Yahoo:

After much discussion, some anticipation and some disappointment, “robot umpires” have finally made its way into professional baseball.

On Wednesday, the independent Atlantic League, which is a partner of Major League Baseball, debuted the electronic strike zone during its All-Star game, making it the first American professional league to do so.

Home plate umpire Brian deBrauwere wore an earpiece that was connected to an iPhone in his pocket. The earpiece relayed balls and strikes after receiving it from a TrackMan computer system utilizing a Doppler radar and deBrauwere called them as he received them .

Because the system is still in its infancy, an umpire is needed behind home in the event that the system fails to pick up a pitch, registers a pitch totally incorrectly or fails altogether.

It’s only a matter of time before this technology enters the mainstream and is used in the big leagues. I think that will be a shame because one of the joys of baseball is that human element of a really bad umpire.