On September 1, 1906, With the regular umpires sick from food poisoning‚ Cub P Carl Lundgren and Cardinal C Pete Noonan were picked to umpire at the West Side Grounds. The Cubs‚ behind Mordecai Brown’s 5-hitter‚ won, 8 – 1, for their 14th win in a row.≥

Last summer my friend Bob and I did a cool baseball road trip. We saw 6 games in 6 days.

• St. Louis Cardinals at home against the Cincinnati Reds
• The Memphis Redbirds at home against the Durham Bulls
• The Springfield Cardinals at home against the North West Arkansas Naturals
• The Kansas City Royals at home against the Cincinnati Reds
• The Des Moines Cubs at home against the Indianapolis Indians
• The Cedar Rapids Kernels at home against the South Bend Cubs

During that road trip we got to see one minor league game with a “robot umpire” calling balls and strikes, and another one with video-replay challenge of balls and strikes.

I loved the robot umpire game because, well, it was efficient and there was none of the usual hubbub in the crowd about bad strike and ball calls. The focus turned from the umpire and his strike zone to the pitcher and the batter.

The minor league game where the pitcher or batter was allowed to ask for a review of a ball or strike call was also interesting. The few times it happened the pitch would be replayed on the Jumbotron for the whole stadium to see. In slow motion, we would see the electronic strike-zone and ball as it moved over the plate. In the game we were at, upon review of the replay, it was clear to everyone in the stadium that the umpire had called the ball or strike correctly every single time there was a challenge.

As a natural-born anti-authoritarian this fact surprised me. I was used to watching games on television with lousy umpires like Angel Hernandez (now, of course, retired, to spend “more time with his family”).

Robot-Umpires for calling balls and strikes are coming to Major League Baseball. And I for one am glad. But until that happens, I feel like the new umpires coming into the game at least have the kind of training and credibility many of the umpires from the last generation just never had. Better training and a better review process.

It would be fun, though, for a few games a year to be umpired by players. We could call them Lundgren-Noonan games. I picture a Saturday afternoon knothole game with cheap hotdogs and beer. Everyone in the stands would get a free pair of binoculars and a whistle. When they disagreed with a ball or strike call they could blow their whistles. Then there would be a video replay of the pitch and everyone would get to see how the players fared as umpires.

What do you think?