Ask Slashdot: Project Scope For MLB Robot Umpires?

nightcats writes "The League Championship Series of baseball are upon us, and numerous sports media pundits, armies of fans at comment boards, and TV people are openly debating the possibility of robot umpires coming to Major League Baseball, to either replace or enhance the human umps' work on the field. Question: what kind of project are we reasonably talking about here? What would the scope and length be from planning/design to user testing/implementation (presumably in a spring training/minor league setting)? What kinds of hardware (video scanners, touch-sensitive bases/foul lines, etc.) and software would be required?" And, as long as we're on the subject — do you think it would be good for the game?

Re:bribery

[cowboy76Spain]

Mmmmm... first, the issue that from your words it looks like every umpire in every game in every sport is being bribed, or in risk of being. So much for conspiracy theories. There are economic interests in the game and when this happens there is always a risk of illegal behavior, ok. Jumping from that to "the system looks legit because there are too many groups trying to rig it" is quite unfounded. We know that for some people "free market" is the blanket answer to every question, but this is ridiculous.

Second. Right now, if someone bribes an umpire, it cannot be proven other than by the money movement. An umpire does fail? It was not a good day for him. The fails favour only one of the sides? Bad luck. Change that against "the robot code is calibrated before the game, the SHA1 of the code compared with the official one, then calibrated again after the game and stored for independ review" and you get that cheating with robots is orders of magnitude more difficult than with human umpires. Changes in robots are traceable. An incorrect decision? Go to the program, feed the same input, find if it is a software bug or manipulation. You would need to have a signficant part of the organization in your pocket for it to work. If you think that someone can get away with it, I think it is safe to assume that "that someone" can already be owning all of the umpires, all of the officials, all of the teams, all of the games now.

Re:Wouldn't that take a lot from the game?

[lucm]

In many spectator sports, hating the ref is a big part of the fun; baseball in the USA, ice hockey in Canada, soccer in Europe (especially Italy).

Having a flawless robot instead of a ref would be like an episode of 24 where Jack Bauer is not slowed down by people of the FBI trying to arrest him while he is trying to find a nuclear bomb hidden by terrorists in downtown LA. The "enemy" would still be there but the spectator would feel cheated.

AR headset for ump

[jpapon]

Give the umpire behind the plate some sort of augmented reality HUD headset that shows the strikezone and highlights the ball as it comes over the plate. The feed from the Umps headset could also be used in broadcasts. Uses technology without removing the human element of the game. I'll start working on it if MLB wants to pony up the cash...most (if not all) of it would just be COTS hardware.

Re:Everyone said it would ruin tennis...

[KillaBeave]

IAAFLLU (I am a former little league umpire) - I'd be all for having a sensor based ball/strike call. Nothing more annoying than having 1/2 the fans yelling strike and 1/2 yelling ball ... over a game for 9yr olds. A simple red/green light somewhere would be perfect. In my opinion the home plate ump is still needed though to ensure that foul balls are picked up properly and judge if the batter swung or not (some of those calls are really close). Not to mention tag out situations. If the system was a simple boolean limited to "was the ball in the strike-zone" or not I think it could improve the game by a large amount.

Re:Good for balls and strikes

[way2slo]

The problems with the TV Networks "pitch zone" is that they are 2 dimensional, do not change for each batter, and the TV viewer has trouble seeing the true motion of the pitch. The strike zone covers all of home plate, including depth. Many pitchers use "back door" breaking balls/sliders to try and hit the very back side of the strike zone. In the "pitch zone" these would look like a ball, when in fact it crossed the plate in the zone. Also, the strike zone changes height for each batter as defined in the rules as the batter waits for the pitch. These "pitch zone" displays never do. Lastly, pitch movement is hard to pick up on television, especially when depth is involved. Pitches can curve around the strike zone and appear to be strikes as well as curve into the back of the strike zone. It is hard to tell from a single camera.

Behavioral Theory

[alexander_686]

Hating the ump is not the “fun: part of the game – it’s a defense mechanism called Self Serving Bias.

Remember, the fan is the “10th player” – they contribute to the success or failure of the game. When the picture pitches and fails, the fan has two choices.

Rationally ascribe the failure to their team – and thus themselves – and recognize that they are a failure. Or they can protect their ego and blame the Ump.