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. "

Comments

duh...

[edrugtrader]

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.