Nobody watching this in the Phillies’ home ballpark, apparently — at least judging by that sound: Boooooo.

An inning later, there were still more boos when Realmuto and Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer challenged back-to-back pitches in the same at-bat, and both were called balls by the robot ump, handing Mayer a five-pitch walk.

“Did I really hear those fans booing the robot?” I asked Realmuto later.

“Well, it’s Philly, so there’s no telling what they were booing,” he said. “I think they were booing the batter for challenging. I know that they booed that. And then they also booed when I challenged and it ended up being a ball. So yeah, I guess they were booing the robot.”

How cool is it to win a challenge? The thrill of victory!

Dylan Carlson, aka the MVC (Most Valuable Challenger). (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

A minor-league manager told me last year that there was a lot more riding on these challenges than balls and strikes.

“It’s like a baseball IQ test for the players,” he said. “You really find out who knows the strike zone and who doesn’t.”

So what did we learn about baseball IQ this spring? That catchers (of course) are baseball geniuses, the group that got the most challenges correct … and pitchers, um, not so much. But the hitters? According to preliminary data, they were somewhere in the middle.

That isn’t all we learned, though. For the hitters who consistently aced their challenges, that thrill of victory was the coolest thing ever.

Heading into this spring, Orioles outfielder Dylan Carlson didn’t figure he’d challenge much. But that was before he turned into the MVC (Most Valuable Challenger) of the whole darned spring.

In a span of a week and a half, he challenged four called third strikes — and got all four overturned. Two of them came in one game against the Twins. Three of them were on 3-2 pitches, so they magically transformed strikeouts into walks. And the fourth was on a 2-2 pitch, which canceled a strikeout and led to another walk.

And after that, he said with a laugh, “They kind of gave me the green light to use it whenever I wanted.”

So Carlson went into the final weekend of spring training with more than twice as many walks (eight) as strikeouts (three). If this hadn’t been The Spring of the Robot Ump, he’d have had more strikeouts (seven) than walks (four). And his on-base percentage would have been over 100 points lower (at .351 instead of .459).

You think that guy is a fan of this robot-ump thing, or what?

“For me personally,” he said, “just the swings — going from strikeouts to getting on base — a lot of those were leading off innings. So it kind of changes the whole inning in some ways. You get a leadoff runner on, right? Then it’s go time. So it’s been interesting, for sure.”

All spring, I’ve watched players challenge, then turn their attention to the ABS cartoon on the videoboard. They couldn’t have been paying closer attention if that board was telling them whether they’d just won 10 million bucks. So I asked Carlson to describe the feeling — of paying rapt attention to that animation and then finding out he was right … again.

“So actually, every time I’ve challenged,” he said, “I’ve asked the catcher too: ‘Hey, was that a strike?’ And every time they’ve all said yes. So I’ve been a little nervous looking up at the board. But fortunately, they’ve all gone my way.”

Which beats the alternative, obviously. Speaking of which …

How brutal is it to lose a big challenge? The agony of defeat!

Even in subdued spring training, real humans are playing. And sometimes, their future is riding on these games. So when you’re a pitcher, on the fringe of a big-league roster (or hoping to get there someday), and you lose a challenge, is that just a “get-the-call-right” moment? Or is it more?

Yankees manager Aaron Boone thinks it can often be more. There is always an emotional component to these games. And just last week, he saw a game change on a challenge — and a swing of emotion.

It was the sixth inning of a game against the Red Sox. Right-hander Geoff Hartlieb was on the mound. Pitching with a two-run lead, Hartlieb got the first two hitters out, then thought he’d dotted the outside corner with a 2-and-2 fastball to Kristian Campbell.

The home-plate ump, Roberto Ortiz, pumped his fist. Strike three. Campbell had other ideas and tapped his helmet. The ABS animation rolled. The robots ruled the pitch was a millimeter off the plate. So this inning wasn’t over. Want to guess what happened next?

On the next pitch, Campbell walked. Then the next hitter, Masataka Yoshida, pumped a game-tying homer. Boone was steaming.

“Strike three, pitcher walking off the mound,” Boone grumbled the next day. “Oh. Challenge. Overturned. So it’s like, you’ve got a pitcher getting out of an inning. Makes a pitch. Walking off. Boom. Oh, no. Next pitch, home run.

“I just don’t like it, honestly,” he said. “I feel like the umpires are getting so good — and look, I know I’m the poster child, sometimes, for arguing — but literally, sometimes I’m arguing when they’re missing by, like, (a fraction of an inch). But I feel like more and more, these umpires are really good. And just the frivolous challenge — like the 1-1 pitch in the second inning. It’s stop … ball … challenge … 2-and-1 … no wait, 1-and-2. I just don’t like it.”

So, because he brought this up …

A moment of silence for managerial ejections

There once was a time when I would have paid to go to the ballpark and watch Lou Piniella, Bobby Cox or Don Zimmer get booted from a game by their favorite men in blue. Old-school baseball didn’t get more entertaining than that.

But now? We’re in serious jeopardy of never seeing another manager ejected from any game again — if those robot umps take over the world.

We’ve already gotten a preview of where this could be heading, thanks to instant replay. As recently as 2011, there were nearly 50 ejections across MLB solely because of calls on the bases, according to research by Retrosheet founder Dave Smith. Then replay arrived in 2014 — and by 2019, there was only one ejection, over a call on the bases, all season.

So the good old-fashioned managerial ejection tirade was already in trouble even before the looming arrival of ABS in any form. Ejection legend Bobby Cox once got thrown out of 11 games in one season. Dave Roberts has been managing for a decade — and has 12 ejections in his whole career.

According to Retrosheet, more than 70 percent of all ejections these days revolve around ball/strike “disagreements.” So what happens in a world where we suddenly start getting all the “big” ball/strike calls right? Will any of these managers ever get heaved out of a game again?

“I only get ejected once or twice a year anyway,” said the Tigers’ A.J. Hinch. “But you know, it’s funny. All the veteran managers have always told me: ‘Your job is to manage the game, not manage a game from your desk in your office.’ So yeah, you’re right. It’s getting harder and harder to get ejected. I mean, what do I argue about?”

But you’ll be heartened to know that Boone — the self-professed “poster boy” for arguing, and a guy who has led his league in ejections four seasons in a row — is not ready to concede his tirade days are over.

If this happens, I told him, he’ll never get thrown out of another game.

“That’s not true,” he promised. “I’ll find something.”

Phew!

Would ABS end manager ejections? Aaron Boone would like a word. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)

What will broadcasters talk about?

You think it’s easy talking about baseball games into a microphone for three hours every night? It’s a great gig, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So perhaps you’ve noticed that there’s a certain topic that’s pretty much guaranteed to come up every darned game. By which I mean …

C’mon. That pitch is not a strike/ball. How could he miss that pitch?

Have you ever wondered how many broadcast hours the work of the home-plate umpire has consumed over the past 50 years? Might be a million hours. Possibly a billion. Does Statcast track that stuff? It should.

But now imagine how different the life of the average broadcaster might be if some sort of technology was invented that would get every ball-strike call right — or at least the biggest ball-strike calls right. I can assure you that thought occurred to many a broadcaster this spring … when that technology suddenly arrived.

So I sought out Larry Andersen, the always-entertaining radio color analyst for the Phillies, a guy who has been known to express a few (affectionate) opinions about men standing behind home plate wearing blue jackets.

The Athletic: “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I’ve listened to you call games a few times. You don’t seem like you’re normally that happy with the umpires’ work beyond the plate. Would that be fair?”

Andersen: “That would be fair. I would say I’m not. But this is going to sound crazy, because they drive me nuts, but it’s gotten worse since they put the (strike-zone) box on TV.”

That, he said, is because now that there’s a depiction of the strike zone on the screen, it’s hard not to notice when a pitch misses that box “by 6 inches” and still gets called a strike. So guess what? He might mention that.

But Andersen also isn’t convinced (with good reason) that those TV boxes are totally accurate. Whereas the ABS rectangle is going to be basically 100 percent accurate, even if it might not correspond exactly to how humans call balls and strikes. So back to our original question.

TA: “So if we suddenly got every ball/strike call right in this sport, what would you talk about all night?”

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Andersen: “Well, it would probably turn my wrath onto the players. And I don’t want to do that.”

TA: “Right. At least when you’re ripping the umpires, you’re a man of the people, because the people are with you on that. So if you weren’t ripping the umpires every night, what would happen?

Andersen: “It would really put a damper on my broadcasting career.”

So let’s ask this again, in a different context: Is that what you want? You know where to find me if you have some thoughts on that.

Thirteen of the 23 spring training ballparks were part of MLB’s ABS test. So, what’s next? (Mike Lang / Sarasota Herald-Tribune / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

Are we sure this is what we want?

All right, let’s end where we began — with Alex Cora’s Game 7 dream/nightmare.

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Game 7 of the World Series. Two outs in the ninth. Bases loaded. Here comes the 3-2 pitch. It pops the mitt. Strike three. You just won the World Series. Or did you?

Here comes the challenge animation. Was that pitch really 1-78th of an inch off the plate? According to ABS, it was. So don’t pop that champagne yet. This game is tied – thanks to those emotionless robot umps.

“I think most people would say: Well, it’s a ball, so it should be called a ball, and if that’s what determines the World Series, you should still call it,” said an executive of one contender.

He then rolled back the clock two springs and brought up the arrival of the pitch clock. Didn’t we hear the same stuff about the pitch clock? Would we really let a postseason game end on a clock violation?

“So what you described could be a possibility,” he said. “But I think the likelihood of that happening is pretty low.”

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Then again, it’s not zero. Do we really want a World Series decided by a pitch that’s literally the width of a hair off the plate? I asked that question of an AL exec. He swatted it away like a piece of lint.

“Maybe just get the call right,” he said. “I mean, that’s not the ideal use of the system, but I heard the same argument when we went to replay. Hey, play at the plate. It’s bang, bang. The umpire rules him out. But we go to a replay. We wait. No, he’s actually safe. Game’s over. You win the World Series. What’s the difference? It’s the exact same thing.”

Is it, though? Of course, most want to use technology to make the game better. Of course, we want to get as many calls right as possible. Why wouldn’t we?

But I’ve spent all spring listening to people wonder whether we’re really making the sport better by using technology to decide ball/strike calls that are so close, the human eye can’t even detect them. It all depends, said another AL exec, on what the true goal is.

“I think the functionality of the system is great,” he said. “And it has worked seamlessly. But I do wonder a little bit: What are we trying to accomplish?”

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When the sport first began testing ABS, he said, one of the big goals was to try to create a fixed strike zone that could reduce the strikeout rate and create more balls in play. Great idea. Never got there. No matter how the league adjusted the zone, no one ever figured out a variation that made more action happen.

“So that was the initial intent of the automated strike zone,” the exec said. “It has now morphed to (something else.) So I’m wondering: Is the focus now to try to get as many calls right as possible? Because if that’s really the goal, is it worth it? I’m not quite sure.”

You know who else is asking that question? Max Scherzer.

“Go back and look at the (2024) postseason,” Scherzer said on Starkville. “Are we really talking about (anything that) happened with the home-plate umpires and strikes or balls? No, I don’t think so. So what problem are we really solving?”

He, too, has seen the data that shows home-plate umpires are more accurate than ever. So use this technology, he said. Just use it to grade the umpires and make them even more accurate. But don’t fix what isn’t broken.

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“We’re not saying there’s a problem,” Scherzer said. “We said in the postseason, there wasn’t a problem. Do we really need to be trying to change a fundamental part of the baseball experience? Pitching? Catching? I don’t think so. So that’s where I’m skeptical. That’s where I think, as an industry, we just need to have a conversation.”

But guess what? No matter how that conversation goes, it’s not going to keep the robot umps from invading one of these years. So let’s embrace those robots — and even boo them just to see if robots have feelings. But between now and the day they arrive for good, let’s also ask that fundamental question:

What’s the true goal here? What are we trying to accomplish?

Technology is awesome. Robots are the future. And right calls are better than wrong calls. But is the sport truly better off if a World Series gets decided on a pitch 1-78th of an inch outside a robotized strike zone? The answers are so much harder than the questions.

(Top photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

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