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Reading Passage 3

Invasion of the Robot Umpires
A few years ago, Fred DeJesus from Brooklyn, New York became the first umpire in a minor league baseball game to use something called the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), often referred to as the ‘robo-umpire’. Instead of making any judgments himself about a strike*, DeJesus had decisions fed to him through an earpiece, connected to a modified missile-tracking system. The contraption looked like a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye; it was mounted above the press stand.

Major League Baseball (MLB), who had commissioned the system, wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they would have done in the past. When the first pitch came in, a recorded voice told DeJesus it was a strike. Previously, calling a strike was a judgment call on the part of the umpire. Even if the batter does not hit the ball, a pitch that passes through the ‘strike zone’ (an imaginary zone about seventeen inches wide, stretching from the batter’s knees to the middle of his chest) is considered a strike. During that first game, when DeJesus announced calls, there was no heckling and no shouted disagreement. Nobody said a word.

For a hundred and fifty years or so, the strike zone has been the game’s animating force—countless arguments between a team’s manager and the umpire have taken place over its boundaries and whether a ball had crossed through it. The rules of play have evolved in various stages. Today, everyone knows that you may scream your disagreement in an umpire’s face, but you must never shout personal abuse at them or touch them. That’s a no-no. When the robo-umpires came, however, the arguments stopped.

During the first robo-umpire season, players complained about some strange calls. In response, MLB decided to tweak the dimensions of the zone, and the following year the consensus was that ABS is profoundly consistent. MLB says the device is near-perfect, precise to within fractions of an inch. “It’ll reduce controversy in the game, and be good for the game,” says Rob Manfred, who is Commissioner for MLB. But the question is whether controversy is worth reducing, or whether it is the sign of a human hand.

A human, at least, yells back. When I spoke with Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, he said that ABS works as designed, but that it was also unforgiving and pedantic, almost legalistic. “Manfred is a lawyer,” Viola noted. Some pitchers have complained that, compared to a human’s, the robot’s strike zone seems too precise. Viola was once a major-league player himself. When he was pitching, he explained, umpires rewarded skill. “Throw it where you aimed, and it would be a strike, even if it was an inch or two outside. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.”>> Form đăng kí giải đề thi thật IELTS 4 kĩ năng kèm bài giải bộ đề 100 đề PART 2 IELTS SPEAKING quý đang thi (update hàng tuần) từ IELTS TUTOR

The executive tasked with running the experiment for MLB is Morgan Sword, who’s in charge of baseball operations. According to Sword, ABS was part of a larger project to make baseball more exciting since executives are terrified of losing younger fans, as has been the case with horse racing and boxing. He explains how they began the process by asking fans what version of baseball they found most exciting. The results showed that everyone wanted more action: more hits, more defense, more baserunning. This type of baseball essentially hasn’t existed since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, which is difficult to hit and control, entered the game. It flattened the game into strikeouts, walks, and home runs—a type of play lacking much action.

Sword’s team brainstormed potential fixes. Any rule that existed, they talked about changing—from changing the bats to changing the geometry of the field. But while all of these were ruled out as potential fixes, ABS was seen as a perfect vehicle for change. According to Sword, once you get the technology right, you can load any strike zone you want into the system. “It might be a triangle, or a blob, or something shaped like Texas. Over time, as baseball evolves, ABS can allow the zone to change with it.”

“In the past twenty years, sports have moved away from judgment calls. Soccer has Video Assistant Referees (for offside decisions, for example). Tennis has Hawk-Eye (for line calls, for example). For almost a decade, baseball has used instant replay on the base paths. This is widely liked, even if the precision can sometimes cause problems. But these applications deal with something physical: bases, lines, goals. The boundaries of action are precise, delineated like the keys of a piano. This is not the case with ABS and the strike zone. Historically, a certain discretion has been appreciated.”

I decided to email Alva Noë, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball fan, for his opinion. “Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wake up and run through the reasons that this [robo-umpires] is such a terrible idea,” he replied. He later told me, “This is part of a movement to use algorithms to take the hard choices of living out of life.” Perhaps he’s right. We watch baseball to kill time, not to maximize it. Some players I have met take a dissenting stance toward the robots too, believing that accuracy is not the answer. According to Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, “With technology, people just want everything to be perfect. That’s not reality. I think perfect would be weird. Your teams are always winning, work is always just great, there’s always money in your pocket, your car never breaks down. What is there to talk about?”

*strike: a strike is when the batter swings at a ball and misses or when the batter does not swing at a ball that passes through the strike zone.

Questions 27–32

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
Write:

• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

• NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. When DeJesus first used ABS, he shared decision-making about strikes with it.

2. MLB considered it necessary to amend the size of the strike zone when criticisms were received from players.

3. MLB is keen to justify the money spent on improving the accuracy of ABS’s calculations.

4. The hundred-mile-an-hour fastball led to a more exciting style of play.

5. The differing proposals for alterations to the baseball bat led to fierce debate on Sword’s team.

6. ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Questions 33–37

Complete the summary using the list of phrases, A–H, below.

List of phrases:
A. pitch boundary
B. numerous disputes
C. team tactics
D. subjective assessment
E. widespread approval
F. former roles
G. total silence
H. perceived area

Calls by the umpire
Even after ABS was developed, MLB still wanted human umpires to shout out decisions as they had in their 33 ______. The umpire’s job had, at one time, required a 34 ______ about whether a ball was a strike. A ball is considered a strike when the batter does not hit it and it crosses through a 35 ______ extending approximately from the batter’s knee to his chest.

In the past, 36 ______ over strike calls were not uncommon, but today everyone accepts the complete ban on pushing or shoving the umpire. One difference, however, is that during the first game DeJesus used ABS, strike calls were met with 37 ______.

Questions 38–40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

1. What does the writer suggest about ABS in the fifth paragraph?
   A. It is bound to make key decisions that are wrong.>> tham khảo CẦN VIẾT & THU ÂM BAO NHIÊU BÀI ĐỂ ĐẠT 8.0 SPEAKING & 7.0 WRITING?
   B. It may reduce some of the appeal of the game.
   C. It will lead to the disappearance of human umpires.
   D. It may increase calls for the rules of baseball to be changed.

2. Morgan Sword says that the introduction of ABS
   A. was regarded as an experiment without a guaranteed outcome.
   B. was intended to keep up with developments in other sports.
   C. was a response to changing attitudes about the role of sport.
   D. was an attempt to ensure baseball retained a young audience.

3. Why does the writer include the views of Noë and Russo?
   A. to show that attitudes to technology vary widely
   B. to argue that people have unrealistic expectations of sport
   C. to indicate that accuracy is not the same thing as enjoyment
   D. to suggest that the number of baseball fans needs to increase

Questions 27–32:
27. NO
28. YES
29. NOT GIVEN
30. NO
31. NOT GIVEN
32. YES

Questions 33–37:
33. F. former roles
34. D. subjective assessment
35. A. pitch boundary
36. B. numerous disputes
37. G. total silence

Questions 38–40:
38. B
39. D
40. C

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