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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher and Writer
PEORIA, Arizona — They’re usually the first guys in the press box in spring training stadiums.
No, not sportswriters, PR people or security.
They’re the tech dudes behind Major League Baseball’s ASB system — the electronic, computerized, automated system that shows whether a pitcher’s toss to home plate during a game is a ball or strike.
After setting up the laptop for today’s A’s vs Mariners game in Peoria, Arizona, I said hi to two friendly ASB tech fellas — Andres and Tony who were sitting behind nice laptops surrounded by some other electronic gear.
Andres had the historic distinction of working on the first ever challenge of a ball/strike call by the home plate up at a MLB game when Cubs hurler Cody Poteet wanted a review of a pitch he threw to the Dodgers’ Max Muncy last week. The ump called it a ball. The pitcher thought it was a strike — and made that first challenge of an umpire’s ball/strike call. Outcome: the scoreboard at the Dodgers spring ballpark showed the pitch caught the strike zone and instead of one ball and one strike on Muncy it was 0-2 before the batter eventually truck out.
The A’s, like every other team in the majors, are experiencing the computerized balls-and-strikes calls.
A’s manager Mark Kotsay, a friendly skipper, joked the other morning before a spring game at Hohoham Stadium that there’s no arguing with the “robot.” Indeed, the screen shows that baseball either touched the batter’s strike zone or it didn’t.
The A’s closed shop in Oakland Sept. 26 and are playing three seasons in Sacramento before the Athletics hope to open a new $1.75 billion stadium on the Strip in 2028. The state law approved in 2023 that includes a $380 million subsidy to help the A’s build the domed stadium with capacity for 33,000 fans is the reason why the MLB team is moving to the Las Vegas market. Technically, the planned A’s stadium at the old Tropicana hotel-casino site on the Strip is in Clark County and not the city of Las Vegas.
Clark County will review the A’s stadium plans and submission. Bally’s Corp., which owned the former Tropicana hotel, wants to build a resort casino next to the A’s ballpark with the stadium and hotel linked via a pedestrian bridge at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
Will A’s fans travel to Las Vegas to attend Athletics games on the Strip? Here’s just a sampling of comments before Wednesday’s A’s vs Mariners game:
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It was sunny and 84 degrees when the A’s vs Mariners game started at the Peoria Sports Complex.
The crowd was small. It looked like only a few thousand fans were in the stadium.
It was so quiet in the top of the first inning that a vendor hawking water and barking out, “Stay hydrated,” provided the loudest voice of the venue.
In fact, the water vendor later added, “Wooooo, weeeee,” and some fans followed suit.
The A’s have sold out their season ticket allotment for the minor league stadium in West Sacramento where the Athletics will play their home games while the stadium is built on the Strip.
The A’s open the regular season on the road playing the Mariners before playing their first home game in Sacramento against the Chicago Cubs.
The Mariners recently signed Rowdy Tellez, a big boy at six-foot, four inches and 270 pounds and the man who smacked 35 dingers for the Brewers in 2022 put a charge into a pitch for a home run in the bottom of the second inning.
The A’s come to Las Vegas for two spring training games on Big League Weekend March 8 and 9.
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