Frank Viola: “First time use of Trackman with Rockers Baseball at York tonight. Got myself tossed in the 1st. Problem is, was it trackman, or was it the human strike zone?! That was the problem. Who or WHAT was in charge?? Let each team know at all times what’s going on. Trackman idea is sound but get the kinks out before you put in play. Is that asking too much?? You’re messing with kids' career.”
Long Island Ducks manager Frank Viola became the first manager ejected in the robotic strike zone era, as the MLB-owned Atlantic League introduced the first robotic umpires in baseball history over the weekend.
Under the ‘TrackMan’ system, a mathematical strike zone is formulated using artificial intelligence to call balls and strikes and its decisions are relayed to the umpire behind the plate using a blue tooth device for every single pitch.
Viola disagreed with some of the calls the TrackMan device was making on two pitches on the outside corner that were called balls and took it out on the human behind the plate, as the umpires can ultimately overrule any call. Viola went nuclear on the technology and was eventually tossed after a series of your garden variety F-Bombs, as the Ducks manager went on the type of tirade that we thought robotic umpires were going to force go extinct.
Viola was a Major League starting pitcher for 15 seasons and won the American League Cy Young in 1988 with the Minnesota Twins. Viola finished his career with 112 wins and 93 losses and went to three All-Star games, with the latter two as a member of the New York Mets in 1990 and 1991. Viola also spent time with the Red Sox, Reds, and Blue Jays.
Viola took to Twitter right after the game to voice his displeasure with the new state-of-the-art system.