USA TODAY International Edition
Inside the debut of robot umpires
YORK, Pa. – It came on the first pitch in an all-star game in front of a few thousand fans.
York Revolution starting pitcher Mitch Atkins fired a fastball just off the center of the plate.
The home plate umpire signaled a “strike.”
But a computerized radar system actually made the call – for the first time in professional baseball history.
It came during Wednesday evening’s Atlantic League of Professional Baseball All-Star Game at PeoplesBank Park, home of the York Revolution.
The leadoff batter watched the first pitch of the game sail into the catcher’s mitt. Despite the historic change, most everything at least seemed to go as usual, at least to fans watching.
This was the long-awaited debut of the automated ball-strike system (ABS), the beginning of a testing ground for the rest of this summer. This rules initiative trial results from a recent partnership between MLB and the Atlantic League.
Here’s how the new balls and strikes technology works: An official in the press box monitors a laptop running the TrackMan radar system that electronically determines balls and strikes. That information is immediately relayed to the umpire using a wireless earpiece.
The pitches are tracked through a Doppler radar screen high above home plate. The radar system measures a player’s height and creates a strike zone.
No doubt, the change will take a while for pitchers and hitters to adjust.
Atkins seemed unsure about it after throwing his one inning on Wednesday. He said it will take a while to adjust to getting high and low strikes called in his favor. Same for a truer but tighter strike zone on inside and outside pitches.
He also noticed a delay in balls and strikes calls that fans might have not.
“Some of the pitches they call strikes (now) don’t look like strikes. It looks like a ball and TrackMan calls it a strike,” Atkins said. “It’s just different. Every pitch I’ve thrown (high in the strike zone) has been a ball my whole career, since I was 6 years old until now. It’s different to see them called a strike. I like the human umpire, but I’ve been playing a long time. I’m old school.”
The push continues for the ballsstrikes system to follow instant replay into the minor and major leagues. The potential positives include speeding up play by eliminating the urge for batters and managers to argue balls and strikes.
“We want to get it right. So if this helps the game and the officiating of the game, that’s what we’re here for,” said Brian deBrauwere, who was the home plate umpire Wednesday.
Umpires’ jobs actually won’t change much, he said, because they must be ready to make their own balls-strikes call if the radar system malfunctions or stalls.
He confirmed that the computerized strike zone will expand in the upper and lower zones but shrink a bit on the inside and outside. He said umpires are taught not to call low strikes on breaking pitches that drop out of the zone.
“If you ask a baseball purist, they’ll hate it,” deBrauwere said. “They love the manager coming out of the dugout and yelling at the home plate umpire. They love the hitter telling the umpire he’s wrong after he strikes out.
“This system will completely change all that.”