Over the past few years, the world of sports has undergone a technological renaissance. Sensors and cameras can be found in almost every part of any major sport, every ball’s path can be traced precisely and plays can be replayed in real time, slow motion, hyper speed and 360 degrees. Yup, the world of sports as we know it today couldn’t exist without technology.
However, this futuristic, Jetson-esque mentality hasn’t always existed. Sports were once an industry that shuddered at the mere mention of change, especially when it came to technology. Old blowhards pontificated about the importance of maintaining the sanctity and tradition of the game, and insisted that such a thing could not be possible if we persisted in our efforts to integrate sports and technology. Instant replay, QB headsets, and goal line technology may as well have been the stuff of Sci-Fi Horror.
Of all the sacred traditions that old hats have fought to preserve over the years, calling balls and strikes is one that’s never been compromised. The home plate umpire is and has always been the anointed one—his word is gospel.
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So, it may come as a shock to some that, almost 70 years ago, Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers first tested an electronic umpire. Amidst an era when tradition was law and change was heresy, the Brooklyn Dodgers introduced a machine that encroached on one of the most hallowed human responsibilities in sports, a tradition we still hold in 2016—calling balls and strikes.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times recently published a great piece covering the 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers’ little off-season science experiment, and explained the machine in depth: “The…electronic umpire introduced that day used mirrors, lenses and photoelectric cells beneath home plate that would, after detecting a strike through three slots around the plate, emit electric impulses that illuminated what The Brooklyn Eagle called a ‘saucy red eye’ in a nearby cabinet.” In the 1950s, the Brooklyn Dodgers challenged the most sanctified institution in baseball—the word of the home plate umpire.
Brooklyn invested in the machine to train batters to better understand the strike zone. They never actually planned to implement the electronic umpire in live games. The mere suggestion of such a thing would have them excommunicated from the sport altogether.
However, as time passed and the world of sports evolved, they’ve opened their gates to technology. So much so that Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal suggests that our daily lives, including sports, have been saturated with technology. He wonders if electronic calling in sports is a good thing:
“Yes: having ordinary humans make calls will sometimes enrage us and cause us to want to run out into the street and yell at the birds. But it also means we’re engaged with other people. It means we are present. Vulnerable. It’s far from perfect, but that may be a feeling worth protecting.”
While there is certainly something to be said for preserving our uniquely human touch on the game, there is so much more to gain from the precision of electronic umpires than there might be to lose. Yes, if we implement a system of high-def cameras and advanced sensors to pinpoint the strike zone, we would be graduating from a tradition of behind the plate umpires that has worked for generations. That can be scary. However, countless games have been decided on the basis of balls and strikes, and eliminating the risk of human error where we could only help the sport.
Never again would we have to wonder “what could have been?” as a batter watches a called third strike for the final out in the bottom of the ninth. So much of the burden would be lifted from the shoulders of officiators, and players would be held accountable for their decisions at the plate. The change could speed up the game, and have a positive impact on Bryce Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun Again” initiative. A faster paced game with more precise calls could mean an entirely new identity for the game of baseball, which—as games are growing longer and fans of the digital generation are growing more and more impatient—could be exactly what the sport needs.
After years of dragging their feet, the sports industry as a whole serves as a glimmering example of what technology can do to enhance and improve the long celebrated traditions of sports. We’ve seen improvements in almost all aspects of sports: instant replays, radar guns, slow motion, pile-on cams, and more. Each innovation has improved the game in it own respective way. Why draw the line at balls and strikes? Rather than fear what the change would mean for old baseball tradition, imagine what it could do for the future of baseball.