WaPo: Robo Ump Test Drive

The Blue Crabs let me test out the system before “Fourth of July Do-Over Night” on Aug. 3, about a month before the end of the Atlantic League regular season. Left-hander Tommy Thorpe threw a bullpen to Josh McAdams while I crouched behind the plate wearing an earpiece but no protective gear.

It was me, a former youth baseball catcher and Little League umpire, going head to head with ABS, the RADAR-enabled software that’s the basis for most advanced statistics in Major League Baseball, like exit velocity, launch angle and spin rate. It’s also used to grade umpires.