I’m not one of those early adopters. I don’t eat kale — or any other food that starts with a K. In a pinch, maybe kidney beans, but after that I draw a line in the kitchen.
Like a lot of traditionalists, I railed against the shot clock when it hit college basketball. The difference being that I still oppose it.
As a teenager, I learned to write using a typewriter, and I swore I’d never convert to a computer. OK, I was wrong about that.
And now — speaking of K’s — baseball traditionalists are freaking out about the possibility that computers will soon be used to call balls and strikes. Because, after all, umpires do such a great job. We’ll examine that question in a moment, but first let’s look at the arguments against using the likes of FoxTrax (no relation to Fox News) and K-Zone (which is ESPN’s version).
First, however, let’s assume that anyone reading this screed has seen the on-screen strike zone graphic. Meaning, if you care, you know that umpiring, without the aid of technology, is an inexact science.
Now, then, let’s consider the Human Element argument. You know – using a mind-boggling array of cameras, algorithms and computers to call balls and strikes might be more accurate, but once you cross that line it’s just a matter of time before robots will be playing the game. If you don’t like that one, try this: part of the mystery and drama of the game is the uncertainty that comes with imperfection. In other words, it’s fun to see the outcome of games changed by porcine buffoons who believe that people pay $100 to see guys blow about a third of all close calls.
So let us go on to the next argument: it’s really fun to watch players and managers yell at umpires, bump them in the chest, get ejected, then get suspended for three games, and then go to arbitration and have the suspension reduced to one game. Maybe. I guess that’s just a matter of taste. But after you’ve seen a few thousand of these arguments, you’ve seen them all. In fact, I’d rather see robots argue with umpires than have to watch those predictable scenes one more time. (Does anyone doubt that some of these blue-clad Paleolithic Poltroons would try to eject a robot or two? Which, come to think of it, would be more fun than your typical 210-minute affair featuring eight pitchers, 15 walks and nine almost-challenges.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpS-XFXxJvE
Besides, there are still going to be plenty of petty disputes for athletes to prosecute. Batters will still charge the mound, benches will still empty and petulant millionaires in children’s outfits will still take a swing or two; and, yes, there will still be ejections, suspensions, arbitration…you get the point.
For that matter, there will still be umpires. So sad.
Besides, in most other settings, the human element argument would be simply inane. If you want that human element, how about having a person stand at the finish line of a horse race and then yell out who won and who finished second, third and fourth — all based entirely on first impressions? Because we all know how reliable eyewitness reports are. Hey, it’s the human element. So what if you lose that $800 exacta because of the whims of a guy making $11 an hour?
You think you’ve seen some pretty good baseball disputes? How about 10,000 gamblers tearing up Churchill Downs after the Human Element decides that the wrong horse just won the Kentucky Derby? (For the record, I don’t happen to care which oil sheik or plantation owner wins the Derby.)
In fact, technology has already dramatically altered baseball. In theory, the strike zone is nothing more than a rule. It’s right there, in black and white, defined in the rulebook. But before we could actually see evidence that umpires were beyond fallible — does the word corrupt come to mind? — it was accepted, and usually without indignation, that umpires had their own strike zone. Maybe this particular strike zone was a bit wide, or not quite low enough. No matter. Because, as your least favorite announcer would say, “I don’t care if he’s got a big strike zone, so long as he’s consistent.”
What the hell? In other words, I don’t care if he doesn’t enforce the rules, so long as he consistently fails to enforce the rules. Noooo. That’s like saying, I don’t care if he consistently says runners are out at first when they actually beat the throw. Just so long as he’s wrong consistently.
Funny thing: you don’t hear about those high or low or wide or batter’s or pitcher’s strike zones so much these days. And that’s because the FoxTrax and K-Zone have already improved the game by shaming umpires into being more accurate.
The problem is that umpires still have a long way to go, because they’re human — and some of them barely even that. (My apologies if you have an offspring who is employed as an umpire. It’s probably not your fault. Probably just something in the DNA.)
Last year, the HBO show Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel tore the lid off any illusion that baseball’s arbiters are not, well, arbitrary. A Yale prof, Toby Moskowitz, used the same technology employed by ESPN and Fox to analyze something like a million pitches thrown over a period of more than three-and-a-half years.
The results? About what an authority-hater would expect. If you think an accuracy rate of 88 percent is acceptable, and you think pigs might look good wearing tuxedos, then maybe you’re OK with the findings. But there’s more to the story.
The acid test came with the pitches that were within two inches (either way) of the strike zone. Good news! The umpires were actually better than a flipped coin, to the tune of being wrong at a rate of a mere 31.7 percent. Maybe not what we would hope for, but I doubt that most of us come close to that kind of success when we have to make important decisions — say choosing the right job, the right place to live, the right mate. On the other hand, umpires have just the two choices, so maybe that 68.3 success rate on the close ones isn’t all that it could be.
Anyway, you could add, the mistakes even out. Is that right? So, in other words, who cares that the umpire consistently jobbed your team in the seventh game of the World Series? The next time your team is in the World Series, the umps will job the other team. Is that your logic?
Sadly, fans — and players — can wait a lifetime for a chance to win that big game. I know: misplaced priorities, there are things that matter a whole lot more, blabbedy-effing-blah. And yet what makes these moments so special is precisely the fact that they’re so fleeting.
HBO’s case in point was the 2011 World Series. The sophisticated technology demonstrated that in the seventh game, home plate ump Jerry Layne missed 14 calls in favor of the Cardinals — the home team, of course — and only three in favor of the visiting Rangers.
The Cardinals won the game, 6-2.
In the end, technology’s relationship to sports might remain an open marriage. Faithful when it’s convenient, perhaps. But there’s still a happy ending, because even if umpires are sometimes emasculated, they’ll still have other things they can mess up. Which is OK, because it means we’ll always have a scapegoat when we (I) lose a bet; and, best of all, the more we spurn technology, the more jobs we have for people who would otherwise be unemployable.
