ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In baseball, disagreeing with an umpire's call is just about as old as the sport itself. Now players will be able to do something about it. Starting next season, Major League Baseball will introduce a challenge system for balls and strikes. NPR's Becky Sullivan has more.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Let me explain first how this system is going to work.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Oh and 2 on Machado.
SULLIVAN: This is this year's all-star game where they tried it out. It's the bottom of the first inning. The Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal is on the mound, mic'ed up, talking to the Fox broadcast crew. Batter Manny Machado is at the plate, down on an 0 and 2 count. Skubal throws a fastball near the bottom of the zone.
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UNIDENTIFIED UMPIRE: Ball down.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Challenge that.
TARIK SKUBAL: Oh, what do you think? Yeah.
SULLIVAN: The umpire calls it a ball. Catcher Cal Raleigh disagrees and taps his helmet, the signal to trigger a review. On the screen, a computerized replay shows that, in fact, the pitch was a strike. Batter's out. A big old smile crosses Skubal's face.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Hey.
SKUBAL: Hey, you take them any way you can get them, boy.
SULLIVAN: MLB has tested this system out for a while in the minor leagues. Most major leaguers experienced it for the first time during spring training this year.
ROB THOMSON: I thought the umpires were really locked in in spring training. Hitters were really locked in during spring training. I thought it was great.
SULLIVAN: This is Rob Thomson, the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. Each team will start every game with two challenges. If a player gets his challenge wrong, the team loses one. But if the player gets it right, the team gets to keep that challenge and can use it again.
THOMSON: I love it, and I loved it in spring training. And I think it keeps everybody accountable. It keeps everybody on their toes.
SULLIVAN: The only players who can call for a challenge will be the pitcher, catcher or batter. And they have to do it right away, without a sign from the dugout. In spring training this year, there were some really silly challenges, guys just trying it, seeing what it's like, having a laugh. But come next season, when it's rolled out in games that count, that'll all have to sharpen up, says Aaron Boone, the manager of the New York Yankees.
AARON BOONE: What are the rules in a particular inning, in a particular at bat, particular counts and things like that? Making sure you are as buttoned up as you can be so you're in a position to, you know, overturn the most impactful calls of the game in a given night.
SULLIVAN: In spring training, there were about four challenges a game. That added about a minute on average to the duration. Players got the calls overturned a little more than half the time.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF NANCY BEA HEFLEY'S "TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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