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