April ended on a high note, and the Jays’ 2021 season seems just about ready to finally take off, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still a whole lot of questions still surrounding the club.
Re: umpires letter above - "It’s not what we paid for." I disagree. It's exactly what I pay for - entertainment. Sports fandom allows us to experience a broad range of emotions "safely", without any personal risk. That includes positive emotions, like joy, triumph, and togetherness, but it also includes negative emotions, like despair, defeat, and anger.
Getting angry about a bad strike call is part of the fan experience. What would really be improved about the game's entertainment value if strike calls were always perfect? I suppose we could increase our marvel at the hitter's ability a little, but we would lose out on a lot, including empathizing with the batter's anger at the unfairness of an incorrect call. These moments bring us closer to the players.
The umpire's role is, to a certain extent, to be the "villains" of the story - they snatch away our successes, foil our best-laid plans, and so on. Being part of 50,000 fans boooing a borderline call is a tremendous emotional experience, and one that would be lost with a robot calling the game.
This is a side of the issue that I definitely overlooked, so thanks! But I guess I'd say that we've already lost some of that with replay and the loss of so many arguments between umpires and managers -- which were fun (if stupid) and I do miss, but not enough to not want the calls to be correct!
What would be improved is the ability of world class batters and pitchers to truly pit their skills against each other on a level playing field, which is sort of *the entire point.* Ultimately, as romantic as some of the other stuff about human umps is, I don't want to see those guys' ability to perform affected by someone else's mediocrity, as a wise man once put it.
I also think it's smart of baseball to not want to make the sideshow the main attraction. That's probably not great long-term thinking for the sport, which has plenty of drama on its own. Even hockey eventually started figuring that out!
Pitchers and batters battling each other on a level playing field are also romantic ideas and certainly very important in making baseball entertaining. And if your argument is that you want to take out the fun in yelling at umps to concentrate on the spectacle of at bats, I can understand that perspective.
Indeed, if umps were mediocre, I would agree robo umps are needed and should be implemented as soon as possible. But as a bearded baseball sage recently wrote, “most MLB umps really are quite good and get the vast majority of calls right,” so I hope you can appreciate those of us who are less than enthused with proposals to take out another entertaining aspect of the game.
But perhaps the real question here is who is intended to benefit from this rule change? As someone who was lucky enough to go to a lot of games in the past, and very much look forward to doing again, I think umps are an important part of the show. In the stands, all I can see is the reactions of pitchers and batters. With robo umps, how will they react? Can they other than to hang their heads? Where’s the fun in that?
Then again, I watch most of my games on tv, so perhaps I shouldn’t care about the in-game experience. But as the past year has shown, fans in the stands are definitely part of the show. The ancient Greeks may have been on to something there.
But perhaps when Winfield said he wanted noise, we should have just piped in some crowd noise and a laugh track. Chalk up another point for you and your robots.
Agree completely about the entertainment value. Would also add that this is only acceptable because in general the umps are very good.
And even if robots-umps are used, you’re still going to have angry fans. But instead of getting mad at a human ump, it’ll be about maintenance and calibration techs, broadcasters and whether they’re overlaying an accurate box, etc etc. Far less satisfying than yelling at the ump and much more tedious.
More generally, certainty may not even be possible. Good write up on video review from a few years ago:
This was terrific reading after the Jays put up 13 runs and Ray looked dominant! Thanks for helping to pass the time before a 7 pm Saturday start.
Ahh just saw the Rogers picture... well it was fun to feel good about the Jays for two minutes
Re: umpires letter above - "It’s not what we paid for." I disagree. It's exactly what I pay for - entertainment. Sports fandom allows us to experience a broad range of emotions "safely", without any personal risk. That includes positive emotions, like joy, triumph, and togetherness, but it also includes negative emotions, like despair, defeat, and anger.
Getting angry about a bad strike call is part of the fan experience. What would really be improved about the game's entertainment value if strike calls were always perfect? I suppose we could increase our marvel at the hitter's ability a little, but we would lose out on a lot, including empathizing with the batter's anger at the unfairness of an incorrect call. These moments bring us closer to the players.
The umpire's role is, to a certain extent, to be the "villains" of the story - they snatch away our successes, foil our best-laid plans, and so on. Being part of 50,000 fans boooing a borderline call is a tremendous emotional experience, and one that would be lost with a robot calling the game.
TL;DR - robot umps bad. Human umps good.
This is a side of the issue that I definitely overlooked, so thanks! But I guess I'd say that we've already lost some of that with replay and the loss of so many arguments between umpires and managers -- which were fun (if stupid) and I do miss, but not enough to not want the calls to be correct!
What would be improved is the ability of world class batters and pitchers to truly pit their skills against each other on a level playing field, which is sort of *the entire point.* Ultimately, as romantic as some of the other stuff about human umps is, I don't want to see those guys' ability to perform affected by someone else's mediocrity, as a wise man once put it.
I also think it's smart of baseball to not want to make the sideshow the main attraction. That's probably not great long-term thinking for the sport, which has plenty of drama on its own. Even hockey eventually started figuring that out!
Pitchers and batters battling each other on a level playing field are also romantic ideas and certainly very important in making baseball entertaining. And if your argument is that you want to take out the fun in yelling at umps to concentrate on the spectacle of at bats, I can understand that perspective.
Indeed, if umps were mediocre, I would agree robo umps are needed and should be implemented as soon as possible. But as a bearded baseball sage recently wrote, “most MLB umps really are quite good and get the vast majority of calls right,” so I hope you can appreciate those of us who are less than enthused with proposals to take out another entertaining aspect of the game.
But perhaps the real question here is who is intended to benefit from this rule change? As someone who was lucky enough to go to a lot of games in the past, and very much look forward to doing again, I think umps are an important part of the show. In the stands, all I can see is the reactions of pitchers and batters. With robo umps, how will they react? Can they other than to hang their heads? Where’s the fun in that?
Then again, I watch most of my games on tv, so perhaps I shouldn’t care about the in-game experience. But as the past year has shown, fans in the stands are definitely part of the show. The ancient Greeks may have been on to something there.
But perhaps when Winfield said he wanted noise, we should have just piped in some crowd noise and a laugh track. Chalk up another point for you and your robots.
Agree completely about the entertainment value. Would also add that this is only acceptable because in general the umps are very good.
And even if robots-umps are used, you’re still going to have angry fans. But instead of getting mad at a human ump, it’ll be about maintenance and calibration techs, broadcasters and whether they’re overlaying an accurate box, etc etc. Far less satisfying than yelling at the ump and much more tedious.
More generally, certainty may not even be possible. Good write up on video review from a few years ago:
https://deadspin.com/a-philosophers-definitive-and-slightly-maddening-case-1838637147