O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nathan Graziano
In a previous lifetime, I wrote a baseball column for Dirty Water Sports. In fact, some of these columns still exist in the dark matter of cyberspace.
Every now and then, I get a hankering to hop in my time machine and revisit my younger self, back when I was a little thinner and a lot less cynical, but both selves—the younger and current—share a lifelong love of baseball.
And when it comes to baseball, I’m a bit of a purist. I enjoy seeing the game when played as close as possible to its original design in the 1840s when The Knickerbocker Club of New York City played at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J.
But I’m not a complete purist. For example, I have no objection to the designated hitter, and I’ve found that the pitch clock has helped restore the pace of play to its original form, before pitchers started working on novels between pitches.
However, I can’t stand it when a runner is placed on second base in extra innings, and I believe that replay should only be used after the seventh inning and only in the most egregiously blown calls.
So you can probably guess where I stand with the new Automated Ball Strike (ABS) Challenge System that was instituted for the 2026 season.
I loathe it.
Listen, I’m not some luddite who is terrified that AI robots are going to steal all of the human jobs and leave civilization in a dystopian Hellscape—although I don’t discount the possibility—and I understand that the ABS Challenge System is far more precise than the human eye will ever be.
I also understand the desire to assure that the calls are accurate and fair, untainted by bias, leveling the competitive field for the athletes to compete.
But baseball is a “human” game that has been played in essentially the same “human” way for almost two centuries, and part of being “human” means that you are imperfect. That’s right. Every single one of us makes mistakes. Even Donald Trump.
Umpires are “humans”; therefore, if we follow this train of thought to its syllogistic conclusion then we realize umpires will make mistakes. It is part of the game. Like any of us, regardless of what you do for a living, you have good days at work and some really bad ones. It’s natural.
And if an umpire is completely inept, or seems to be calling the game in favor of a certain team, use the ABS System as it was originally intended, to gather evidence and build a case against said umpire.
For teams who are victims of bad umpiring, do what you did in Little League: Swing the bat and take the umpire out of the game.
In my humble opinion, if they’re going to use the ABS Challenge System, make it all or nothing. Pick a lane, and stop vacillating between positions. Either trust a human being to call the game, or replace them with a robot.
On April 1, when there was the first ABS Challenge System walk-off in human history at a game between the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles, a piece of my soul died. A stadium full of fans were all staring at the scoreboard waiting for the computer to tell them what to do next.
The crowd went wild when the robot determined that the Orioles’ Albert Suarez’s pitch caught the corner and Baltimore won.
There was something deeply unsettling about that.
You can reach Nate Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com.