World Series MVP and Cy Young contender Yoshinobu Yamamoto received a hero’s welcome as he took the mound for the Dodgers on Opening Day. But then something new and extraordinary happened.
After Yamamoto struck out the first batter, he faced Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll, and threw a pitch that was called a strike at the very top of the zone. Carroll didn’t hesitate. He tapped his helmet to challenge. And just like that, everything stopped. Over 54,000 fans in attendance at the sold-out game went quiet and turned toward the video boards. Fans leaned toward each other, pointing, asking the same question: What’s going on? Seconds later, the answer came. A computer-generated strike zone appeared on the screen, showing the pitch just above the upper boundary. The call was overturned — strike became ball — and play resumed. No argument. No delay. No theatrics. Just correction. And the reaction was telling. After a moment of confusion, the crowd settled immediately. If anything, people seemed impressed. This was the Dodgers’ first in-stadium look at Major League Baseball’s new strike zone challenge system, the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS). The Dodgers went on to obliterate the Diamondbacks in a lopsided 8-2 win.
But the ABS was also a big winner.
For decades, baseball has lived with a built-in flaw: the most important calls in the game — balls and strikes — were also the least consistent. There are social media accounts dedicated solely to showing bad calls by umpires. What ABS does is simple. It gives players a limited, strategic way to correct the obvious misses without slowing the game down or removing the umpire. That balance is why it works. This isn’t about replacing umpires with machines. It’s about reinforcing accuracy without destroying the game’s human structure. Major League Baseball has already modernized in recent years — the pitch clock, limits on pickoff attempts, defensive adjustments — all designed to improve pace and action. Those changes made the game faster. This one makes it better. Because it addresses something deeper: trust. Umpires aren’t being replaced. They’re being sharpened. Every call now carries the possibility of immediate review. That level of accountability didn’t exist before — and it changes how the job is done. In the same way a judge knows a ruling can be appealed, umpires now know their calls can be tested — instantly, publicly, and definitively. No umpire wants to see a call overturned on the big screen. So they adjust. They focus. They lock in.
And over time, they get better. That’s the real win here.
The rest of Opening Day wasn’t just a baseball game — it was a production. With back-to-back World Series titles to celebrate, the Dodgers’ homecoming was over the top. The crowd, the ceremony, the sense that something big was happening before a single pitch was thrown — it was all there – and I was there. From my season ticket seats behind home plate, just to the right of the umpire, I had a perfect view of everything over the plate. The Dodgers leaned into the moment from the start. A pregame video featuring Will Ferrell played to the crowd — classic Los Angeles, equal parts comedy and spectacle. The bit built to a payoff. At the end of the video, Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas took possession of the team’s most recent World Series trophies from Ferrell, who then joked that he’d drive them onto the field himself. Moments later, the joke became reality. Out of the opening in center field came an old-school convertible, with Ferrell behind the wheel and Freeman and Rojas seated in the back, trophies in hand. The crowd roared as the car rolled onto the field — a perfect blend of Hollywood and baseball. Then came the flyover — what looked to me to be F-35 fighter jets flying so low and thundering so loudly that they overwhelmed the entire stadium.
The sound rolled through the ballpark and gave way to the raising of new championship flags beyond the outfield.
Then onto game two on Friday night, where, after more pre-game hoopla with the presentation of World Series Champion rings to the 2025 team members, the ABS system was back in action.
We watched as catcher Will Smith tapped his helmet on a called ball – and boy did the crowd roar when, clear as day up on the big screens, the play was overturned: it was a strike!
This new challenge system is clearly a fan favorite.
The Dodgers took game two with a 3-2 win. They went on to win Saturday’s game on a go-ahead home run by Smith – on his birthday, no less. And a day when 40,000 fans received a Will Smith bobblehead!
What a sweep. And a new era for baseball.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics and a lifelong Dodgers fan, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.
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