Beyond the grunt: Umpires mic up, and baseball changes a bit

NEW YORK (AP) — After a century and a half of Major League Baseball — after generations of grunts and growls, of muffled shouts and dramatic arm gestures and a cultivated sense of remoteness — something quietly extraordinary happened to the national pastime this year: The umpires began talking to the world.

On April 5, umpire Ted Barrett spoke into a tiny microphone and said these 20 words: “After review, the call is confirmed. The batter was hit by the pitch. The Los Angeles Angels lose their challenge.” Suddenly, one of baseball’s most remote figures became a bit more human.

A policy change implemented at the beginning of the season, designed to explain on-field call challenges and outcomes, equipped umpires with tiny wireless microphones and — for the first time in baseball history — introduced their amplified voices to ballpark speakers, to the fans in their seats and to the world at home. They'll be there on the sport's biggest stage this month, too, during the playoffs and World Series.

Change in baseball is often measured in big things, loud things, significant things. Things like catchers being barred from blocking the plate. Like challenges adjudicated in a far-off room by out-of-sight officials. Like next season's plans for bases getting bigger, shifts getting restricted and the time between pitches — in a game that never had a clock — finally being counted.