Smart Cameras Power a Robot Umpire at MLB All-Stars for the First Time. Here's How the Challenges Went
If umpires draw your ire for bad calls, you may soon have a new target: Major League Baseball used its ABS, or Automated Ball-Strike System, to call pitches at the July 15 All-Star Game for the first time. If trials this season go well, it will probably be adopted for the 2026 regular season. But challenges against the camera had an unusually high rate of success. The ABS uses Hawk-Eye cameras, a technology increasingly common in games with high-speed objects. The cameras judge how a ball trave