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Their wordsI suppose if that question has an answer, it would be that human beings can embrace what my favorite chess content creator, Levy Rozman, calls "superseding concepts." That is to say that an umpire can take into account the situation, the conditions, the flow of the game, the importance of the moment, the spirit of the rule, and make a call based on all of it, rather than just embracing the microscopic difference between safe and out, strike and ball.
Their wordsBut, of course, human umpires WILL NOT call the runner safe because they are bound by instant replay. So the humanity of umpiring has already been taken out of the game ... except for ball-strike calls. And with the Automated Ball Strike challenge system coming in 2026, that last bit of humanity will begin to disappear.
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