FouND two newspsper articles:
Knowing we are now in Chicago and did a national game yesterday, I ran a search of the papers there. This is what I found in the Chicago daily "Southtown":
Hey, ump, where was it?
PitchTrax technology has opened some eyes
Friday, May 21, 1999
By Paul Ladewski
Staff Writer
It was on the eve of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series two years ago when
supersized umpire Eric Gregg met his worst nightmare at a hotel in Florida.
It wasn't a crazed fan. And, no, it wasn't a weight-watcher's convention, either.
Instead, the person was a guy named Ed Plumacher, co-founder and CEO of QuesTec
Imaging, Inc., home of the video-based, computerized system called PitchTrax that monitors
the movement of a baseball to determine its speed and — here's the part that quickens the
pulse of the men in blue — location.
More to the point, Plumacher is the brains of the operation that has the capabilities to show the
world just how wrong a home-plate umpire can be.
"Just don't make me look too bad on TV tomorrow," Gregg said to him, apparently
half-jokingly.
By most accounts, Gregg was worse than bad that day. In what some consider to be the worst
performance by a home-plate umpire in modern major league history, he missed pitch after
pitch, including a game-ending third strike to Atlanta's Fred McGriff that wasn't even in the
same county let alone over the plate.
"Yeah, we have that pitch on tape," remembered Plumacher, whose Long Island-based
company has serviced nearly 800 big league games, including the playoffs and World Series
that season. "It was three or more ball-widths off the plate."
(drop cap)
The truth is, Plumacher would like the umpires to relax, because he's not out to get them at all.
After all, his company recently signed a three-year deal to track pitches for Fox Sports Net,
which numbers Chicago among its 22 broadcast affiliates.
As Plumacher knows as well as anyone, umpires are touchy when it comes to criticism of their
work, and with so much at stake personally, he would just as soon genuflect at any mention of
them.
"It's not meant to make anyone look bad," Plumacher is quick to say about PitchTrax. "It's not
a gizmo. It can be very informative, very educational, if used properly.
"If it's used in the wrong manner, it becomes an annoyance to someone, and it's gone. If we got
the umpires mad at us, then I'd probably be out of business tomorrow."
Plumacher considers PitchTrax to be a high-tech learning tool designed to enhance the
entertainment value of television broadcasts — nothing more.
But like it or not, he either has created a monster-in-the-making or the best thing that could
happen to baseball since the eye chart. Because as much as its founder would rather not say
this, PitchTrax has the capabilities to act as an electronic umpire that calls balls and strikes with
far more precision than humankind. And do it far cheaper, too.
For those who believe more umps than just Gregg have gotten too big for the good of the
game, any discussion about an electronic umpire using cameras mounted in the upper deck
can't come soon enough.
"My personal opinion is, I'd never want to see that happen," Plumacher said. "I love this game.
The umpires add something to the game. Hitters and pitchers not only have to adjust to one
another, but to individual umpires. That's what makes this game what it is today.
"We never approached it as an officiating advancement. We don't want to take the human
element out of the game. This game is played by people. From a business standpoint, it would
be dynamite. But if you love this game, then you have to ask yourself, 'Is this what we really
want?' It's not what I want."
The overriding question is, is that what the players, the club owners and the public want? And
if that time comes, is it reasonable to think such a system could be developed and
implemented?
"Yes, it could," Plumacher conceded only when pressed further. "Is it economically feasible?
Probably not in the market today, but who knows what advancements will be made in the near
future.
"When our idea was introduced, it required a $300,000 silicon graphics box. Now it can run
on a $25,000 piece of equipment."
But what about the time element? Don't big league games already take only slightly less time
than the Ten Years War?
"The ball hits the mitt, you look at the screen, and there the result is," Plumacher said. "The
flight of the ball is tracked in real time, so its trajectory is calculated while it's in the air. The
only delay is the recreation of the graphics, and that takes less than a second."
Besides, when was the last time a big leaguer kicked dirt on a camera in the upper deck?
Perhaps the most compelling argument of all to dehumanize the game is for consistency and
accuracy, plain and simple.
"I like it," White Sox announcer Tom Paciorek said of PitchTrax, in its third season as part of
team broadcasts. "It's pretty accurate. At least it looks like it is."
"Top to bottom (in the strike zone), it's probably 90 percent accurate right now," Plumacher
said. "Left to right, it's dead on. It's pretty accurate even without tinkering with it."
As it stands now, PitchTrax uses a mathematical average to determine the strike zone based on
a 6-foot-1 batter. With additional hardware and cooperation from the league, Plumacher said,
the strike zone could be adjusted from batter to batter.
Just how perfect could it be with tinkering?
"It probably would miss one pitch out of a thousand or about one pitch every three games," he
said.
You mean 99.9 percent accurate?
"It probably would miss one."
So in terms of accuracy, PitchTrax would kill the umps?
"Based on physics, it could be designed to be more accurate than the human umpire, that is
correct," Plumacher said.
Then there is the matter of economics, which is no small one for the club owners.
According to Plumacher, the system would cost each team less than $100,000 — $75,000 to
set up, $22,000 to maintain — each season. The numbers are in line with the current rental fee
of $1,250 per game.
Just think: balls and strikes by the rulebook, no more umpires with the mobility of a rock, no
more umpires with bad attitudes.
And cameras don't require dental insurance, you know.
"Are you kidding me? With (union chief) Richie Phillips around? I don't think there's a chance
that it could replace umpires," Paciorek said. "It's a good idea, and I wouldn't rule it out in
future generations, but I can't see it happening in our lifetime. It will happen when they start to
use robots and stuff."
Indeed, with so many lucrative jobs at stake, any serious consideration of such an idea would
touch off the mother of all baseball brouhahas.
Calls to the umpires union were not returned.
As a group, Phillips and his constituents wield so much clout that when Gregg suffered from
double-vision two years ago, network television decided to look the other way rather than zero
in on his lack of vision.
Recalled Plumacher, "NBC said, 'No way will we put stuff like that on the air.' "
In one game telecast by then-SportsChannel at Toronto, the home-plate umpire was in such a
fog that veteran game producer Jim Angio tracked more pitches than usual to illustrate the
point. After the umpires caught wind of this hours later, the White Sox were advised to cool it
in a telephone call from the league office.
"Umpires are very aware of what is said about them, so we're careful not to overuse it," said
Angio, who believed an electronic umpire would be hired before long nonetheless. "We try to
limit it to four-to-six pitches per game."
(drop cap)
The concept intrigues Paciorek, an ex-player who is frustrated about the inconsistent
interpretation of the strike zone like most everyone else these days.
Paciorek would welcome a more uniform enforcement of the calling of balls and strikes,
something that only an electronic arbiter could ensure.
"I would love to see that. Absolutely," he said. "The strike zone is different almost every game.
"It's a good idea, and it would lend some consistency to the game, and the umpire wouldn't be
involved in the outcome whether it be good or bad. We've had some well-umpired games this
year, but we've also had some games that weren't up to standards. There's no doubt about
that."
To be sure, this kind of drastic change is years in the making, especially in Major League
Baseball, which is far behind its rivals in terms of technological advances.
As Plumacher said, "We've been out there for a lot of years. I'm sure (commissioner) Bud
Selig is aware of us. We're on a first-name basis with a lot of managers and general managers.
But it's like anything else: Technology is something that has to be brought in slowly before it is
accepted and takes hold.
"It wasn't until after the baseball strike (in 1994) that everybody became computer literate and
the Internet kicked in and this type of sports technology started to become accepted."
What's more, the locals are less receptive to change in this area than folks overseas.
"From a television production standpoint, Europeans are more open-minded," he said.
"Baseball (here) is built on 100 years of tradition."
Earlier this month, QuesTec contracted with the French Open for the use of
TennisProViewTM, a real-time video and computer-based tracking and scoring system that
provides a virtual replay for television and an analysis tool for commentators.
Among other things, TennisProViewTM will provide a perspective of different types of serves,
match serve patterns, aces and — won't John McEnroe just love this? — close line calls for
entertainment purposes.
The event will be the second televised European production for QuesTec, which had a part in
the ATP World Championship in Germany last year.
Yet there are signs that Major League Baseball is about to enter the 1990s any time now, what
with the adoption of a multi-tiered playoff system and inter-league play in recent years.
Maybe, just maybe, the birth of the electronic umpire is closer than most baseball purists think.
"What are you going to do — glance up at the Jumbotron after every pitch?" Plumacher
wondered.
Well, why not?
"It's not going to call the close plays at home plate, either," he cautioned. "You're always going
to need someone back there."
Um, heard of instant replay, dude?
AND HERE I THE SECOND ARTICLE FROM THE SAME PAPER:
Here's how PitchTrax works
Friday, May 21, 1999
By Paul Ladewski
Staff Writer
The eyes of PitchTrax are two cameras that are located in the upper deck above first and third
bases, from where they focus on the corridor between the mound and home plate.
The dual image they produce provides the ability to triangulate on the ball and its X, Y and Z
positions — velocity between the rubber and home plate, lateral movement, and height,
respectively — while it is in flight.
The result is something out of Stars Wars: a three-dimensional, computer-generated replay that
is available immediately after each pitch is thrown.
"In the late '80s, the viewer at home could not appreciate the true ball movement," said Ed
Plumacher, co-founder and CEO of QuesTec Imaging, Inc., home of PitchTrax. "Basically, it
was designed to be a virtual replay that would illustrate the movement of thrown balls that the
viewer at home could not see on conventional TV cameras.
"Our intent was to illustrate in 3-D graphics a way for people to see tendencies, how certain
batters were pitched to and any correlation between the batter-pitcher matchup."
OK, but suppose there's a night game in San Francisco, and one can't see his nose through the
pea soup ...
"We tracked pitches through snow in Cleveland at the 1997 World Series," Plumacher
recalled, "and we've done some pretty foggy games in San Francisco as well. A few years ago,
we had problems with the sun and the shadows in California, but they have been resolved since
then."
Because of the potential for an occasional mechanical meltdown, Plumacher said 100 percent
redundancy of equipment would be required, much like QuesTec already packs for major
events. That would ensure an event continued at the flick of a switch. |
