Alex Black

It’s a tale as old as time. A man, a “dude” if you will, watches America’s pastime on TV when he hears the cries of the masses. “Baseball is boring”. “I can’t watch this, it's too slow”. For decades, the issue of baseball taking up almost 20% of an entire day has swept the nation (and Toronto, Canada), but what if I told you Major League Baseball was implementing…robots?

In a 2022 article by David Pierce of the Verge, he writes on the MLB Commissioner's decision to implement the “Automated Ball-Strike System” into the major leagues at the start of the 2024 baseball season. This is one of the numerous changes Commissioner Rob Manfred has created in an effort to speed the games up. Before I get into specifics, however, I would like to delve into part of the history of Major League Baseball. William McLean was the first recorded umpire in baseball, having umpired the first game in National League history between Boston and Philadelphia in 1876…They would start getting paid in 1878. Before the classic standing pose that's seen today, they would sit in rocking chairs! Umpires have been around just as long as the game itself, and the human element has been a major part of the sport, bringing emotion out of fans from both teams whenever a call is made. Although infuriating 50% of the time, you can’t argue the energy and camaraderie experienced from screaming at a tiny little human who will not hear you to vent frustration.

Anyways, let's get to the boring number part now. Obviously having a machine officiate baseball games would eliminate human error, resulting in 100% accuracy, which makes the game the most fair. Umpires, no matter how much we don't want to admit it, are human beings. They make mistakes. And I am here to put them under the spotlight, for you to see. Using this handy tool I found, I can identify which umpires have the highest and lowest accuracy when calling games. Umpire Angel Hernandez has been called the worst umpire in MLB by many fans, players, coaches, and children, yet has also appeared in numerous postseason games, which would arguably be called the most important games during the MLB season. Eliminating someone as negligent as Angel Hernandez can only benefit the game of baseball, even if it's in the form of our soon to be robotic overlords.

There has been some success however, as MLB has used the minor leagues to test out their recent changes to the game, robot umpires being one of them. Similar to what you would see on the TV broadcast, they have definitely added to the game of baseball. 2024 is just around the corner, with new changes coming every year, I can’t begin to imagine what Manfred thinks to do next.

by Your friend and comrade