How technology is making baseball better — even without robot umpires

Studious, tech-driven analysis of the strike zone is significantly improving human umpires' ability to call balls and strikes

New technology is helping improve the accuracy of humans.

Last summer, an independent professional baseball team let a robotic umpire call balls and strikes for a game. (Humans were still on hand to announce the results and make calls on foul balls and plays at the plate.)

As futuristic as this sounds, this very technology, called PITCHf/x, was installed in every Major League Baseball stadium several years ago, in 2007. And though robot umps have yet to call professional ball, the technology behind them is transforming the game of baseball.

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.