In sports, there has long been a belief that star players are more likely to receive disputed calls in their favor. Individual moments are barely noticeable, but over a long season they can add up to a meaningful advantage.
That may be ending in baseball. In 2024, South Korea’s KBO league became the first in the world to fully entrust ball-and-strike calls to an automated system. A University of Michigan study found that after this change, famous players really did receive favorable calls noticeably less often.
At the same time, hitting power changed almost not at all. In other words, the best baseball players did not stop playing well — they simply stopped getting that small “credibility credit.”
The system works simply: three cameras track every pitch, software builds an individual strike zone for each batter, and the decision is relayed to the chief umpire through an earpiece. No emotions, authority or crowd pressure — only geometry.
Of course, artificial intelligence is not perfect. But where rules can be described mathematically, an algorithm really does appear less susceptible to reputation, emotions and random sympathies.
