Schmidt: Computer strike zone good, but check your hearing

A hot topic all year has been the idea of computerizing the strike zone, the rise of the robot umpires. It's drawn even more attention here in October — we've already seen a perfect example of a missed call when Marcell Ozuna was rung up in the ninth inning of Game 3 between the Cardinals and Braves.

It was obvious, according to the box on the TV screen, that the pitch was clearly inside. It was a pivotal call that could have altered the outcome.

Should the computer zone be perfected, that would never be the case.

It would change the game for the good, it would continue the effort to eliminate human deficiency. We have replay everywhere else in the game, like it or not, replay gets the call right.

Now we are looking at balls and strikes, where the umpires are ridiculously good. My experience would say home plate umpires miss less than 10 pitch calls a game, out of an average of 225.

When I saw replay become part of professional tennis, I immediately thought it could change baseball. In fact, I mentioned it many times during my travels in the early 2000s, but was never taken seriously. People would say I was crazy to think balls and strikes could be called electronically.

The technology for an electronic field over home plate is available. Technically, all that has to be done is create a communication process between the umpire and the source.

Here's a shot at that. The electronic field sends a beep signal to the ump, whenever a pitch touches any part of the isosceles right pentagon (shape of home plate) extended upward, starting at the batter's knees to the midpoint of the torso (I'd note that the actual strike zone as called by today's umpires lacks about 6 inches on the top side). The beep is heard by the umpire through an earpiece, giving him time for a quick...

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