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posted by takyon on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the strike-three-for-humanity dept.

A small, but notable moment in baseball history occurred this week. In a US minor-league game between the San Rafael Pacifics and Vallejo Admirals, the home plate umpire did not call balls and strikes. Instead, a computerized video system was used to make the determinations, which were relayed by the game's announcer to the crowd cheering on the home team—and checking out the system's performance—at Albert Park in San Rafael, California.

The system, Pitchf/x from Chicago-based Sportvision, isn't new to baseball. It already provides data for evaluating players and umpires, and it helps TV viewers see where a pitch lands relative to the strike zone. But on July 28 it was used to make actual calls, marking the first time that's happened in professional baseball.

Maybe if Major League Baseball can save money on umpires they can lower ticket prices.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:05PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:05PM (#216787) Journal

    put your snark, if you can't help yourself, in the department line.

    I'm a submitter, not an editor. The editor does the department line.

    Snark is the sacred right of the submitter, and always has been since the early days of /. The very name /. was snark. If you don't like snark, then you keep the submission queue full with submissions using a tone you like. I shall be snarky until the day I die, because that's how I'm wired.

    There are packages for a family of four including food for around $60.

    And I can see professional live theater, dance, and concerts by world-class entertainers for free in New York. That you perceive $60 for a baseball game as inexpensive does not render factually incorrect that others perceive that as expensive. It's your opinion, as it is my opinion that that's a lot of money to sit around for four hours while getting soaked $5 for crappy hot dogs, $10 for crappy beer, all to see your team lose (if you're a Mets fan, or--shudder--a Cubs fan).

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 1) by gmrath on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:01PM

    by gmrath (4181) on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:01PM (#216827)

    The Cubs seem to be winning more than they are losing these days. Not first in their division, but still. . . Then again, there's always the '69 season to think about.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:57PM (#216845)

    And I can see professional live theater, dance, and concerts by world-class entertainers for free in New York.

    You can see live minor league baseball for $10-$15 and get excellent seats quite close to the action, in towns all over America. In any sport, there's quite a difference in price between "professional, much better than 99 percent of all amateurs" and "major league professional". And the same is true even in music and the arts.

  • (Score: 2) by bziman on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:15PM

    by bziman (3577) on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:15PM (#216850)

    Okay, I apologize for the confusion, takyon and Phoenix666 - if you look at the story as posted, the line "Maybe if Major League Baseball can save money on umpires they can lower ticket prices." is outside of Phoenix666's blockquote, and I therefore assumed it was written by takyon, the editor.

    I'm not saying baseball is cheap - it's just the cheapest of all the major American pro sports. I wouldn't pay any amount of money for a baseball game - I much prefer local musical theater (which is still really expensive, at least where I live).

    But I stick to my guns that a non-sequitor about umpire pay (which contributes only the tiniest fraction to the cost of a baseball ticket) is totally off topic in a discussion about using technology to improve the accuracy of the game. Though I know hard-core baseball fans that would counter argue that the human aspect of the game is the most important part.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:18PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:18PM (#216867) Journal

      The blockquote distinguishes an excerpt from the article. The line at the end is mine. It's not takyon's fault at all.

      Umpire pay is certainly not a non-sequitor to a baseball game that is umpired entirely by a computer. How could it be? There is a meme that is arising in the media now about computers and robots replacing people permanently. It's been a constant article of discussion in the Soylent and Slashdot communities for years. So if we have a real world example of how a robot/computer could replace and has replaced an entire kind of work, then how could we not discuss both the tech involved and the repercussions of the tech?

      Far from being totally off-topic, talking about the impact of replacing human umpires with computers could not be more totally on topic. If we as humans, as the "tool users" (technologists) sina qua non, do not consider the effects of those tools then we utterly fail the test of having them.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.