And here some of us thought they ruined baseball when they came up with the designated hitter.
Isn't the whole point of baseball to push against the must-have-it-now world of modern America? Football has a clock. Basketball has a clock. Hockey has a clock. Hell, they'll even put you on a clock in a golf match. Everybody's in such a damn rush. But baseball is supposed to be pastoral. In both senses: It's played in a park, and that makes it close to God.
There's no bustle is baseball. You sit in the stands and enjoy being there. A dog and a beer. Any A-type personalities can keep a scorecard, if they must. The rest of us will just enjoy what John Updike called a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging out.
Yes, baseball long ago lost primacy as America's pastime. Maybe because football and basketball are better suited to today's attenuated attention spans. Some of us, however, still like a sport played on a diamond, in a park, with a seventh-inning stretch, where the object is to go home and be safe. (Carlin, George.)
About four years ago, some suit committed heresy by introducing the clock into the minor leagues. In an effort to speed up the game (!), pitch clocks are blistering minor-league parks all across the land. No word if any bishops burned the person who thought up that one.
And four weeks ago, we heard about the first robo-umpire, which is now working in the Atlantic League.
If this weren't so serious, we'd laugh. The independent Atlantic League is now using robots to call balls and strikes. No more "framing" the pitch by the catcher. A computer using mere technology will tell you if the pitch was inside or over the plate. For some reason, human umpires still stand behind the plate, but only to relay what the Apple AirPod tells them in their ears.
Why not robot hitters, too?
If this catches on, you wouldn't know from baseball. The pitch is supposed to be a strike if it's between the player's knees and midpoint of the torso. But players are different sizes. How's a computer to know who's at the plate? Is it going to call the same pitch for Eddie Gaedel and C.C. Sabathia? Such computer shenanigans take all the human play--that is, fun--out of the game.
We remember attending a ballgame at the University of Louisiana-Monroe decades ago. And listening to the home team's radio broadcast from a gentleman's boom box a few seats over.
The opposing team had been riding the umpire for a couple of innings, and the ump was getting sick of it. After one chirp too many, the lead-off hitter came to the plate for the bad guys. The first pitch of the inning came in fast, but three feet out of the strike zone. The catcher couldn't even make contact.
The umpire yelled "Strike!" as loud as he could, then glared at the visiting bench. We watched that team and its coaches shut up.
Thankfully, the game, even in the Atlantic League, is still being played and coached by homo supposedly sapiens. For now. For proof we give you Frank Viola.
Those of a certain age will remember the name. Frank "Sweet Music" Viola tore up batters in the 1980s with his circle change. (Make the OK sign with your throwing hand, and pitch with the three fingers still up.) He was named World Series MVP with the Twins during their run in 1987. The next year, Frank Viola took the Cy Young.
He knows the strike zone. Sparky Anderson once called him an artist. We still don't know if that was for his pitching prowess or his vocabulary. Because Frank Viola has both.
This week, as a pitching coach for the High Point Rockers (in North Carolina), he took issue with balls and strikes called by the robo-ump. And when the live ump didn't overturn a few of the calls, Frank Viola's language got interesting. And he was thrown out of the game.
Hooray for mankind! Human beings will use tools, but we will resist being used by them.
Those pushing these robo-umps say the real umps behind the plate make too many mistakes. Machines don't make mistakes? We give you the 1977 New York blackout. Besides, a mistake is fine now and then. It shows we're human.
Baseball has instant replay these days. The AL has the DH. There are lights at Wrigley.
Some changes--testing for drugs, requiring protective helmets at the plate--are for the good of the sport. Some changes are most definitely not.
Into which category do robo-umps fall? We'd let Frank Viola explain, but this is a family newspaper.
Editorial on 07/18/2019