ROBOT UMPIRES will be the wave of the future (Shutterstock)

One of the fast-disappearing charms of baseball is its tolerance of quirkiness.

Some of that resistance to rigid conformity will disappear as Major League Baseball in 2026 employs the Automatic Ball/Strike system which will allow each team to challenge umpire’s pitching calls at the plate twice in a game.

n some ways this is a long-needed reform. There’s a specific definition of a batter’s strike zone in the rule book, but – in reality – it varied from player to player, from day to day, umpire to umpire and even league to league.

As an umpire in “A League of Their Own” said in the closing credit roll, “Tomorrow it might be a ball, but today it’s a strike.”

The ABS may correct some injustices, but will likely remove much of the color from the game. Catchers are notorious – or legendary – for how they might use psychology to influence the Men in Blue.

A pitch that’s actually outside can appear to be inside the strike zone through careful positioning of the catchers’ glove. A catcher might complain constantly about a umpire’s decision-making and therefore bully him into getting more favorable treatment.

And then there’s the MakeUp Call, in which an ump recognizes he made a mistake, then seeks to make amends by awarding an incorrect benign call to the wounded party next time up.

Not any more. You won’t even be able to yell, “Kill the umpire.” All you can say is “Reboot his processor!” Doesn’t have the same charm, does it?