Why do we still have umpires calling balls and strikes?

[Dr. Zaus]

Love me some XKCD, mouseover text is often just as good.

The thrower started hitting the bats too much, so the king of the game told him to leave and brought out another thrower from thrower jail.

edit: wow, the newest one. No wonder I haven't seen it yet.

I thought "Perhaps Randall was reading this thread and decided to do a comic on it"

But then I thought "no, comics are likely done months in advance and just set to be posted"

Then I thought "But then he could have changed the order because of this thread"

And then I thought "no"

 

[BoomerD]

And...along the same lines, the NFL and even college football fields should have RFID trackers planted in the turf at 1" x 1" spacing...the football should have RFID transmitters in them, at each end and around the center of the ball. Every player should have RFID transmitters in his uniform and in his shoes.

They call it a game of inches...yet spotting the ball is random as hell much of the time. How the fuck can they measure 10 yards with the chains when the actual spot is arbitrary?
Eliminate the human element in referring and umpiring the games. Leave the players as the human elements.

 

[cubby1223]

And...along the same lines, the NFL and even college football fields should have RFID trackers planted in the turf at 1" x 1" spacing...the football should have RFID transmitters in them, at each end and around the center of the ball. Every player should have RFID transmitters in his uniform and in his shoes.

They call it a game of inches...yet spotting the ball is random as hell much of the time. How the fuck can they measure 10 yards with the chains when the actual spot is arbitrary?
Eliminate the human element in referring and umpiring the games. Leave the players as the human elements.

Start up a business, develop the systems needed to pull this off. If it can be successfully implemented, better accuracy, quicker speed, you will have no problems selling this to the leagues.

Fortunately for baseball, the new technology has already been developed, tested, and implemented. The only thing left to do is to deactivate the legacy systems a.k.a. the umpires.

 

[sao123]

And...along the same lines, the NFL and even college football fields should have RFID trackers planted in the turf at 1" x 1" spacing...the football should have RFID transmitters in them, at each end and around the center of the ball. Every player should have RFID transmitters in his uniform and in his shoes.

They call it a game of inches...yet spotting the ball is random as hell much of the time. How the fuck can they measure 10 yards with the chains when the actual spot is arbitrary?
Eliminate the human element in referring and umpiring the games. Leave the players as the human elements.

Why even play the game? They should just show up on Sunday and have an 11 on 11 game of Madden on the PlayStation 42?

 

[Homerboy]

I used to think the same thing when I was younger (part of me still does). Interestingly though as I've gotten more and more and MORE into baseball as my son has progressed through the sport and I have coached and been to countless games, I realized that part of being a hitter and/or pitcher is figuring out the strike zone for that ump. While strike zones are technically defined, the human element of an ump calling balls and strikes, adds an additional level of complexity to one of the hardest things in sports to do.

I really REALLY don't want this to ever become automated. There needs to be some human element left in sports.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Damn commie scum OP wants to ruin an American tradition... why do you hate America? Why do you want to destroy our country?

 

[Scarpozzi]

Replace them with cameras and sensors? Wouldn't you be afraid the umpire would strike back?

 

[notposting]

I think Ars just did a feature on the RFID thing in (US) football. They aren't doing the ball, and not releasing all the data (of course) but all players are being tracked accurately.

They could easily do this sort of thing. Same when they whine, "oh not all of our stadiums have HD cameras, or enough of them, or slo-mo, or blah blah blah". Cry me a river.

And how many times do we need to see some random piecemeal "gee that can't be reviewed so maybe it will be added to the list in 3 years" crap with replay?

As for foul calls, penalties (both in-game and post-game), and refs/umps: allow replays when the officials want them. Start grading officials every season and low performers are out - perhaps only use most recent season to average it out for them. This should help getting officials in who understand technology, keep up to date on rules, and aren't so prideful that they won't check replay. Penalties should be called evenly of course, and more importantly, in the post game scenarios, drop the hammer regardless of result. Crosscheck a guy from behind headfirst into the boards? Doesn't matter if he's a vegetable this time or not, buh-bye. ( Now a good fight? Those can stay ) Oh, and officials in any large money sport should be full time and paid decently.

 

[sm625]

why do you still wipe your butt?

we have bidets that do it much more clean and sanitary.

Your argument dont hold water. It is cheaper to wipe than to buy a bidet. In the case of umpiring it would definitely be cheaper to use cameras and computers than to hire all those umpires. Did you know that some umpires make over $300k a year?

 

[TallBill]

I used to think the same thing when I was younger (part of me still does). Interestingly though as I've gotten more and more and MORE into baseball as my son has progressed through the sport and I have coached and been to countless games, I realized that part of being a hitter and/or pitcher is figuring out the strike zone for that ump. While strike zones are technically defined, the human element of an ump calling balls and strikes, adds an additional level of complexity to one of the hardest things in sports to do.

I really REALLY don't want this to ever become automated. There needs to be some human element left in sports.

Nailed it right on the head. Cubby compared that attitude to promoting steroid use in another thread, but he's a special cubs fan.

 

[OverVolt]

Because humans are still better at it.

Would you want to wait every play for them to analyze everything?

For most of the calls the umpire is better. Yes they have the camera for close calls.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Tradition!!!

 

[Possessed Freak]

Wow all these comments about robots and virtual players. UMPIRES ARE NOT THE PLAYERS. They are not the competitors. They are there to ensure rulings. There might be a way to automate the ensuring of rulings.

Think of it this way, in the 100 meter dash, they used to have a referee look at the results and make a judgement call. Until photography/videography became good enough to do the photo finish. Did that RUIN the competition?

 

[OverVolt]

Wow all these comments about robots and virtual players. UMPIRES ARE NOT THE PLAYERS. They are not the competitors. They are there to ensure rulings. There might be a way to automate the ensuring of rulings.

Think of it this way, in the 100 meter dash, they used to have a referee look at the results and make a judgement call. Until photography/videography became good enough to do the photo finish. Did that RUIN the competition?

Yea they're called umpires.

 

[Homerboy]

Nailed it right on the head. Cubby compared that attitude to promoting steroid use in another thread, but he's a special cubs fan.

:thumbsup:

 

[Majes]

The only price I was able to find for the automated system is around $30,000. That's for the whole player tracking system, not just balls and strikes. I think if a system could be made cheap enough to be purchased down to the little league system you might see baseball go in this direction. Lord knows I've had enough bad umpires in my life...

 

[OverVolt]

The only price I was able to find for the automated system is around $30,000. That's for the whole player tracking system, not just balls and strikes. I think if a system could be made cheap enough to be purchased down to the little league system you might see baseball go in this direction. Lord knows I've had enough bad umpires in my life...

Love how people assume unproven technology works perfectly.

 

[digiram]

How are you supposed to rig sports with out refs... c'mon man

 

[Poulsonator]

I really REALLY don't want this to ever become automated. There needs to be some human element left in sports.

The *only* human element that matters are the actual players.

The problem with trying to figure out the ump's strike zone is that it's fluid and inconsistent. All of them always are, because they're human. I'm a lifelong baseball fan (41 years and counting), and pisses me off more than inconsistent balls and strikes. And it happens every game, and it will continue to happen every game until it's automated.

The umps are there to ensure the game is called and played correctly. I cannot fathom how anyone would be against properly calling a game, and the opposition against using technology to help umps. It's astonishing. I also think it's funny to see a technology board have so much opposition to this.

 

[Poulsonator]

Because humans are still better at it.

Love how people assume unproven technology works perfectly.

An automated system was used this year for two minor league games. Seemed to work out fine:

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/baseball-game-no-umpire/

Obviously with this tech being new, there will be kinks, but it's a lot closer to working perfectly than you think.

 

[OverVolt]

The *only* human element that matters are the actual players.

The problem with trying to figure out the ump's strike zone is that it's fluid and inconsistent. All of them always are, because they're human. I'm a lifelong baseball fan (41 years and counting), and pisses me off more than inconsistent balls and strikes. And it happens every game, and it will continue to happen every game until it's automated.

The umps are there to ensure the game is called and played correctly. I cannot fathom how anyone would be against properly calling a game, and the opposition against using technology to help umps. It's astonishing. I also think it's funny to see a technology board have so much opposition to this.

They already have cameras. If it close, they check.

 

[Poulsonator]

Not on balls and strikes.

 

[Homerboy]

An automated system was used this year for two minor league games. Seemed to work out fine:

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/baseball-game-no-umpire/

Obviously with this tech being new, there will be kinks, but it's a lot closer to working perfectly than you think.

VERY interesting read. Has me thinking (not convinced mind you), but thinking nonetheless. Interesting that it stops tracking before it hits the plate and has a margin of error of 1". Seems there's alternate ways this could be done though, like a RIFD in the ball and sensors covering the plate or something.

One of the things I love about baseball is the stats (I'm a numbers/stats nerd... what I do for a living in fact), so the more #s and datapoints that can be thrown out at me, the better.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

The center tagger lights a pinecone on fire and throws it to the player at whack-bat. The player hits the pinecone and runs to knock a cedar stick off the cross rods. Then the twig-runners dash back and forth until the pinecone burns out and the umpire calls "Hot box." Finally, the scoredowns are added up, then divided by nine.

 

[freeskier93]

And...along the same lines, the NFL and even college football fields should have RFID trackers planted in the turf at 1" x 1" spacing...the football should have RFID transmitters in them, at each end and around the center of the ball. Every player should have RFID transmitters in his uniform and in his shoes.

They call it a game of inches...yet spotting the ball is random as hell much of the time. How the fuck can they measure 10 yards with the chains when the actual spot is arbitrary?
Eliminate the human element in referring and umpiring the games. Leave the players as the human elements.

Tracking the ball is easy, but in football it's not just where is the ball it's where was the ball when the player was down. Or does the player have control of the ball. So along with a ball tracking system you also need to track when a player is down and detrrmine if they have control of the ball.