I’m getting closer to wanting to see robot umpires and pitch clocks in every Major League ballparks for the 2021 season, but I wonder if employing electronic arbiters of balls and strikes behind home plate would mean there can never be an Umpire Cam to give fans a cool new perspective of the action.
I advocated when the abbreviated 2020 MLB season started for the implementation of mic’d-up players and cameras on the masks of catchers during real games, not just during the so-called Summer Camp that helped them prep for the return to action for 60 games this summer and fall.
Little did I know that MLB was already using a professional league in Japan as a testing ground for the implementation of Umpire Cam, an innovation that could put more pressure on the men in blue to actually get the calls right instead of guessing on what seems like an increasing number of calls.
Japanese baseball puts cameras on the umpire’s mask, making for very cool POV shots#npb #プロ野球 @UniWatch pic.twitter.com/njCQFni04b
— Don M. Patterson (@DonMPatterson) September 4, 2020
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about how Major League Baseball is killing itself slowly because of its refusal to acknowledge the game doesn’t do anything to attract young fans, who lean more toward fast-paced, action-oriented sports.
While I’m lucky to be the father of an 11-year-old daughter who’s followed in her dad’s footsteps with her love for and support of the Boston Red Sox, I know most parents have largely stopped trying to bring their kids to baseball games and even decided they should play soccer or other sports instead of baseball.
With the advancements in virtual reality and online gaming bringing players closer to the action than ever, there’s nothing that can do that better than a camera on the home plate umpire’s helmet that shows the speed and the break of every pitch and the force with which hitters turn them around.
