Baseball’s new robo-umpire to the rescue

The modern renaissance of the nation’s pastime is clear in the data: The average duration of baseball’s notoriously long games has dropped by more than 30 minutes. Attendance is up three years in a row. And the last World Series game drew the largest audience in three decades.

But it was even more obvious in the stands at Worcester’s Polar Park on Opening Day of the Triple-A season, when a Red Sox minor leaguer tapped his helmet to instigate a challenge to the called strike. The crowd rose to its feet in anticipation. In 15 seconds, we got a clear call from the robo-umpire and the chance to exult in the correction of the human umpire’s mistake. It was downright exhilarating.

That feeling was everywhere in the season’s first games in the major leagues, too. In the ninth inning in Cincinnati, Red Sox left fielder Roman Anthony challenged the third strike on a full count. Seconds later, the call was overturned by the robo-umpire. The strikeout became a walk, then a run — and a major story of the first Sox win of the season.

The pitch clock and robo-umpire, known officially as the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), are not the only reasons baseball has successfully reset its relationship with the public after a tumultuous two decades. The league has gone global with stars from Japan and Latin America, and new rivalries have emerged from the international World Baseball Classic tournament that Major League Baseball launched in 2006.

But it is the adoption of the pitch clock and ABS that demonstrates a sustainable path to reigniting public enthusiasm for the game and holds lessons for how other institutions can evolve.

First, enforce the rules: For a century, Major League Baseball had a rule on the books saying pitchers must throw within 12 seconds. Umpires simply chose not to enforce it, and the gentleman’s agreement was abused until the average game length stretched to 3 hours and 11 minutes in 2021. No one particularly liked watching batters step out of the box to adjust gloves and pitchers step off the mound for a leisurely stroll. Changing the status quo took a literal, glowing clock. And consequences.

Second, efficiency is key: It is not only kids raised on TikTok whose attention spans wander when plotlines are slow. In a world with limitless instant gratification, spectators may feel disrespected when they have to wait out something unnecessarily boring. But being arbitrarily rushed is just as bad. The pitch clock merely reinforced baseball’s natural rhythm. The ABS challenge system delivers justice in just 15 seconds.

Third, hybrid approaches work: Debates on integrating technology into human decision-making can feel fraught. Total automation would feel sterile and robotic. But watching a batter summon an unbiased arbiter with a tap of his helmet is riveting, not revolting.

These changes, along with a ban on a shift of fielders out of normal positions and other tweaks to speed the pace of play, were the result of a Competition Committee architected in 2021 by former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. It took a few years, but baseball remade itself for the modern era while remaining grounded in its tradition.

In the climactic scene of “Field of Dreams,” the threat of a bank foreclosure is interrupted by the voice of actor James Earl Jones: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.… It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.”

It feels as if now more than ever, bedrock American institutions are being steamrolled.

All of our institutions, from churches to Congress to colleges, are facing crises of confidence. The rules seem to have gone out the window. Baseball found a way to make the game more efficient and transparent, and ultimately rekindle its fan base.

Let’s hope other American institutions can do the same.