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Baseball Players Want Robots To Be Their Umps (technologyreview.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

The sports world has been dealing with the human error of referees and umpires for decades -- it's pretty much tradition at this point. But with technology that can assess the game more accurately, some athletes are ready to push the people calling balls and strikes off the field in favor of technology. From a report: On Tuesday, Chicago Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist, one of the most vocal supporters of turning over baseball rulings to software, used an argument with the umpire as a chance to advocate for a change in the league. The comment reinvigorated a long-standing debate over automation in sports. You're out! As you watch baseball on television, a graphic is often overlaid on the action that shows in real time whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. But human umps are still making the calls on the field based on nothing but their own eyes. Increasingly, viewers and players would rather have the technology take over.

7 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Seems reasonable by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems reasonable ... we want the game play to be human, but mechanical tasks like measuring what was where when, why not automate them?

    1. Re:Seems reasonable by E-Rock · · Score: 4, Informative

      This isn't even going to instant replay. It's a real-time overlay of the pitch that shows if it's a strike or not. The ump is very often wrong. The announcers don't even skip a beat, they just say, he's calling strikes a little outside tonight.

      I think Baseball is hella-boring, but this is cool enough that you should check it out. If you scrub through this you can see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6EDJ7IHfGE

  2. That's a terrible idea by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Informative

    half the fun of a baseball game is bad calls from the Umpire. Next thing you know they'll wanna replace the beer and hotdogs.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:That's a terrible idea by Falos · · Score: 3, Funny

      six kinds of beans, plus several things that look like beans

  3. I think we should have robots as players by JoeyRox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since they're all juiced up anyway. The game has become a contest of who has access to the best 'roids.

  4. How about a halfway approach by magarity · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Give the umpires something along the lines of Google glasses that overlay the baseball strike zone in real time like the TV coverage?

  5. Re:Sprite Collision by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Informative

    Machines are great at determining play-field collisions in 2d. That's, pretty much, what a strike box is. Either the ball is inside or outside the box. Sure the box is moving but it's still not insanely complicated to compute.

    Now talk about the catcher tagging out a runner - you've got a 3d object (the ball) that is usually inside another 3d object (the mitt) that needs to fully touch another 3d object (the runner) within 3d space. Unless you have full coverage of every conceivable angle I'm not sure how you can make a reliable call - at least significantly more reliable than an umpire.

    I don't think anyone is requesting to replace umpires completely but rather just for the strikezone. The strikezone is the easiest for computers and the hardest and most error prone for the umpire. Basically, like all other automation, let the computer do what it is good at and the human do what it is good at.