ABS: No Need for Humiliation

(As I’m sitting down to write this, I’m noticing the report and quote I’m reacting to — spotted on Facebook a week or so back — is actually from back in March, during Spring Training, and not at all recent. That said, I’m pressing on and writing it anyway, because I need a July article, and we’re coming out of the All-Star break, so baseball is topical!) Scrolling through Facebook a week or so ago, I spotted a quote, attributed to umpire Richie Garcia, about the Automated Balls and Strikes (ABS) challenge system used by Major League Baseball starting this season: “I think it’s embarrassing, embarrassing to the umpires that are calling the game. Nobody likes to be humiliated in front of 30,000, 40,000 people.” Not to unfairly diminish his viewpoint, I do need to add two expository points before bringing my own lukewarm take: Garcia isn’t a current MLB umpire. I don’t recall if the graphic version of the quote I saw explicitly noted he was former, but he hasn’t been on the field since…