"Cabrera rounds third, he's headed for home!....and the throw to the plate is...he is...! ...we're waiting for the Hal 9050 cerbo-droid to compute the call.....he is...Out! What a throw by Baker, he threw it on a line, one hop to the catcher. Wait....this call is going to be challenged, it's going to the replay booth as the Red Sox manager has thrown the challenge towel onto the field....let's stand by while the three autobot Hal units cross-check each other..."
- Fox Sports broadcaster Joe Buck, October 2025
My buddy and I have had this ongoing debate recently about whether or not professional sports should turn completely to automated referees and umpires. The start of the baseball playoff season has only intensified our debate. On the one hand, there's the school of thought that the games are fine as they are - human error and all. Umpires and refs, their flaws, and human inadequacies, are just all part of the game and the overall sporting experience. The other perspective is based more on a win-at-all-costs approach, in that it's more important to get every call right because there's so much riding on professional sports these days.
My anguish and despair came to an all-time high the other day when my soul-less friend suggested that yes, even baseball should succumb to the advances of modern technology and replace umpires with automated units of some sort. When pressed how this could be realized, and to what end, his response was that it wasn't important how at this point, only that I embrace the concept because it was, indeed, more important to get the calls right than not. Typical retarded answer.
After dozens of minutes of verbal sparring, it was clear that reason was not going to win the day. How could I be so obtuse? What did I MEAN when I said that tradition and history were important? What was I TALKING about when I argued that the overall entertainment aspect included, and was meant to include, a walking, breathing, living entity, who yes for goodness-sakes, could influence the outcome of a game?
But it got me thinking - what if? Here, in Portland, not having the diversion of professional baseball (or football or hockey - Christ, what am I doing), we're often left to our own devices when it comes to exploring the nuances of professional sports, often living vicariously through friends, or a past-life left behind in whatever city we transplanted from. The multitude of brew-pubs, snazzy jazz-clubs, festive food-carts, and the new restaurant of the week makes it easy to find a quiet place and relax, and to ponder the chemically-altered gibberish that passes for rational thought in the minds of my pals back home.
So over a cold beer in a dark corner of my neighborhood pub, as I watched my beloved Detroit Tigers battle the bloated Yankee empire, I imagined a world where umpires were replaced by robots, machines, and computers. It could have been the IPA talking, but maybe this wasn't going to be so bad. After all, I'm a techie at heart, I love Sci-Fi, all that stuff. I can make this can work.
First on the list - Balls and Strikes. Need to get this one right, no more inconsistent strike zones and squeezing pitchers because they glared at the ump the wrong way. The solution here is simple - a combination of cameras and lasers. The cameras would be directly above home plate, mounted from...well, probably a long guide wire or metallic post stretching from the seats behind the plate. Another set of mini-cameras would be actually embedded in home plate itself, looking up as the ball crosses the plate. The ump would have to brush off the plate more frequently because the cameras would get cov...oh wait, there is no umpire anymore - dammit! Ok scratch the little cameras. No, hold on - I like the little cameras. We can give the batters a little brush and THEY can dust off the plate before batting and in between pitches.
As for the lasers - how cool is THAT - actual laser beams in a baseball game! We can mount these in home plate as well, right next to the cameras, so they beam up and can detect if a pitch doesn't cross the plate. Definitely going to need those little brushes. Of course, we'd have the problem of the back-door curveball, the wicked Eckersley-kind that just barely catches the back part of the plate. No problem here, just a couple of more lasers embedded in the angle-part of home plate will do the trick.
Next, we need to cover the basepaths - no more blown calls! No more should-have-been perfect games or playoff altering fan-interference miscues. Base umpires can easily be replaced by a series of sensors in and around the bags. Base umpires often make reference to the fact that they often go off of sound, rather than sight. The ball hitting the mitt makes a distinct sound, one they can easily differentiate from the sound of the shoe landing on the bag. This should be easy enough to computerize, we'll make a system that combines detecting the sound of the ball and comparing that against a sensor reading of when the runner hits the bag. Well, at least that will work for first base and force outs...not so much for tag plays. Or pick off attempts. Or pickles. Or the infield fly rule....
Ok, so there are many nuances of the game that I hadn't considered. Like, for instance, the balk. Or warning the benches when pitchers throw at batters. Or when a manager's visit to the mound is taking too long. Or giving a batter time out when a pitcher is taking too long.
Given where I've ended up, I have firmly concluded at this point that my friend's opinion is indeed a blathering pile of mule crap. We need real human umpires in baseball. Robots are cool, but save them for NASA and Sci-Fi movies - send one to George Lucas in case he remembers how to make a good one.
