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Do Umpires Dream of Electronic Strikes?

Like a bang-bang call at first base, there is much jawing and a whole lot of disagreement throughout baseball over an idea threatening to arrive soon at a ballpark near you: the electronic strike zone.

Dubbed "robo ump"—affectionately by some, not so much by others—it would be one of the most significant changes in the history of the game, an umpire standing behind home plate and calling balls and strikes based not on his own eyesight and judgment...but on the direction of a tiny voice in his earpiece. That voice would be the preprogrammed result of however the TrackMan system of highly calibrated lasers reads a pitch as it crosses the plate.