Famously in The Legend of John Henry, man battled and defeated machine in a test of strength and efficiency in digging a railroad tunnel. Of course, that effort cost Henry his life, and, as we know, only served as a precursor for bigger and faster machines that would inevitably replace humans in excruciating manual labor. The analogy is indirect, but the tale is still relevant in a looming conversation about baseball and automated officiating. More specifically, whether humans or machines are better at calling balls and strikes.
This isn’t a new story. It’s not even the first time I’ve talked about it on air. But for the first time in the Major Leagues, baseball will use an automated replay system to let teams challenge a pitch call from the umpire. While this has become a fixture in the minors, it’s the inaugural foray in the big leagues. There are some caveats. First, for now, it’s only during spring training. If things work out, it could make it to regular season as early as next spring. Second, teams only get two challenges a game. If you’re successful, you keep your challenge – meaning you could have more if you’re selective and the umps make a lot of bad calls. So it’s not like the whole thing gets turned over to machines. And you still could have a bad ball call decide game seven of the World Series. So no fear if your greatest joy in sports is blaming the refs for costing your team.
Even in this trial, baseball is privileging the human over the automated. That’s largely because the commissioner’s office believes, based on fan research, that people still like what we call the “human element,” which is really some hard-wired distrust of technology, especially compared to the judgement capacity of actual people. Baseball fans are okay with using a computer as an aid, but they aren’t ready to turn it all over to Siri. That’s different than sports like tennis, where the umpire is little more than a figure head and someone to call in the physio. Tennis fans have grown quite accustomed to machines making every call, something that started just like baseball – with a challenge rule.
It would be impossible to talk about this experiment with automation in one of the country’s most tradition laden pastimes without thinking about the larger context in this moment in time. For starters, we all are starting to worry, if not full on believe, that AI is going to take our jobs. And if you aren’t at least concerned about that, you’re either on the cusp of retirement or, to be honest, aren’t really paying attention. Usually people who are most self-assured that a machine could never do their job are the folks most likely to be replaced, because they aren’t recognizing the speed of change and the frailty of their own expertise. So even the consideration that a computer might replace a baseball ump – admittedly one of the more disliked figures in all of sport – makes us realize we could be next. Add to that the onslaught of news from the federal government about how many people need to be fired and how basically no one is essential, and it's hard not to side with humans, mistakes and all.
Second, we’re also at a moment where the notion of truth and expertise is in question. Things like scientific theory, trust in medicine, belief in election results. Blame it on social media or disinformation, but there’s a significant population that no longer necessarily believe scientific fact, but is increasingly comfortable listening to the often ill informed theories of a random person in power. While it might be a stretch to conflate that with whether we trust computers more than umpires, it would be impossible to dismiss this push back on scientific certainty – something a radar pointed at home plate could clearly provide.
Perhaps it’s easiest to sum up this dilemma with a story. Last year at the US Open, I sat next to the player’s box of one of guys in a match. And after a close line call that went against their athlete, one of the coaches said to me, you wouldn’t believe how many times the computers get it wrong. I can’t speak to whether there’s any truth to that. But I can say not everyone believes.
Which is why for now, baseball’s automation experiment is still just that. And baseball umps, unlike John Henry, will live to work another day.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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