"Say the voice was clearly recognized as a ball. What we're going to get out of.... That's all I have."

The machine said it was a strike. However, the human referee declared a ball. Moreover, the referee even made an attempt to cover it up. This scene came from the 2024 KBO League match between the NC Dinos and the Samsung Lions at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on Sunday.

In the bottom of the third inning when NC was leading 1-0, NC's starting pitcher Lee Jae-hak threw a strike on the automated ball judgment system (ABS) when Lee Jae-hyun (Samsung) was at bat. A "strike" call was also delivered to the referee who wore an "in-ear," but somehow the referee declared a "ball." An employee at the situation room at ABS of the Korea Baseball Organization had also heard a "strike call." The count, which would have been a no-ball-two strike, became a one-ball-one strike.

NC belatedly complained after learning that the second ball, which the referee declared as a "ball," was marked as a strike by ABS when Lee Jae-hak threw three more balls and became a 3-ball-1 strike. Each club can check the ABS decision in the dugout through a tablet provided by KBO this season, and since the data is not uploaded in real time but comes through a server located elsewhere, the club cannot confirm the ABS decision until at least three to four seconds after the initial decision.

Referees gathered on the ground afterwards to discuss whether to accept the NC bench's protest. In fact, the ABS appeal should have been made before the next pitch by regulation, so it is right to maintain the original trial. The problem arose from the wrong side. During the fourth trial agreement, the referee told the referee, "Tell him the voice was clearly recognized as a ball. What we're going to get out of here is.... That's the only thing I can do," the whispering was exposed to TV broadcasts. This is because it is interpreted as an intention to cover up and blame machine errors for not hearing the machine's decision through the in-ear.

The machine call heard not only the referee but also the third base trial at the same time, so if the referee missed the machine call momentarily, he had to check with the third base trial, or if he missed both, he had to stop the game for a while and ask the ABS situation room staff. It would have been better if he had admitted the mistake, but the credibility of the referee's call was cracked as suspicions arose about a cover-up attempt following the mistake trial.

In fact, there has been talk of a mistake in the referee's call regarding the ABS decision. Again, the referee declared the ball as a "strike" for the ball that ABS judged as a "strike." At that time, the club protested to KBO and others after the game, but only heard theoretical answers to the improvement of call-related manuals. Then, the same problem arose again. NC, which had a 1-0 lead before the referee's call mistake, dedicated three points at the end of the third inning, and eventually lost 5-12. For NC, it is bound to burst into anger.

ABS was introduced for the first time in the world to ensure fairness in ball judgment. Since it is the first time for ABS to be implemented, there may be errors. Complaints from the field that strike zones are different at different stadiums are incidental. This is because strike zones were different at different referees even before ABS was introduced. As long as two clubs are subject to the same strike zone without discrimination and are consistent, it does not matter whether they are star-shaped or diamond-shaped.

However, a call mistake that reverses a ball/strike decision is a serious problem. What if such a mistake occurs in a game like the Korean Series? To prevent a recurrence, the KBO should gradually consider ways to indicate a strike and ball status in conjunction with a machine decision regardless of the referee's call on the electronic display board. There could also be a way to allow the referee, the third base referee and the team's recorders in the dugout to hear the machine call decision at the same time. 스포츠토토

When machines were introduced to correct human error, how can human error be involved in this? Let's not forget that sports whose fairness has been compromised will eventually be shunned by fans.