As Major League Baseball workshops automated strike zones in the minor leagues and moves toward perfecting technology that can track balls and strikes, those who play, litigate and consume the game find themselves at a pivot point where reality remains disconnected from the idyllic dreams of a mistake-freeuniverse.
On the field, players learn from a young age how to navigate imperfect outcomes, desiring a more just ruling of balls and strikes even as they accept that it won't always be so. Far beyond the playing surface, fans fueled by pinpoint technology and an itchy grievance fingerpoint to ostensibly unimpeachable graphics that indicate what’s a ball, what’s a strikeand what’s worth railing about. (Short answer: Anything a centimeter outside an arbitrary box.)
MLB SALARIES: Baseball's top 25 highest-paid players in 2024
