During Wednesday night’s All-Star Game in the independent Atlantic League, a hitter who disagrees with a called strike won’t be able to turn toward the home plate umpire and argue with the source of his frustration.
Instead, the arbiter of balls and strikes will be a square black box hanging from the roof of PeoplesBank Park in York, Pa. The TrackMan device, which uses a 3-D Doppler radar and powers Statcast’s pitch and batted-ball tracking in all 30 big league parks, will be used to call balls and strikes—meaning a virtual strike zone has finally arrived in baseball.
A home-plate umpire will still be crouching behind the catcher, but his job is merely to vocalize the ruling. The ump will carry an iPod Touch connected to a secure stadium WiFi network and wear an AirPod in his ear. He’ll be told either “ball” or “strike” after each pitch and then announce the radars’ call.
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