Gimme the machines...........

If I, or someone, could waive a magic wand and be able to replace all of the human officials with machines. In all games. Is that something that you would want?

Simple explanation: "Touchdown. 255 points"

Nareed,
I feel foolish, but I'm afraid that I don't understand your response. 'Splain please..........

Quote: steeldco

Nareed,
I feel foolish, but I'm afraid that I don't understand your response. 'Splain please..........

Machines can make mistakes as well.

But baseball sure as hell needs instant replay to apply to all calls. I'm getting sick of obvious blown calls.

Watched Cubs/Cards last night. Yadier Molina tries to run home because of an overthrow. Since I am a Cards fan, I love Yadi to death, but he is slow as molasses, and was easily beat by the throwback to the plate and the Cubs pitcher applied the tag cleanly as well as decently blocking the plate. The announcers and I both thought Yadi was out from the real-time action, but the ump calls him safe. The Cubs manager was tossed because of this, and the ump was clearly wrong on the replay.

That any machine will have the most unexpected bugs which will screw things up. This is funny when talking about sports, but planes have crashed due to such bugs, or design errors in some cases.

Also, if memory serves, when using "255" as a numerical variable the old Apple ][ tended to collapse :)

tringlomane,
Yes. Of course you are right....machines can also make mistakes.

I happened to see the replay on the Cubs/Cards play and wow. I honestly cannot stand officials. More so when they're told which way to "lean" on a call.
Help the "star". Screw the rookie or average player........

May I ask who made the money on this "wrong" call?

Quote: FleaStiff

May I ask who made the money on this "wrong" call?

The ump? D.J. Reyburn

I've never heard of him.

I thought this would be about the sports betting kiosks that are being taken away.

Quote: steeldco

If I, or someone, could waive a magic wand and be able to replace all of the human officials with machines. In all games. Is that something that you would want?

Absolutely. I find it an obvious testament to the fact that people resist change purely for the sake of resisting change when they say things like "human error is part of the game". How is it better to have more errors when you could have less? I never understood that point of view. In baseball for example, how is it better that a pitch might be a ball or strike depending on the concentration of the umpire whose mind might be elsewhere because he had a fight with his wife or his kid was just diagnosed with a terminal illness. It's not his fault, that's just human nature, but if a machine could do the same job but with 100% accuracy, why is there any resistance to that? Once they change to electronic strike zones, will anyone miss the days when the same pitch would be a strike for Roger Clemens on Tuesday, but a ball for Ian Kennedy on Thursday?

I’m a fan of human error in the pros because I’m a fan in real life. In some cases it’s an advantage. There are certain guys I know that are soft and I can get away with murder, others I know that are ballbusters and I can draw a number of penalties. In cases where I don’t know the guy(s), it’s just another puzzle you have to unravel, a new twist to the mind game aspect of the sport. And it all adds to the randomness and keeps things close. “Bounces” are a key part of the game; bad calls, missed calls, blown calls… it wouldn’t be the same without them.

Quote: Face

I’m a fan of human error in the pros because I’m a fan in real life. In some cases it’s an advantage. There are certain guys I know that are soft and I can get away with murder, others I know that are ballbusters and I can draw a number of penalties. In cases where I don’t know the guy(s), it’s just another puzzle you have to unravel, a new twist to the mind game aspect of the sport. And it all adds to the randomness and keeps things close. “Bounces” are a key part of the game; bad calls, missed calls, blown calls… it wouldn’t be the same without them.

I guess this is what makes the world go 'round.

I don't disagree with your assessment that these things add to the randomness of the game. I just don't understand why people have an affinity for randomness playing a part in something which is supposed to be a designed competition within a given set of rules.

Quote: gts4ever

I guess this is what makes the world go 'round.

I don't disagree with your assessment that these things add to the randomness of the game. I just don't understand why people have an affinity for randomness playing a part in something which is supposed to be a designed competition within a given set of rules.

I suppose it just the difference in how people look at things. In short, it’s the human element.

Anyone who knows any sport knows there are infinite variables. Indoors vs outdoors, natural vs artificial surfaces, different flooring, different lighting, different levels of humidity, temp and precipitation. Even the same teams playing on the same fields (like in a doubleheader) are playing under infinitely different conditions. No one will argue that fact, and it’s universally accepted.

Some, though, place the refs outside the game. They look at them to be, and expect them to be, an infallible arbiter of a black and white rulebook. It is my argument that that is folly. Just like…. I dunno, the playing surface, for instance, a ref can be reasonably expected to provide a certain level of performance. But there are always outliers. The ice may have a deep groove, a field may have a soft spot, and indeed, a ref might have a bad call. For the vast majority of the time, circumstances pass over these; skates never catch, cleats never lose purchase, and refs never blow a call. But every so often the stars align and the conditions are such that they come into play, and it’s always luck, what we here usually call variance, as to whether it helps or hinders.

It’s just part of the game, no different than a random gust of wind on a long pass play, a sun ray on a long fly ball, or the caw of a crow breaking the deafening silence on your backswing. Just because the refs are human does not remove them from the randomness.

All my opinion, of course =)

Quote: Face

I suppose it just the difference in how people look at things. In short, it’s the human element.

And that wouldn't be lost if machnies replaced officials. Only the "human element" will be a step removed from the action.

"Human element" is one of those phrases that either make no sense or are redundant. Machines are the main way how humans harness nature to do their bidding. This is so from the simplest lever to the most complex assembly line.

But I digress. The point in sports is that if machines could handle officiating, and in most sports they can't yet, ratehr than a Platonic ideal judging, we'd have a whole new raft of mistakes, oversights and SNAFUs to look forwards to. This is innevitable. Systems to prevent or correct pilot error in aircraft, for example, have faled in unforseen ways and caused accidents and disasters as well, though overall they have prevented more accidents and disasters. So that's a good thing, over the long term. And those design flaws get corrected, too. But absolute, 100% mistake free existence is a fantasy.

No machine can replace me. :)

Although perhaps the machine wouldn't have made the error I made this past weekend when I incorrectly applied a high school rule in a youth match.