Mike Schmidt thinks MLB should use the force, not human umpires, to call balls and strikes

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Michael Jack Schmidt was a guest on 97.5 the Fanatic on Thursday to talk about his new gig calling Sunday Phillies games alongside Tom McCarthy and either Jamie Moyer or Matt Stairs on the television broadcast. He hints that the broadcast may be a little different with some story telling be a welcomed addition.

He talks briefly about the skin cancer he's been dealing with over the past few months and adds that the prognosis is fantastic and that they caught it early. It'll be a battle he fights the rest of his life.

One of the more interesting things Schmidty talks about is the need for more technology in calling balls and strikes. Speed things up and make it more consistent.

“I think the umpire at home plate should not call balls and strikes," Schmidt said. "I think they should have a force field over home plate and if the pitcher throws and the ball touches the force field a little bell goes off and it’s a strike. That would expand the strike zone to the point where  the hitters would now have to swing the bat more often, which would shorten the games. The umpire needs to be at home plate for the safe and out calls at home plate and foul balls and fair balls and basically to run the game but we’re going to see at some time – my guess is within the next 10 years – that you’ll see the balls and strikes being treated just like they treat the line calls in tennis. It sounds crazy. You’d think it would be something very easy to do with what they can do electronically in our world today.”

Do force fields really exist? I always thought that was some Star Wars type stuff.

Listen to the whole Schmidt interview here.

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