I’m sitting with my dad watching a baseball game at home on the couch. This one at-bat is taking too long and both of us begin to slouch. Even my dad’s usual focus on the game seems to fade as he peeks inside the bag of chips, and rummages around for crumbs. I lean my head against my dad’s shoulder and for a fleeting moment, the white noise of the crowd at the stadium seems to lull me asleep at home. All of sudden, the batter is on first base. The umpire has called it a ball, and the tense three and two count has just become a walk. My dad sits up, and squints his eyes looking at the TV. He flails his arms and shrugs his shoulders and I sit up to figure out what is going on with my pillow. It seems to have been a somewhat controversial call, as the calm noise of people at game turns heated, and the umpire stoically ignores the jeers and boos from the stands. The announcers for the Fox TV broadcast discuss the call and play a replay for the viewers at home, with a strike-zone superimposed on the screen to help visualize the distinction between ball and strike. Watching the pitch again, it becomes clear that the call was wrong. It really had been a strike, but the batter is on base and my dad is frustrated. “Of course that was a strike,” my dad says to me, smiling and shaking his head.
Baseball, with its peanuts and crackerjacks, finds itself on the on the one hand steeped in American tradition, but on the other hand, has also evolved with changes made possible by modern innovation. Players no longer wear straw hats and woolen pantaloons, but instead wear uniforms, which wick sweat and more effectively keep themselves cool on the field. Computers have allowed for more robust and efficient tallying of figures and statistics, keeping commentators and spectators in the loop on hidden trends for a particular season. Technology has made it more convenient to buy tickets from the comfort of a laptop at home and when entering the stadium, fans patiently wait for the barcodes on the stubs to be scanned with a sliver of red light.
Yet, a set of trained human eye behind home plate still remains the grand arbiter of right and wrong, ball and strike, and safe and out. Fair and consistent adjudication seems central to sport itself. Over the course of a match or a game, there is a build up to the determination of victor and if rules are not enforced fairly throughout, the win loses some of its weight. Before, the human eye was the best tool available to make such calls, but now it seems that an upgrade sits on the bench waiting to be used. Cameras and computers seem like a logical upgrade.
Starting this past year during the playoffs, new replay review regulations were introduced to address some of these shortcomings. Team managers are granted one manager challenge at the start of each game. They have become the designated messengers to communicate disagreement with umpire call; if the official does not overturn a challenged call after review of a replay, the team manager has spent and wasted the team’s one challenge and they will have no future opportunities to challenge any determinations. If the call is overturned after replay review, the team will be granted one additional challenge. No team will ever be able to challenge calls from more than two plays in a given game. The specifics surrounding this rule change are extensive, taking into account different scenarios of simultaneous challenges from both teams, concerns of timeliness and efficiency of the challenges and more. A handful of important calls, including questioning whether a hit really was a homerun, whether a hit was fair or foul, whether a batter was really hit by a pitched ball, and more, are now eligible to be challenged by a team manager and have a replay review. Although the most basic call of strike and ball remains firmly in the hands of the umpire, with no challenges or replay review allow, this larger rule change seems to concede that technology and further review could result in a fairer game.
Similar mechanisms to challenge calls made on the account of the human eye also exist in many high profile tennis tournaments. In 2007, Wimbledon began to use the Hawk-Eye, a complex computerized camera system, to provide information on line calls and is reportedly accurate to within five millimeters. Now, players have unlimited challenge opportunities, but once they make three incorrect challenges that are not overturned, they are not allowed to make any more challenges during that given set. Wimbledon, the oldest and arguably most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, is a sports event steeped in tradition. Though a dress code requiring players to wear predominantly white uniforms still is followed, and the customary spectator snack of strawberries and cream remains popular to this day, the event has evolved to accommodate new technological tools and rulings.
In both these cases, technology has been introduced, but the gaze of the discerning, yet fallible umpire eyes remains. With the introduction of additional extra cameras and computers, the seemingly infallible data for each play or rally now exists in a way that it never has before. Still, that data more often than not remains untouched for purposes of making calls real time. The computer and the camera have been given a little playing time, but still find themselves spending most of their time in the dugout or on the sidelines.
For someone who has never seen baseball, it would appear quite silly and contrived. The game seems to boil down to someone swinging a polished stick at a small ball and running around in a circle. Yet, baseball is not confined solely to the literal actions and motions that constitute game play. The games are often serious business, with national pride, old rivalries, years of hard work, and money all on the line. It seems that giving technology a more prominent role could make these encounters with such high stakes fairer.
But to increasingly rely on computerized rulings would place a large emphasis on the activity, rather than other factors, which contribute to the spectacle of a baseball game. Baseball would approach becoming a mechanical repeated action, a sport that prioritizes precision and efficiency at all costs. Baseball games celebrate the humanity and the incredible feats players seem to accomplish with such ease and the history of certain teams and programs. Each player’s name is announced as he approaches the plate. Spectators can see how tall he is and how much he weighs. Of course, some players are bigger, others smaller, some young, some old. Batters stand and watch a ball approach the stands in the outfield when they think they have hit a home run, even though they should probably start running, just in case. Players show emotion, spit, chew gum, or wear their hair certain ways that might not be most advantageous for running around the bases or fielding a pop fly. The asymmetry of celebrating the humanity of the players and imposing a robotic, infallible umpire would tell a sterile story. As it stands, when two teams meet, one cannot predetermine the outcome. The players and umpires are human. The unpredictability keeps the players on the their toes, and continues to sell tickets.
My dad can still provide his backseat driver input from the comfort of the couch because he knows that he is disagreeing with another person, not a computer. Of course, he enjoys watching the game when good calls are made, in large part because he himself has come to those same conclusions, independently watching with his own set of eyes. His agreement with the umpire on a contentious play results in a small fist pump and exchange of high fives with others in the room or around him at the game in the bleachers. Although there is a frustration and good-natured anger in my dad’s voice when the umpire makes a mistake, there is also a satisfaction in knowing that he knew better than the trained professional. The fairest, cleanest games are not always the good games my dad remembers.