessing the umpire, complaining about a bad call, arguing with your friends about whether or not a call really was bad, etc. Just like part of the fun is seeing whether or not someone is going to hit a home run or strike out, or watching someone pitch, or whatever.
Everyone on the field comes together and interacts in a complicated ecosystem. If they start mucking around with it at such a fundamental level, they're going to break the game more than they already have by their tweaks designed to produce more hits.
Why stop with the umpire? Why not making pitching and hitting robots? Why don't we have modified sony aibo's roaming the outfield, with baskets to catch the balls?
I'm not saying there isn't room for geekery at the ball park. The machines that shoot the hotdogs way up into the stand are pretty cool. But that's the sort of thing that technology should do at a ball park. Leave the game to the people.
Sooner or later, umpires are going to be out of a job... "You can not be serious" --John McEnroe
"Dave.... Dave.... 3 strikes and you're out, Dave".
It has not been mentioned that using QuesTec does not eliminate human error. Because each player's batting stance is different, the system must be readjusted each time a hitter comes to the plate. This process is done by a human and is one reason lots of people are upset. The only difference is that, instead of relying on an umpire to call pitches accurately, you are relying on the QuesTec operator to calibrate the machine properly.
QuestTec seems to be a perfect example of conspicuous technology, which distracts more than it helps. We need a machine to tell us the umps are accurate? Does that really help us enough to justify the distraction to the pitchers and the umpires themselves. ESPN had this article on the Schilling incident, and they mention more about evaluating ump performance against this machine. Of course the umpires are pissed; I wouldn't want a poorly implemented, incompletely rolled out new technology used to judge my work in a field I'm experienced in either.
Perhaps over time they could use this device to provide another reference point. There are many discrepancies in baseball and the umpire (as far as I know) has the final say.
It is somewhat comforting to have a reference point that doesn't make a call based on it's emotional status. Then again what do I know.
There's nothing like having a batter stare down an ump or kick dirt or get thrown out of a game.
In addition to the crowd-pleasing aspect of man-on-man confrontation, there's also the wrinkle that having a batter judged by a machine is somewhat at odds with the entire American way of doing things. Our criminal justice system, for example, gives the accused the right to confront the accuser in a court of law. A lot of Americans believe very strongly in that type of system. I imagine that lots of fans aren't going to like the idea of a batter being called out on strikes because of the calcuations of a machine.
Just a thought,
GMD
watch this
Will the automated umpire handle the queue of players on a FIFO (first in, first "Out!") basis?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
QuesTec is supposed to be an evaluation tool. The idea is that the most accurate umpires are allowed to, or given, the lucrative post-season gigs.
Umpires don't think they're going to lose their jobs. They're just a bunch of overpaid, whiney biatches who want to be viewed as infallible. They don't want any oversight at all. Some of these guys are making upwards of $400,000 per year.
I, personally, am all for it. MLB probably should have worked more closely with the umpire's union on this (their PR is atrocious), but at the end of the day, the umps are employees of MLB and should shut their mouths. There's no proof that QuesTec is inaccurate...if anything, it keeps the umps from calling strikes that are six inches off the plate.
About bloody time if you ask me.
I recall that one catcher was supposedly told by an umpire that he wanted to call a lot of those pitches strikes, but he couldn't. Catcher seemed to think this was a bad thing. So, in other words, the umpire admits that he doesn't typically enforce the rules as written unless outright forced to? Sounds like he's completely justifying the existence of the machines to me. Maybe now Atlanta pitchers won't get their customary strike zone that stretches between the home and visiting dugouts?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Go back to amateur hour at the local club. We need more insight, less county fair comedian.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
In general there is reasonably good agreement. In a recent test the QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes.
Now there's some stupid science. Hey, I bet I'd call 32% of pitches strikes too, too bad they wouldn't be the right damn 32%. We need to know what % they agreed, not what % they called. For all we know the umpires are constantly making bad calls that cancel each other out. Anyway, it's the close calls that matter more then anything, how many of those calls were totally obvious? I think we need a lot more info before this study means anything.
And yes, I am assuming that the umpires are worse then the machines. That's because machines are better at judging the exact spacial positioning of fast moving things then people-even trained people.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
If we are going to replace umpires with radar units, why not replace pitchers with pitching machines? And shortstops with Phalanx anti-missle guns? After all, those are "more accurate" than their human counterparts.
Sheesh!
sPh
I remember someone mentioning that Curt Schilling apparently doesn't like em either, and broke one of them.
"In a recent test the QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes." -- from description
"While umps may feel unnerved with this latest gadget tracking their calls, their performance doesn't show it, he said.
The percentage of pitches called strikes in a QuesTec park is 32.1; in a non-QuesTec park, the percentage is 31.4, Alderson said." -- from article
The article states that umpires call 32.1% pitches strikes in a QuesTec park and 31.4% in a non-QuesTec park. The umpires call slightly more strikes in ballparks that have QuesTec installed. This says nothing about the aggreement between the umpires and the QuesTec system.
Major League Baseball's disciplinarian is looking into Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling's destruction of a camera used to evaluate umpires.
QuesTec not yet showing consistency from umpires
A look at the QuesTec system
MLB striking out on QuesTec
http://use.perl.org
every player with an electronic version. Then the spectators. Then we can finally have this society where everyone is an engineer sitting in front of a computer.
I'm sure you could build a system that will measure strikes and balls better than any human. That's not the point. There's plenty of sports where automated systems could be used to replace human judges, but the question you have to ask is "does it make the game better?"
I argue that most of the time, the answer is no. Sports are not meant to be an exersize in perfection, and there is an element to every sport that involves playing 'outside' the rules. In the specific case of Baseball, for example, a human umpire knows when to call a ball as a strike because the batter is being a dick. Competition can be more about manipulating the human and social factors than about following the rules, and we shouldn't take that aspect out of the game just because we can.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Now owners are trying to take away that leeway and create a uniform strike zone because they (somehow) think that there isn't enough offense in the game.
What I really like is that not even the MLB follows its own strike zone rule in setting up this system.
Does anyone call a letters high strike anymore? Of course not... it's an unhittable pitch and wouldn't be fair to call. Questec doesn't either according to an "Outside the Lines" report on ESPN a few weeks ago. I'd rather let the umps determine what a strike is than the owners.
Whatever,
mcsey
BTW -- Outside the Lines is great! A sports talk show where people don't yell at each other, woohoo!
Arizona's Curt Schilling has been the most vocal of the players that are against the QuesTec system. Schilling was fined $15k a few weeks ago for smashing one of these systems. His main complaint is that these systems are not in all ballparks, only installed in 13. Elite pitchers such as Schilling thrive by knowing the tendencies of not only every batter but also every umpire. I'm sure the same is true for the batter as well, knowing not only a pitcher's tendencies but also how an umpire calls a game. The umpires now are not being consistent, what a single umpire might call a strike in a non-QuesTec ballpark might not be a strike with QuesTec watching. Schilling even said that he had an umpire tell him prior to a game that he was "on the computer" tonight, which to Schilling meant that the umpire would be calling the game differently than normal. Sure, these points would be moot if all umpires called identical strike zones. But the reality is that they don't all call the same strike zones, and now even the same umpire isn't calling the same strike zone from ballpark to ballpark, and Schilling claims that it is affecting the game.
Can it detect cork in bats?
..August 29, 1997 Judgement Day a willy-nilly robot gets one to many hotdogs to the back of the head. RoboUmp: hot dog does not compute...kill humans!
Umps and their strike zone is not the major complaint most people have with umps. A good ump is a consistant ump with a consistent strike zone. Ball players don't mind an ump that has a high strike zone. The players learn this and adjust their game to this. The problem comes when these umps call one pitch a ball one inning and the same pitch is a strike the next inning.
I see a much greater use of this machine to track umpires consitancy ratings than their actual strike calling ability.
In a recent test the QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes
Excuse me, but where are the statistics that actually matter here?
I don't need to know what percentage of pitches are called strikes, I want a two-way analysis of variance!
Fight or flight its all the same
Live to die another day
--Ryan
Dude, it's not like it's taxpayer money.
Given that taxpayers typically paid for the useless-almost-every-day-of-the-year giant ballpark in which umpires "work", it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that ridiculously high umpire salaries are made possible by the fact that other parts of the baseball enterprise are financed by taxpayer money.
ASA
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
"and everything that can be done overseas by slave labor has been moved there,"
The only slave labor jobs are in socialist countries like China and Vietnam. The rest of them are going to people in free countries like Mexico and India who commit the unforgivable crime of doing certain jobs better than Americans. Let 'em.
"the umpires association has filed a complaint about the system's unreliability and incapability to replace the human 3-D, real-time view."
In other news, the UAW has declared that robots are unable to replace humans' unique 3d peception in the construction of automobiles.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
According the the artice in wired, those two numbers are the percent strikes called by the actual human umpires in parks with and without the QuesTec system. The point was that the umpires are not looking over their shoulders: making adjustments to what they do based on the presence of the system. From the article:
While umps may feel unnerved with this latest gadget tracking their calls, their performance doesn't show it, he said. The percentage of pitches called strikes in a QuesTec park is 32.1; in a non-QuesTec park, the percentage is 31.4, Alderson said.
Even if Dekaner interpreted the article correctly, the number are not really that meaningful. Just because the percentage of strikes called was close doesn't mean that it was mostly the same pitches being called as strikes.
The Math Maestro Tutoring Services in Seattle
Call me a soft hearted old-fashioned traditionalist if you must, but an electronic umpire will ruin the game! The obvious "bad calls" are often the highlights of the games! Well, maybe not the call itself, but what follows. C'mon, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that it's not as much fun for a player to kick dirt on a CCD camera as a middle-age guy in funny clothes. Plus, if the camera can't spin it's cap around backwards and shout during the spit-flying-in-your-face confrontations that follows, what's the point?
Tennis has had computerized cameras signaling service errors for years, and it works quite well in conjunction with the line judges. Sometimes the camera signals a fault, and the judge does not. Sometimes the camera doesn't signal a fault, but the judge does find it a fault. Those times are relatively rare, but it hardly changes the game at all. One could argue that with 2 ways to find a fault, there will be slightly more faults than before, so this could translate to slightly more strikes being called in the future. But I don't see this as a big deal for baseball. (And they haven't even turned on the system for decisions during the game- it appears it is only used for post-game analysis at the moment.) As far as the judges fearing for their jobs, I don't think their jobs are being threated by this device. And after using it for a while, I don't think they'll mind it so much either- assumming it is very accurate- which given today's capabilities, I imagine it would be.
No.
It can't kick out an arguing manager. It can't decide to take a break if someone gets beaned. It can't yell "Play Ball" when someone is tactically delaying a bit.
It can't confer with the other umps as to the validity of a call. It can't be the impartial inspector and giver of new balls when there is the slightest question.
It can't be an object of derision by the fans when the game is going badly for the home team. Yelling at a camera controlled CPU is futile at best.
If it cannot fully replace a human umpire (i.e. actually run the game), and if it's reliability/accuracy in the over-the-plate calls is basically the same, then why attempt to replace the human?
There was an article a couple of weeks ago in SI.
p e= help%2Ftop&source=si&sites=si&query=QuesTe c
Here's what's on cnnsi.com.
http://search.si.cnn.com/si/search?invocationTy
Null
Anyway, fear not for umps falling victim to automation. Without them, who would the fans have to cuss? Managers would look pretty stupid yelling & kicking dirt at R2D2. Umps are as much a part of the game as any player.
Perhaps, though, what the umpires association opposes is that kind of "performance assessment" of it members. Maybe that's the real reason...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
isn't just that there's a variance in umps, there's a variance in what will get called a strike or a ball when thrown by different pitchers. A number of pitchers have come out against the system-- it seems that with the system in place, if they want something called a strike, they actually have to throw it in the strike zone!
The intention of the system, however, isn't to remove the human from being the umpire-- there will always be judgement calls (did the catcher tag the runner before the runner touched home plate, did that ball hit the runner while he was on the baseline, etc...) and if he's going to be there for that, he may as well call balls and strikes, too. What the system is there for is to make sure umpires stick to a standard. Those who do will be rewarded by being able to call playoff games, or maybe even the World Series. Those that don't will be replaced by ones that will.
-JDF
The fine folks at Baseball Prospectus, the top web site for baseball analysis, asked the question: given that QuestTec is installed at some parks and not others, how is it affecting how the umpires call the game?
The answer: read this espn article.
Good stuff.
-- Kate
The main problem that the umps have is not that it might replace them, but that it might not really be more accurate than them. This quote is from the article (which is the little clicky linky thing that you often find in the story text...we should all try clicking it sometime!):
"Even if (the computer operators) were experienced umpires, this system would not work because it's based on a single frontal photograph in comparison with the 3-D, real-time view of the umpire," Gibson said.
In addition, many batters move during the course of the pitch, which an umpire sees and weighs in determining the strike zone, he said.
See, each time a batter steps to the plate, the system has to be calibrated for that batter's particular size, crouch, stance angle, etc. But that calibration is only done once (at the beginning of the at bat), and it's done by...a human being, just like the umpires. And often, this operator, while he may know the system, doesn't understand the game of baseball.
So the umpires' beef is not that they don't want to be evaluated, it's just a question of whether the measuring stick is really doing a better job than they can do standing right behind the plate.
Belloc
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Actually, I have heard (and give a lot of weight to) the idea that MLB uses wood bats becaue of tradition, but not because the wood itself was what was used in the original game. It's the tradition of hearing a nice, sharp *crack* when a player hits the ball, instead of a metallic *ping*.
OK, Time to get even with all the jocks that poked on you by hacking their umpire to call everything a strike.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I'm not big fan of baseball (Soccer and lacrosse baby!) but I think adding robot umps would be a bad idea. This is a human game, with human factors and human margins of error. To introduce some type of a robot, even for umpire functions, would take away from that.
Why don't we add robot base coaches and robot pitchers while we're at it? Aw heck, and robot batters and fielders too. Let's just make it one big battlebot arena with leather gloves and four bases.
Leave the robots out of sports.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
And I think you're missing the point. Even if most of the umpires are replaced (always will need a human rules interpreter, I expect) with digital system, it is just to increase or ensure accuracy. I could see circuitry in the bat, in the ball, in the glove, in shoes, and in the bases - all to make measurement easier and more verifiable. Automating a player, however, would be going too far. That is where the human randomness, unpredictability, and skill are desirable.
Now, if we were talking about something actually entertaining, I might agree with you.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
QuesTec isn't a fully automated system - a human operator is required to input the lower and upper limits of the strike zone (lower limit is the batter's knees, upper limit is the batter's belt buckle).
This human input alone makes QuesTec fallible, but's what's worse is the fact that the operator-entered limits can never be perfect. Why? Because batters move in the batter's box - they don't stay static like the computer assumes - and thus the strike zone can move from the moment in time at which the strike zone is set by the QuesTec and the ball actually enters the strike zone.
So, with the QuesTec system, it's easy for the machine to call a pitch a ball when it should be a strike and vice versa. This is one of the umpires major objection to the system as it works at the moment.
I'm all for employee evaluation but when MLB says that umpires who calls don't agree with QuesTec x percent of the time will be under review, yet assumes that every disagreement is due to poor calling on the part of the umpire, then there's something wrong with the system.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Where just because somebody can type they think they know what the hell they're talking about.
The machines won't replace the umpires. That's not the umpires concern. Please stop posting that.
The core of beef on this system is a struggle for control between the umpires union and MLB. Ever since Richie Phillips (head of the Umpires Union) Tried to wrestle control of umpiring from MLB the two sides have been fighting over exactly who controls the game. MLB has been trying to get umpires to call the rulebook strike zone and Umpires have been trying to maintain their autonomy (a difficult task after the massive f**kup Phillips organized). Questec is a grading system for umpires and umpires don't like it. Players (Curt Schilling most famously) don't like it because they feel it makes the umpires tentative and inconsistent.
So far the system has had no affect.
The editors are apparently not quite capable of discerning exactly what the story is about or they wouldn't have titled it "Digital Baseball Umpires", which in turn would have kept the slashdot masses from posting random contributions pulled out of their ass. Honestly, do you think that a system which grades strike zone judgement is in anyway a threat to umpiring jobs? Will the strike zone grading system handle calls at the plate? Ejections? Can it call a ground rule double? Infield fly? Seriously people, think about it for about 30 seconds before you post the kneejerk crap that's flooding this story (Umpires == factory workers losing thier jobs to technology? What the hell are you smoking).
It's the bottom of the 9th, tie score, last game of the World Series when the PA announcer say "please wait while we reboot the umpire"
And note that there is nothing here replacing the umps in the field, just the home plate ump...
Anyone else feel a little weird discussing baseball on slashdot?
I know I do.
http://use.perl.org
a statistics geek friend of mine who is delusional enough to believe that he can use his degrees to make money gambling claims that he has determined that he win on baseball by knowing who will be the plate umpire in each game.
he claims that betting the "over" on games called by certain umpires wins more than 2/3 of the time. also, there are some umps that consistantly tip the odds in favor of the "under".
the most reasonable explanation for this is the relative sizes of their srike zones, or at least the perceived size of the strike zones by the players. either the pitchers are consistantly getting more/less room around the plate from these umps or the batters THINK that the pitchers are getting more/less room, causing them to approach their at bats differently.
interesting analysis anyhow.
now, if someone could just explain the detroit tigers to me, i'd be happy.
ddd
The reason umpires don't want these machines on the field is that they make a KILLING doing their job.
And they deserve it too. Being a good official is really, really, really hard. I know first hand because I've been an official (different sport but same deal) for a number of years. Major league officials show as much skill as the athletes do. I know because I've been a division 1 college athlete (yes a few of us read slashdot believe it or not) and an official too.
It is damn hard to know all the rules of a game, have them on instant recall, apply them to the situation at hand, and do so correctly and without pissing anyone off. If you do your job right, no one notices you and if you do get noticed you get screamed at, usually by some halfwit who has never picked up a rule book in their life.
It annoys the hell out of me when I see some twit complaining about officials "trying to determine the outcome". Let me get out the cluebat. NO official I have ever met (and that is a LOT of officials) would ever try to determine the outcome of a game. We really don't care who wins. We just want to have a fair contest and really prefer it when one team kicks the crap out the other. Less chance of anyone getting their panties in a bunch over a *game*. If you don't take my word for it, read anything by Ron Luciano and you might get the idea. The only thing any official wants is for the game to get over with as quickly and fairly as possible. That's it.
As for the measuring equipment being used. As an official I don't really have a problem with it being used as an evaluation tool. Most officials would welcome a tool to make them better at their job. I would however have a problem with it being used in a game I was officiating. No official wants to be second guessed because it undermines our ability to keep control of a game. People start becoming unnecessarily rough, unsportsmanlike, and generally begin to behave like cretins when they think they have a right to question the judgement of the officials. (This isn't a supposition of mine, I've seen it happen countless times)
Now there are problems when the officials in some sports (basketball is notorious for this) start calling the game differently depending on the situation instead of how the rulebook specifies. That's a problem. But most officials at a high level do a very good job at what is a very difficult job. If they get paid well to do it, believe me, they've earned it.
I mean.. how interesting will it be to watch a manager bump chests with this thing? And will this be programmed to throw 'em outta da game?
:)
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
Being that of all the major league baseball teams, only one team, yes, one, made money last season, I don't think this added expense would be very wise. On top of that, part of the fun of baseball (and any sport), is disagreeing with the umps call. If there isn't some subjectivity, there's no fun in the game. IE. How can I argue with my friends about the validity of a call if a robot made it? All this will serve to do is drive even more people away from major league ballparks.
If you have caught any of the myriad of Sportscenters in the past few weeks, the QuesTec system got fair discussion by baseball 'experts.'
One of the main points they brought up, is that right now the system is only in place in 13 of the 31 ballparks, and that is definitely causing problems. If you are a pitcher with QuesTec in your park, you have it more than half your games, where other pitchers have it in far fewer. One of the points of the system was to standardize the strike zone, and they aren't doing that by not having it in all ballparks.
Also they have inexperienced people operating the system. The people who run the system should be trained well. Some people even suggested they use former umps or umps in training.
As for the umpires getting all excited, wouldn't you be upset if your livelihood and usefulness was being threatened by a machine? I'm sure there are countless TV movies with workers getting kicked out factories by robots that'll sum up that emotion. I know it's a little different, since they still need umps, but it is literally question the ump ability.
Personally, I don't think it's a bad idea, but aren't executing it in the best possible way. Get it in all the ballparks, train the operators, make friends with the umps - not enemies.
For people who want more info:
Here's a short FAQ from ESPN
Some of Rob Neyer's cool-as-usual statistical analysis
BTW -- Outside the Lines is great! A sports talk show where people don't yell at each other, woohoo!
:)
Hey, I LOVE sports talk shows where people yell at each other.
Outside the lines is great though.
http://use.perl.org
Ok -- one post /.'rs are up in arms about a machine that supposedly has better judgement than people and by and large folks bitching and moaning that they aren't going to give up any control to device thats only a machine and can't factor anything else into the equation but what its programmed to do.
Now we have a class of citizens that arguably none of us have to deal with nor want to join the ranks of. We therefore look at pretty much the same technology and claim its infalliable and umps should quit their bitching because machines are so much better at judging a situation than people ever will be.
In both situations, its a machine making a decision that supposedly will benefit a greater percentage of folks involved than before. And again, slashdotters show their true NIMBY spirit by dismissing the one that takes away control from themselves while arguing for the need of the other.
Personally I think that if the Major League Baseball satellites are good enough to read our brainwaves, they should be able to judge the games as well as hit the brakes on peoples care. What did I do with my tinfoil hat.
clif
Which would you prefer?
A mechanical system by where the game of baseball is nothing more to you than a process by which judgemnet is passed (win/loss) by evaluating the pure physical ability to play the game exactly as described in the rule books and is regulated by computers, sensors, radar, etc... in order to make sure the actaul best "physically speaking" team wins.
or
You enjoy baseball in all it's glory as a game with faults. Faults that will ALWAYS be present when being judged by humans. Faults that are considered by the players, which in return goes into the judging of the ability of that player or team.
In my opinion, learning where this particular ump's strike zone is, is part of the game. The catcher "setting" up the pitch to make it look like a strike when caught is "part of the game". Good batters know these things. So, do I want to judge players on their ability simply to hit a ball that is thrown in the official strike zone? Or do I want to judge players on how they handle ALL of the game's fuzzy edges brought about by human judgements.
I prefer "b", as it's actually HARDER to do. Baseball is more of a mind game than anything. Any hard-core baseball fan will tell you this. I tend to like watching drama that would be completely lost if computers controlled everything. Next thing you know, we'll have instant reply calling close calls at bases, etc... The human element in baseball, with all of it's faults, is part of the game. Changing that would mean that it wouldnt' be "baseball" anymore, but more of a "testing" station. Why don't we just give each player a set of skills to be tested, gather up the scores, and just give the team with the highest score a trophy.
*sigh*
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
OK, so it's not Lessig's nightmare per se, but this could be an illustration of what could become a growing phenomenon: machines making judgements about regulations....
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
In general there is reasonably good agreement. In a recent test the QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes.
What this says to me is that the human is doing a fine job and the computer is not needed here.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
You'd still need human oversight in case the machine screws up. You might end up with a "review system" as in football. Even if the system is designed to work instantaneously, it will still take time for human beings to review the results. That would slow down an already slow game.
Finally...
They can't shout into the manager's face and throw him out of the game.
Sportswriters can't call them idiots.
I think baseball would be even less entertaining than it already is without those elements.
Of course, don't go by me. I haven't payed much attention to baseball since 1994, when the Orioles were at the top of the standings, looking like Series contendors. And then, we all know what happened...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In statistics that's a lot, however for something like baseball, I'd say that the umpires did a pretty decent job. If a pitcher pitches a 100 pitches they might miss one strike? Not bad at all.
Besides if they replaced the umpires with cameras, you couldn't yell "What's a matter with the umpire? HE'S A BUM!"
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Yeah, article's article == completely clueless.
I played baseball from the time I was 7 to the time I was 22 when I finished college. I pitched from 9 till I finished. I had good umps and bad umps calling games and I have to say there are times I wish there was a machine for calling the strike zone. However I just don't think a machine can do a better job on the whole than a human umpire and I really don't think it can replace the role a human umpire plays in a game of basball.
You can make a machine that calls a rule book strike. Not easy and questech dosn't do that by a damn sight that I am aware of ( it does good and in and out but the variance of hitters hights and stances calls for a modicum of human judgement in the grading phase ). But it can be done however I don't know how desriable that would be. Hell the umps in the majors or college havn't called rule book strikes for years. These days for the most part above the belt is a ball and somewhat above halfway up your shins is a strike ( rule book states kneecaps to armpits more or less... forget the exact wording ).
There are inumerable subtle nuances invovled in the whole process of the game that leads to how the strike zone is called and it is a huge part of the game as anyone who actually plays it for long becomes aware of, especially at the higher levels. A mechanical zone would proove benificial in some ways and detrmental in others. It certainly won't stop complaining about strike/ball calls. People will just complain the system wasn't calibrated right, or a system was malfunctioning.
I am not against change. But I am against removing such an intergral and human element to a great game as a plate umpire calling balls and strikes. As for the idea of grading umpires with questech it A) needs to be agreed upon by all involved, not just the owners and B) needs to be universal with a universal calibration instead of the individualistic methods used in the various systems currently. ( ie sensors/cameras can't be put in the same relative locations due to variences in foul territory and avialability of overhangs etc... the systems are also tuned by different people and the settings can vary from location to location ) finally C) all of the systems need to be verified as consistent in what they consider a strike across the variences of hitters hights and stances out to a pretty significant factor which is where right now there is a good bit of fudge factor covered by the system operators.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Ick.. how absurd. Horrible umpires, fans booing bad calls, batters flipping out over what they thought was ball four... are all part of what makes baseball, baseball. Fans of professional tennis will note that this silly obsession with so-called "digital" accuracy has already come and gone on the ATP, where that annoying "beep" machine that called service faults has been (thank God) decomissioned, thanks in no small part to the on-air fumings of one John McEnroe. I hope they will do the same with baseball. What'll they think of next, some machine to neutralize the smell of the ballpark? :)
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
The summary says that the system's results are compared with the live umpire's results at the end of the time. My question is, who died and made the umps gods? Some of those guys need Lasik just as badly as NFL refs do! Given their track record, I'm not sure how anyone could authoritatively say that the system's better than the umps or vice-versa given that the baseline for comparison is at times of dubious quality.
I say who cares if the umps make a lot of money? Who cares if they are slightly less accurate at making calls? Baseball is a sport. It is supposed to involve humans interacting and showing achievement, and umpires provide yet another facet of that interaction. Replacing them with some kind of machine would be pretty sad. What next?
Disclaimer: I don't like baseball, never have. I don't have any umpires (nor players, nor even fans) as relatives. I'm definitely not even a sports fan, I just think the meatspace interaction is good for us, socially.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
...playing sports we learned that a pitch is a strike when the ump calls it a strike and not when you think its a strike. As a catcher, I had a good view.
We need to keep in mind that the strike zone is being called by the regs according to the rule book where these machines are installed and are not represnetative of the modern strike zone of last year. That modern strike zone is much lower and away from the batter than the offical one thats from the letters to theighs.
From a baseball purist standpoint, MLB has become a Home Run Derby of sorts, but that has VERY little to do with strike zone
.262 right now, I think I'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that umpires' collective decisions about strike zones can move overall batting averages so minimally yet be the cause of an increase in home runs.
I think this section is an excellent analysis of the parent post. If the strike zone were the cause of "Home Run Derby" baseball, you'd expect to see an overall increase in league batting average. The theory would say that by improving the quality of the pitches the batter faces as strikes, they'd be hitting more of everything, not just home runs.
Anyway, some guy's chart bears this out- keep in mind what looks like a big difference on that chart (.006, say) represents about 30 hits per team per season. Given that the NL appears to be hitting a collective
...so we should just get the machines to play. Yeah, thats it, robots or something.*
;o)).
*Disclaimer: I don't get sport on TV, or sport computer games. If you like it, get the heck out and play some. The same can't be said of computer games not based in reality (although I have some prime candidates to get with my BFG
Beep beep.
According to an interview on ESPN Radio some of the operators are part time workers with no umpire training and have not even played organized baseball. That would be like a 10 year old gamer grading your programming scheme (indentation and use of meaningful variable names).
Despite that, the camera is behind an outfield fence (over 400 feet away). Anyone who has taken photos with a zoom lense can tell you that the depth of view is lost. Objects 50 feet apart appear in the same plane.
if $100,000 a year is middle class i guess i've been downgraded to starving-mexican-in-a-truck-crossing-the-border on the my-income-determines my-class-and-thus-my-value (to society?) scale
yes i like -'s
Professional tennis already has a similar device, called Cyclops, that's used to detect faults on serves.
Much simpler than what would be needed for strike detection as it only detects whether a serve is short or long. The point though is the human element remains, and that the chair ump can over-rule the Cyclops. (Like all electronic devices, it mis-reads occasionally.)
The article does not say that the machine called 32.1% of pitches strikes and umps called 31.4%. It actually says that at parks where the machine is present, umps called 32.1% of pitches strikes, while at other parks, they called 31.4% strikes. The point being made was related to questions about whether having the machine at certain parks made those parks effectively "different" for pitchers, not whether the machine agreed with the umps in general. Nowhere are we told exactly how frequently the average umpire agrees with the machine.
Someone didn't ace the Reading Comprehension part of their tests in school...
Like it matters.
just get robots to throw the ball and hit it as well.
lame AYB joke in here somewhere, I don't have the heart to go for it.
OT: every time I hear the phrase Honest Abe, my brain renders it as Honest AYB. Its too late for me, the rest of you might still have a chance.....
People in the "public eye" are evaluated, rated, tested and editorialized about all the time. We have speed guns giving immediate feedback on the exact speed a pitcher throws a ball. Major league athletes use computer training systems all the time to try to improve their swing, whether it's golf, baseball or tennis. Nobody's suggesting umpires should be replaced by machines! All this does is provides an objective way to rate their accuracy at calling strikes. With or without this system, people will be using technology to attempt to judge the accuracy of umpires' calls anyway. Right now, the only difference is, they're using slow-motion camera replays and making subjective decisions based on what the camera captures from various angles.
During the actual gameplay, the human umpires will still be making the calls, and people will still argue about it. Machines like this just give a "second opinion" that can be used, over time, as evidence of an umpire who isn't doing his/her job well. Why shouldn't the fans welcome another tool to the arsenal of tools available that help improve the game?
IMHO, ensuring umps can accurately call strikes is much more important than worrying about if a hitter had some cork in his bat.
I remember having a conversation about this some 20 years ago, when I was playing little league. After seeing so many bad calls, I brought up to my coach that someday we would have computers and robots making all of the decisions. He balked, saying it would ruin the game.
Now that Iâ(TM)m older, I tend to agree with him; at least for the major leagues. But I still think this technology could be well used in little league, where itâ(TM)s hard to find someone to be an umpire, even harder to find one thatâ(TM)s any good. Some would show up drunk, would have some bone to pick against a team who had a player with a parent he didnâ(TM)t like, or simply be idiots.
Whatâ(TM)s worse is the way parents react to calls (even good ones) they donâ(TM)t agree with. I can only imagine how it would change the dynamic of the game for kids if these officiating robots could be made cheaply and be available to kidsâ(TM) leagues.
It wouldnâ(TM)t be without precedent: We already allow little leaguers to use aluminum bats, while the big leagues still have wood. Keep the majors pure and traditional, but it would be nice to see a little technology around to help keep the games fair for kids.
The Internet is generally stupid
I have been waiting for this system to be feasible for decades. The calling of the strike zone in the game today is a joke. There is no strike above the belt, much less the letters as in the rules. Ever see an overhead shot of some of Glavin's outside pitches that are called strikes? These are often six inches off the black.
I often hear the moaning about the lack of pitchin in the game, but it is the artificial shrinking of the zone down to the size of a small shoebox that is the culprit.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Part of the problem is where the QuesTec system takes the image to determine if it's a strike or a ball. If the ball moves significantly in the last 2-3 feet near the plate, it can disagree with what the call acually should be, since it doesn't track it any longer. So, if you have a wicked curveball that barely catches the plate at the last minute, QuesTec and the Umpire could easily disagree, with the Umpire being correct in this case. Until they fix this, I understand the problems with it.
"While umps may feel unnerved with this latest gadget tracking their calls, their performance doesn't show it, he said.
The percentage of pitches called strikes in a QuesTec park is 32.1; in a non-QuesTec park, the percentage is 31.4, Alderson said."
That doesn't mean that the system calls 32.1% of pitches strikes. That means that the umpires call 32.1% of pitches in those parks strikes. It's being used as evidence that the umpires aren't being unnerved about the machine's second-guessing them.
"As we all know, computers do crash."
So do people
A lot of people have talked about this with only an article's understanding of it. I've watched some footage on tv where they compared umpire calls to the Questec ones. Questec is still not perfect, and gets calls wrong sometime. A lot of the problems occur on the fringes of the zone (as one would expect). It generally doesn't call strikes that are within 2 inches of the plate, which most umpires call strikes. Considering the diameter of the ball this makes sense. Also, there is the problem of pitches that cut across the zone, being within at first, but as they pass the end of the plate are out of the zone. This system still needs improvement. The umpires do not view this as taking their job away, but are concerned about being unfairly evaluated. Likewise, pitchers, such as the usually class act, knowledgeable Curt Schilling have complained that umpires who are aware of the system are purposefully calling games differently because they know they're being watched (the system is only used at some ballparks). This results in an artificially smaller strike zone sometimes. Imagine driving on the freeway knowing there is a cop 4 cars behind you. The laws are always there, but when you feel someone (real or artificial) over your shoulder you can become overcautious and hesitant. As you may remember, Schilling recently punched one of the Questec cameras, as he takes a strong position against the system.
Actually, a shrinking strike zone does favor the long-ball hitters, while not helping the contact guys as much. Typically, the major-league batter hitting grounders is going to be able to slap down a ball anywhere he can reach it. He doesn't need the ball put "on a tee" for him to crush it; he just needs to swat it hard enough to get it past the infield sometimes, so he can get his .250-.300 average.
The power hitters tend to have a small zone where they are most dangerous (Kent Hrbec called it his "wheelhouse".) When you shrink the strike zone, you limit the choices of where a pitcher can throw, so they will end up putting the ball exactly in a home-run hitter's favorite spot a lot more often, resulting in more deep hits for guys like Bonds, Sosa, etc.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The real way to solve this is physical violence. Of course, if you're an ump athletes of this capability are only 60 feet, 6 inches away.
Nice job Curt
I love the fact that Curt Schilling beat the hell out of one of the cameras a few weeks back because the umpire told him it forced him to change his strike zone and Curt didn't like it.
"The QuesTec system judged that 32.1 percent of pitches were within the "strike zone", while the umpire called 31.4 percent as strikes."
.7% off of a human call and is somehow majorly flawed. Sounds to me like they are afraid of two things...looking like fools infront of an audience (ala replay challanges in the NFL) and or losing thier jobs. Either way I have better things to be doing than watching rich people get richer.
Ok that tells me that the machine is very very close to making the calls exactly as a human umpire would. GJ, way to Tech!
"However, the umpires association has filed a complaint about the system's unreliability and incapability to replace the human 3-D, real-time view."
This tells me that the umps don't think the machine is at all acurate, yet the numbers match human calls. Does that mean the human calls are just as flawed as the umps complain these machines are?
I don't understand how somthing is only
Apple free since 1990!
Your premise is patently absurd, as most big hitters "sweet spots" are either down and away off the plate, or else tight in and down. Both spots which would be called balls by properly calling the strike zone according to the rules. Forcing more pitches there directly takes away more "good to hit" pitches, contrary to your assertion.
If the problem is the strike zone as written, then change the rules. Otherwise call the strike zone by the book. Simple as that.
I say screw cameras and use IR lasers. Set up racks of horizontal and vertical lasers with parallel beams across (and down onto) home plate, set to unique pulse signatures. Analysis of the reflection determines the ball's exact location, which is then easily compared to a table of a batter's officially calculated strike zone.
Umpires have plenty of other roles in the game. They don't need this one, when machines can do the job more effectively. Line judges in tennis, on the other hand...01101110011011110010000001111001011011110111010100 10000001100001011100100110010100100000011011100110 111101110100
"I say screw cameras and use IR lasers"
That still doesn't do much for the game. Replace this IR lasers with the searing bright beam of a heat laser, and now you might have some excitement added to the sport.
Zoom lenses are lenses with variable focal lengths. The term you're searching unsuccessfully for is telephoto lenses (technically, a lens whose physical length is shorter than its focal length, though in layman's terms it's a long lens which appears to bring distant objects closer).
Furthermore, there is no such thing as depth of view. Depth of field on the other hand is the area ahead of and behind the focal plane which is considered to be in "acceptable" focus. With a long focal length depth of field certainly does shrink relative to shorter focal lengths, but using an appropriately wide aperture can compensate for this as any photographer with the slightest bit of education can tell you. Given the super high-speed film used in these cameras, the accordingly fast shutter speeds would not be a problem.
There is certainly some compression of perspective, but to claim objects 50 feet apart are rendered on the same plane is ridiculous.
Please take a basic course in optics or photography before "educating" us any more, thanks.
and should be left that way.
The article said 32% of pitches were called strikes? Either Sandy Alderson made a mistake, or the author got things reversed. About 1/3 of pitches are balls, not strikes.
Relax man. All he was saying was that making $100k a year means you are a middle class individual. Your economic status does not declare your moral composition and he never said anything to imply as much.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
if the machine can do it better than a human then lets let machines do it. Screw those that say this ruins our wonderful tradition (is this the same tradition that led players to strike and wipe out a whole season!!!) Im not saying that this is the system to install, but i have seen PLENTY of BAD calls in MLB...and for what those umpires get paid it is unacceptable. I bleieve that one day we will use playback and computers to make the games officiated as fair as possible. Which will be WAY beyond what any human ref/ump will ever be able to do. Or do you not think that a machine can be built that will out perform humans for specific tasks. If you do then you sir are destined to be made a fool of...
. I love the sound of burning women and screaming rubber....
Why do you need a system to evaluate the people who are supposed to be evaluating the game when you could just cut out the middle man and have the system evaluate the game in the first place?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
"Behind the catcher, behind the pitcher ,in between them? It must also take into account the batter? Do we put reflectors on the batter?"
Each batter is given a light-sabre bat (no cork in it, of course). These are then used to deflect any stray laser beam that might come their way.
of course it can't match the human 3D view... it has well more than 2 cameras, so matching 3D would actually be a degradation.
tennis already has this, and baseball should follow suit. no umps on the field, every call done in real time by machines.
sports are there for one reason: betting. and i don't want my $100 bet governed by a drunken second base ump that has $100 on the other team.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
A machine could have x-rayed the bat and determined the corked status before Sosa picked it up.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
A tiny difference in total called strikes versus balls is irrelevant. Umps don't have problems calling the obvious ones, it's the on-the-edge uncertanties that cause trouble. I'm more interested in what percentage of "difficult calls" were different.
GL
I was a catcher for most of the years I played baseball--as a catcher you get more time than anyone viewing balls & strikes from the same perspective (physically not figuratively) as the umpire. I caught games with exceptional umpire, ones who were absolutely clueless and worst of all, some that actually behaved with both bias and malice. But my biggest gripe of all is that even the best umpires change their strikezone depending on the situation. A 3-0 count means that pitches not even close to the strikezone with a 1-1 count are called strikes. As a player you certainly know this and deal with it but that doesn't make it right. It's only a shade of gray away from calling a baserunner save when he's obviously out if batting team is losing. A strike should always be a strike and unfortunately the human ups don't act that way. Yes it's all part of the game and all that--BUT at some point there's no reason a flawless non-human system for judging balls and strikes cannot be created. Whether QuesTec is there or not, the real issue: when (not if) some one comes up with a flawless system which gets every pitch right, should it be adopted? Personally I think yes. Competitive sports are about...competition. You play to win and anything that can be done to ensure that the competition is fair and honest for both sides needs to be done.
Vote Quimby.
ehh...sports on a geek site? interesting...whats next...how to build corked computers?
Are you crazy? Allowing aluminum bats in the big leagues would be suicide for every pitcher out there! Personally, I don't know why they keep them in college ball. Getting hit with a 95mph pitch coming off of Barry Bonds' aluminum bat just doesn't sound like much fun to me (not that getting hit with a ball coming off of a wooden bat sounds like fun either...)
However I do agree that umpires aren't going anywhere. Their inconsitancies make the game more random, and thus more enjoyable (at least for me).
Damn straight. If they can't even do that they don't deserve a job. So any further discussion takes that as an assumption. However, I don't believe in that "benefit of the doubt" crap. If it's a strike, call it a strike. I've never agreed with giving the rookie a strikezone the size of a thimble, but giving Maddux a zone the size of a truck. I don't like that for the same reason I don't watch professional wrestling or the NBA: it's fake.
However, ball/strike calls are always quite a bit subjective
I would contend that is the entire problem. Clean that "each ump has his own zone" thing and it's no longer subjective. I consider that a Good Thing.
The major league strike zone has long tended to be a bit shorter (knees to a bit above the belt rather than knees to halfway between the belt and the shoulders) and a bit wider (a ball width or two wider than the plate itself) than the rulebook strike zone, which makes the game better by allowing finesse pitchers to make good pitches, without calling any locations that hitters simply can't reach a strike.
That's been mainly recently since baseball hasn't had a commissioner to ensure that the umps do their jobs. I'm fairly sure that this was not the case in the 70's, and even in the early 90's it wasn't a problem like it is now. And if the strikezone would be better if changed, change it. But allowing an ump to have "his own" zone is retarded. We don't let NFL officials decide to widen the field, do we? It would be pretty stupid, huh? Well, the plate is as well-defined a boundary as the NFL field.
Also, human umpires are much more likely to call a strike if the catcher makes the pitch good: if the catcher sets up on the outside corner, and the pitcher puts it right in the middle of the glove, a good ump will call it a strike, where as if the catcher sets up on the inside corner, and the pitch goes to the outside corner, making the catcher lunge across the plate to catch the pitch, the pitcher is not getting the call if it's close.
Quite frankly, I would say it's the umps we need to get RID of that are fooled by this junk. Yes, a good catcher can frame pitches. Why is this a good thing? There is NOTHING in the rule book to suggest the legitimacy of this sort of nonsense. So if a pitcher sets his catcher up a foot outside the strike zone and hits his spot, it's a strike? I don't think so. If an NFL receiver runs his route out of bounds and the QB launches a perfect throw to him, is it a catch? No! Baseball seems to be a little overboard with this junk.
Part of the reason for this is that the catcher is making the ump look like a fool by calling the pitch a strike if the catcher has to lunge for it. All the umpires in the stands have no idea if a pitch is inside or outside--you simply can't tell unless you're right behind the plate.
Well, now that we have the Questec system, he can set aside his fear of actually doing his job since the system will back him up. Additionally, the angle on freaking TV is good enough to call balls and strikes pretty accurately if you know how to account for the distortion, which is easy for lifelong baseball fans. And any umpire that would intentionally blow a call to avoid getting the fans on his back doesn't deserve a job.
The catcher's movement is all that most fans and players on the bench have to go by, so the catcher is expected to help the ump to make the call on a close pitch.
I wasn't aware the catcher was a neutral observer in this situation. The catcher's job is t
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
TV cricket commentators have had a similar system, called Hawkeye, for years now. It calculates the trajectory of a cricket ball and can determine whether the ball would have hit the stumps or not had their leg not been in the way, which is of importance in judging whether someone is out LBW or not. There were a few teething problems and as far as I know it isn't used by the third umpire, but generally the agreement between hawkeye and the human umpires is very close; the human umpires err on the side of "not out", but that is in accordance with the laws of the game.
We do this too.
On TV even!
I work for Sportvision, and we do K-Zone, on ESPN.
K-Zone does something quite similar to QuesTec, except that we put the strikezone in the video, for real.
I.e. we don't render a seperate 3d virtual world, our virtual world IS the real world (or at least, it verrrrry closely corresponds, since we work very hard to ensure that it is so).
Since I work for Sportvision, I can't talk about their product, but I can tell you that our product is quite good at tracking the pitches (optically), and we're also quite good at putting the video up where it is supposed to be (not to mention sizing the strikezone the way the rules state it should be sized, as opposed to having a fixed strikezone size).
Of course, I believe that the above poster is accurate, at least with regards to Sportvision's system-- Wouldn't you be unhappy (and searching for means to get rid of such a device) if there was a device that showed how you made mistakes in front of a national audience?? I know I sure as heck would!!
We also do other things, like tracking cars using differential GPS in Nascar Winston Cup events (soon to be the Nextel Cup.. I'm afraid of the fact that I know such things now..!!), and putting down virtual (yellow) first down lines for football games (on many different broadcasts), and puttind flags 'under' the ice for Olympic speedskating.
Anyway, that was a "ME Too!!" =)
If you want to check out our propaganda, we have a website at the obvious address of: www.sportvision.com
No I don't speak for the company, I'm just a grunt, but I'm proud of my work.
Oh, and did I mention? We use Linux to make those all of our Nascar real-time special effects (things that point at cars, things that show how fast a car is relative to the pole car at any point on the track, etc, etc)
Do we use Windows too? Yup, but I like my linux boxes better =)
Calling balls and strikes have and always will be up to the umpire behind the plate and some other factors such as:
1) The pitcher - A young pitcher or one with ill repute, will not get the same calls as a veteran or a good pitcher. Example, Jae Seo won't get the outside calls that Maddux will get. The umpires will give Maddux the outside corners or call higher pitches a strike...
2) The batter - Barry Bonds crowds the plate. He stands over that thing and leaves the pitcher with half a plate to pitch to him. An inside pitch on Barry will not be a strike. That same pitch on a rookie or someone like Roberto Alomar would be a strike.
3) The catcher - Good catchers have the ability to move their glove into the strike zone to make it appear that a stike has been thrown.
No machine will ever replace the plate umpire because purists will go nuts and it has shown that it is not superior in determining strikes.
In sports such as hockey, football and basketball, I feel replay and computer assisted officiating can be effective, but baseball is a game of inches and without definite markings of having a strike zone, balls and strikes will always be subjective to many factors but mainly the umpire.
Go Yankees!
100% Insightful
it will be just like Neverwinter Nights:
It's interesting, but lacking the flavor of playing AD&D with real people, munchkins, and rule laywers.
Half the fun is bitching about stupid decisions by guys dressed like clowns, not to mention dumb calls by umpires.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
From definitions section the Official Rules of Major League Baseball:
The rule is constructed to allow hitters to adjust their stance according to their distance from the plate. A hitter who likes pitches closer to him can stand closer to the plate; a hitter who likes to extend to hit the ball can stand further from the plate. The point, though, is that the strike zone is over the plate, not a particular distance from the hitter.
The problem with umpires is that they often will call an outside pitch a strike if a player is standing close to the plate, or an inside pitch a strike if a player is standing in the back of the batter's box. This is essentially trashing the intent of the rule.
Umpires need to call strikes when the ball is over the plate. Better yet, umpires should be kept off the field and used only to remove unruly players and to make judgment calls (using instant replay and such) on very close plays. Otherwise, take advantage of technology and get umpires out of the way.
Of course, I like umpires there. So maybe there is a happy medium here. If umpires start calling strikes as they should be called, they can stay. :-)
Don't get me started on that. That's a good point - the way that the catcher's box and the batter's boxes aren't regulated creates serious problems for the game. You address the catcher's box - you have catchers setting up outside, then they have the audacity to get pissed if the batter sees this out of his peripheral vision.
And how about the batter's box - you have guys standing behind it and inside of it, meaning they're practically sitting on the catcher. I've seen the catcher get called for interference when the bat hit his glove - because the batter was like a foot behind the box. And they lean over the plate, then charge the mound if the pitcher throws an inch inside off the plate. All these situations could be fixed by having umps apply the damned rules.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
You have human umpires just as you have human players. For umpire assistance, I'd take some form of instant replay (like in the NFL) over this system.
Major League Baseball has told umpires previously to call more strikes (pitches on the black or even an inch or two off) including calling the high strike (from the belt to the letters or bottom of the armpit). This speeds up the game and forces batters to swing at these pitches, since it will be called a strike.
Let the games be decided on who hits the ball where, who catches it, and who scores runs, not on balls and strikes called by the umpire.
Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!
For the die-hard Baseball fans in Slashdot land, You should really be over at Baseball Prospectus
Many of the new articles are for pay subscribers, but they do have one free article a day, and all free articles archived:
Such as the Difficult Job Humans have judging the strike zone.
Hopefully this doesnt Slashdot the site, since I still have a few new articles to read tonight.
(Yes they do occasionally have insightful articles)
Contact your local Little League association and volunteer to be an umpire for a season.
You'll be helping them out -- and you'll get some life lessons for free.
I have heard the arguments. And I agree with the umps. The system is still aparently run by another human being, and from what I heard discussed on ESPN, the results were VERY different between last year, when they had minor league umpires running the system, and this year, when they hired joe schmoe off the street to run it. If there is still a human element in the system that is judging the judges, what the hell is the point.
hmmmm?
The real reason is that they don't want to be embarrassed. If they call it a "ball" and the device shows that it was a strike, who is going to be believed? Do this a few times a game, and the umpires are going to be embarrassed.
At least with video replays on TV, you still don't really see the whole picture on it because of the angles it is set at.
I side with the umpires on this one, it's not needed.
Vip
PS. I'm not a baseball fan
If real umpires are ever replaced, which I KNOW isn't the main point of this article blah blah blah, the good news is the digital umpires can't have heart attacks. Well unless they run windows. Insensitivity and talking shit about windows in the same sentence. Talk about slashdot to the "T".
./revolution
Well, the fact that the MLB strike zone has been creeping steadily outwards and downwards for the past decade or so is a long-standing rant of mine that I won't subject /. to.
But I think there's an instructive example in a sport I participate in, fencing. A few years ago, they (the US Fencing Association) tried to add accelerometers to the sabers because there was a feeling that judges were calling whipover-vs.-remise too subjectively. The rule said a saber needed to be accelerating at X cm/s^2 to be a valid touch, and this was fairly easy to measure with a mercury switch in the pommel (though getting those switches to work reliably was another story...)
Problem was, it really changed how the sport was played. It turns out judges had been calling hits that were moving far too slowly for years, and whole styles of fencing were no longer viable (particularly point-in-line wrist stops, which I tend to use). And, just like way back when they added the electric box and sensors, it made the whole thing a little bit less "flashy"; there was no more trying to impress the judge. It gained some standardization but lost a lot of finesse. The fencers didn't like it, the judges didn't like it, and after about a year they got rid of them.
Umps strike me as being in a somewhat similar situation: they have to make irrevocable decisions about events that happen 6 feet away at hundreds of miles per hour. Nobody likes all their calls, and a certain part of the game comes to be playing "to the judge", as it were. And that becomes part of your strategy, part of what the game is; it makes it a little richer and more interesting, even if you occasionally lose from an obviously wrong call.
Anyways, just an old fencer's advice: don't take away the subjective aspects of the game. They're sometimes some of the best parts.
All's true that is mistrusted
Looks like Fox Sports is using the same umpire data reporting system. They're baking the telemetry data into a video game: http://www.hitthepros.com/
There are two problems with the questec system. First, it does nothing. You can't overrule a call. It doesn't markedly better than humans. It's not even used to determine who calls the World Series. Yet, the umpires are being held up to the machine. Therefore, it superfluous at best, and a distraction at worse.
Secondly (and here's the real rub) a questec ball/strike isn't necessarily a legal ball/strike. The rule is that the ball must cross the plate. The questec system only checks where the ball is in relation to the front of the plate. If the ball tails over the plate later, questec call is it a ball, but it's legally a strike. A real umpire knows this. The machine doesn't. That was
the whole point Curt Shilling was making.
Yet another craptacular thing brought to baseball by Bud Selig -- The Man with the Reverse Midas Touch.
Obviously you have not watched Illie Nastase during the first years of the use of electronic machines in tennis matches...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Umpires, WITH their human quirks and weaknesses, are part of the game of baseball."
Exactly. Read up on the legendary "battles" between John McGraw and Bill Klem...
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy