baseball
MLB Instant Replay - "Less Incentive To Go Crazy"
From Field to Video Room: How Baseball’s Replay Review Will Work, by Richard Sandomir at the New York Times (2014).
Interesting how changing the rules of the game has a big impact on the technology used behind the scenes.
The system is a greatly expanded version of one that has reviewed only home run calls since August 2008. Umpires made their decisions by looking at replays on TV monitors at each stadium.
The new system links camera feeds from the 30 ballparks to the operations center. M.L.B. has also installed its own stationary high home plate cameras at each stadium to offer its video officials the best possible view of base runners who might have to be repositioned depending on their decisions.
The system is starting at a time when there are fewer blustery, base-kicking, dirt-tossing managers around. How would Lou Piniella, Earl Weaver or Ozzie Guillen cope with video review?
“They’d get fired up because they didn’t have this kind of tool,” Marinak said. “Now managers have less incentive to go crazy.”
(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)
Baseball, Archives, and Video Metadata
An article from 2010: For Baseball Archivists, a Tag Ends Every Play, by John Branch at the New York Times
“Your archive is only as good as what you know is in it,” said Elizabeth Scott, M.L.B. Productions’ vice president for programming and business affairs.
It is not only the game action that is tagged. If a squirrel runs onto the field, the play will be tagged with “animal.” If there is a shot of a man sipping a beer, there is a “drinking” option under the “fans” category. Those frequent shots of boats bobbing in San Francisco Bay during Giants games are tagged with “boat.” “Pine tar,” “rosin,” “babies,” “bat boys/girls” and “on-deck circle” have their own notations. So do “fist pump,” “curtain call” and “throw equipment.”
(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)