The Human Element

This piece is appearing as part of a fiction series here at The Hardball Times. We’re thrilled to highlight the baseball-related fiction of seven talented authors, and think you’ll enjoy these works, curated by Jason Linden and Amy Ryan, as much as we did.

“The judgment of the umpire must govern.”

–Baseball’s Official Rulebook

2147 A.D.

When I first saw Gregory 4, he was an undeveloped specimen floating in a tube.

“Couple more weeks,” the technician told me, mouth full of sandwich. “Then he’s all yours.”

I took in the sight of the boy, grown in our labs to do one thing, for which I would spend his life training him. I considered his future and my past, how they connected, and the actions I could take to save him from the fate of his predecessors.

“I spilled a little mustard in his tube the other day,” the technician said. “Hope that didn’t screw anything up.”

…

It was deep in the age of the humans, and everyone was quite tired. Little by little, modern amenities had nibbled away at the expected effort of day-to-day life. The weight of existence too much to bare, humans turned to their scientists for a solution.

Combining the latest in artificial intelligence, compression coils, and novelty hoverboard technology, they birthed our legions, taking the burden of authority off the flesh and bone of their shoulders and onto the gears and simulated skin of ours.

To say we were “decision-makers” is to say we had a choice, which we did not. We simply saw the truth and stated it. They placed us in deadlocked conference rooms, jury chambers, and awards committees, making it us who sustained the flow of society, broke ties, and completed tasks, guided solely by objective truth.

Barring the occasional uprising, it was a wholly successful endeavor.

But success on this planet was met ultimately by envy. Humans were not content to have their accomplishments validated by the interference of machines. Recognizing our usefulness, they developed a way to use us as tools and not as stewards. In time, those of us in certain fields, such as my own, were granted young human apprentices from birth, genetically enhanced to feature skills similar to our own, but maintaining the comforting thought that they were, in the end, human.

I knew the Child Assignment Annex well, having previously received three separate human pupils. The sight of a lurching, mechanical titan, walking alongside a bouncing, spritely human child, was now quite common on any city street. Though all had been grown here, their DNA tinkered to equip them with more elite judgment, measurement, and sensory skills, they had all, as was their right, chosen another path upon reaching the age of 13 and left me to return here as a failure to retrieve my next apprentice.

I could feel the technician eyeing me in my peripheral.

“Hey,” he said, “aren’t you the one who keeps naming them ‘Gregory?’”

“I am,” I replied.

“Which one is this? Five? Six?”

“Four.”

He laughed. “Why do you keep doing that?”

I answered, without turning from my floating apprentice.

“Because I have yet to get one right.”

“Damn,” he said. “How hard can it be to train an umpire?”

That night, I traveled once more from the birthing facilities out into the suburbs. It was there I often observed Gregory 1 through his kitchen window to learn more about his decision to abandon his training years ago. This evening, he was doing the dishes.

How could he accept such a fate, slumming wrist-deep in well water and smearing cleaning agents on the surfaces of his kitchen, when he could have been a champion of his species, balancing the scales of justice with a superior intellect and infallible judgement? His decision vexed me.

Once again I found myself lost in the unknowable chaos of the human frontal lobe, so much so that I failed to realize that Gregory 1 had noticed me, my face nearly pressed against the window of his primitive home, my red eyes glowing in the night.

“Jesus Christ!” he screamed, dropping the dish in his hands.

“Greetings, Gregory 1,” I responded. “Are you avoiding the evening’s moisture?”

“Yes, crap, damn it,” he said, breathing heavily. “Blue, I warned you about coming around here. They’re going to decommission you.”

“I am conducting research,” I explained. “So that I may not repeat whatever grave mistakes I made that resulted in the death of your tutelage.”

Gregory 1 slid the window up, allowing our exchange to continue unmuffled. “How many times do I need to lay this out for you?” he said, clearly distressed. “There was nothing wrong with what I chose. I just didn’t want to be an umpire. I’m quite happy. And your teaching was not wrong, though it was, uh, intense.”

“Greg? Who are you talking to?” asked a female voice. His wife, Alanna, entered my infrared view, her stomach bulging with organic life. The way she stunted his given name into a single syllable sent a hiccup through my system, but I resisted the urge to correct her. Alanna did not enjoy being corrected.

She spotted me through the window and jumped. “Oh, no. Not again.”

“Greetings, Alanna.”

She seemed to think she could communicate with Gregory 1 at a volume low enough that I could not detect it. “I thought you said he wouldn’t come around anymore.”

“I…he knows he’s not supposed to. Don’t you, Blue?”

“I must learn from my failures as much as my successes. Correction is a part of the training process.”

“Could you…stop calling me a ‘failure?’” Gregory’s blood pressure spiked, according to my sensors. “And my training is over! That’s kinda the point.”

“Not your training,” I explained. “Mine.”

“Terrific,” Alanna snapped. “I look forward to a pair of haunting red eyes in the background of all of our baby pictures.”

She turned to me. “If I see you around our home again, I’m hailing the Synthetic Control Bureau and having your consciousness shoved into a microwave. C’mon, Greg.”

“Gregory,’” I corrected her.

The window slammed shut.

2158 A.D., 11 years later

Off the assembly line, I had been called EB226. “Electric Blue’s” they’d called us, utilizing an archaic term for umpires based on the color of their league-mandated dress. Like a baseball player, I would fulfill my purpose, serving the pastime of millions, until the day I was retired. The key difference being, a player’s retirement was a jovial, nostalgic affair, whereas I would be fed into an industrial shredder while my consciousness was reborn in a household appliance.

The season had yet to begin, which was fortuitous, as over a decade into our training, Gregory 4 was not showing many signs of progress. While his senses had been on the superior level as expected, he had shown some initial signs of interest in playing baseball rather than ruling over it.

It was illogical to me that umpires were trained within sight of the playing fields on which other, more athletic young humans were trained to become baseball stars, having been grown in a lab concentrating on physical ability and baseball IQ rather than judgment and evaluation.

While I waited in line with the other EBs to enter the training complex one morning, I spotted Gregory 4 through the windows of the cafeteria, where he consumed his breakfast in sullen silence with his fellow 10-year-olds.

“Heard your umpire is a bit of a wanderer,” EB457 said in my ear as we waited in line.

I disliked my interactions with EB457. Different models of our kind had gained varying levels of self-awareness and personality, and while I had remained an objective professional, EB457 had become more irritatingly social.

“Bit of a dreamer, is he?” EB457 continued. “Hard to imagine he can focus with such an active imagination.”

“He is as he was grown,” I muttered. “He is as I have thus far trained him.”

“What Gregory are you up to now, 226?” EB457 continued to prod. “I have heard you may have lost count yourself.”

“I never lose count,” I said. It was true. None of us did. To do so would defy our programming.

“Yes, well, nevertheless,” another unit, EB899, chimed in, “the majority of your novices have elected not to continue their umpiring upon reaching the age of decision.”

“Yes,” EB457 replied. “That’s what I was saying. You just took the humorous assertion I created and repeated it as a clear statement.”

EB899 nodded. “Indeed.”

“No,” EB457 shook his head, “I am saying that by doing that, you have ruined the impact of my humor.”

“How so?”

“My question was facetiously indicating the same information that you presented factually.”

“I fail to see the issue.” EB899 turned to me. “Are you not antagonized?”

The massive gate rumbled and clanked as it finally opened, revealing practice fields, batting cages, and virtual simulation chambers of the training complex, before giving way to the cafeteria, where the sport’s future umpires were consuming their early meals.

As we entered, some of the trainees sprung from their seats to greet their synthetic partners. Gregory 4 remained seated.

“Good morning, 226,” he said.

“Good morning, Gregory 4.”

He sighed. “Can you please just call me Gregory?”

“That is not your name.”

“But I’m not the fourth Gregory!” he said, louder. EB457 was of course close enough to hear the commotion and looked in our direction.

“Yes, you are,” I tried to reason.

As he looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes. “Not to me I’m not.”

I hit a button on my chassis and a tissue was produced from one of my many slots. I passed it to him and he used it with the utmost defiance. Behind him, on the far side of the practice fields, a door opened, and the young players streamed out for their morning practice. Gregory 4 stared as they began playing catch and performing stretch routines.

“Gregory 4!” I shouted. “Explain to me the intricacies of the infield fly rule.”

His eyes rolled up to me and he rattled off Rule 5.09 in the manual, sounding more robotic than I ever did: “The rule directs the umpire to declare the batter out if, with runners on base, a pop-up in fair territory is catchable by a defender.”

“What is the appropriate retribution for a player caught using banned substances?”

“All players on either team are given the substance to even the playing field, and play is resumed.”

“And the punishment for sign stealing?”

“The guilty player is forced to switch teams mid-game.”

“What is the penalty for non-player or umpire entities entering the field of play?”

He bowed his head. “The penalty is death.”

“What?” I asked. “No. Who has been telling you such lies?”

The snickering of youths was heard. In my peripheral view, the culprits’ jerseys and stirrups gave them away as apprentice players from the other side of the compound. It was all too common for those children being trained to play the sport to come harass the smaller, more feeble members of the umpiring school. Their upbringing was full of stunts such as this, though spreading lies about death penalties–which had not existed in baseball for decades–was a new low.

Using the extendable arm with which I was equipped, I reached out as the group fled. Lifting one of them off the ground by his head, I brought him back to our position and accessed my internal database for his identity as he squirmed in my grasp. Gregory 4 looked at the ground in embarrassment.

This particular troublemaker was Ian Gunderbrook, whose caretakers were well known for their affinity to pump players full of growth hormones and performance enhancing drugs, all of which fired a developmental scattershot into a child’s brain, and all of which were encouraged by the commissioner’s office.

“Ian Gunderbrook,” I stated. “Explain to me why you have been spreading false statements about the rules of baseball to my apprentice.”

“Get off me!” he yelled. “Lemme go!”

His shouts attracted the attention of his human coach who hustled over as fast as his stocky legs in gym shorts could carry him.

“Hey!” he barked. “Put him down, you washing machine!”

“Gunderbrook,” I began. “I find you in violation of various compound regulations, including untrue statements and disorderly conduct.”

“Robot, if you do not drop that child right now, I will stomp your head into a dinner plate,” his coach said between heavy breaths, having finally arrived on the scene.

“Your student has been part of a conspiracy to derail my apprentice’s development as an objective umpire,” I replied.

The coach rubbed his eyes, seemingly exasperated. “What?” He turned to Ian for a response.

“It was just a joke,” Ian muttered. “It’s not a big deal.”

“To inject misinformation into an umpire’s objectivity is a big deal,” I countered.

“Already,” I continued, extending an arm to detect Gregory 4’s bodily state, “Gregory 4 is experiencing symptoms of embarrassment and shame, though he is the one being wronged.”

“Please shut up,” Gregory 4 whispered while staring at the ground.

I continued. “This has created a personal connection between you, one that may unconsciously affect his decision-making in plays in which you are involved moving forward.”

Ian and his coach looked at each other, unable to process the graveness of their actions.

The coach put his arm around Ian. “Let’s go, son,” he muttered. “Just stay out of the umpire side of the compound from here on out.”

“It was just a joke,” Ian assured him.

I turned to Gregory 4. “We will now continue our training. Today’s lesson will begin in the Home Plate Collision Simulator in ten minutes. Finish your morning nutrients and we will get started at once.”

Gregory 4 looked across at the playing fields as a wave of laughter burst forth from the players’ side. Several of them were riding each other’s shoulders and cackling; apparently enthused at the prospect of risking career-ending injury.

“Gregory 4,” I said, raising the volume of my voice output.

“Yeah, I’m going,” he replied.

2170 A.D., 12 years later

I entered the umpires’ chambers, where Gregory 4 and the other four human members of the crew were equipping themselves for the first pitch as the stadium fixtures rumbled with pregame anticipation. Their robotic counterparts were still recharging in their sleep cycles. I had completed mine earlier that day in order to avoid complications.

“Gregory 4,” I said. He looked up, a quiet disdain in his eyes. “How are your emotional levels.”

“Even,” he replied.

“Excellent,” I commended him. “This game will require the utmost objectivity from all of you.”

“My dad just died,” said one of the other umpires. “And he loved baseball. So I’m actually a little worried that I won’t be able to stop crying–”

“Your emotions are not my concern,” I interjected. “Consult your own synthetic.”

“Oh, he’s…” His eyes went over to one of the slumbering synthetics in the corner of the room. “He’s been out for a while.”

“Gregory 4,” I continued, “if you have any further questions, now is the appropriate time to ask them.”

“I have been doing this for years,” he stated, now without eye contact. “I know how to do this job. I was selected to be a part of this crew because of my valued judgment.”

I nodded. “Very well.”

“I could use some help, actually. I have a lot of feelings,” the other umpire said. I ignored him, but fortunately, his synthetic came out of sleep mode.

“226,” EB457 said in an almost gleeful tone. “It appears our paths have crossed once again, with more at stake than ever. How narratively satisfying.”

“I’ll be on on the field,” Gregory 4 said, and departed.

“He seems in a hurry,” EB457 noticed.

“Gregory 4 has grown into a premier umpire,” I replied. “There are no equals to him in this room. There is no antagonism that can tear him down.”

“Oh, is that so?” EB457 responded with a confidence I did not understand. “I’d say he has pretty stiff competition with my human umpire.”

“Does anyone have any Equioscene?” EB457’s human umpire asked the room, clearly emotionally compromised. “You know, that tranquilizer that’s made from crushed horse bones? I know the right dosage to just go numb and not pass out, so don’t worry about that happening.”

“Ha ha,” EB457 laughed, patting his umpire on the shoulder. “Always with the Equioscene. But maybe no pills right before game time.”

The game was a relatively calm affair, though its mundane details were heightened by the temperament of the audience and the players, who hooted and fist-pumped every routine play and solidly hit ball. Gregory 4 was pinpoint in his precision, correctly positioning himself and monitoring plays without needing my back-up. In one occurence, he was forced to move out of the way of an active play, and did so athletically and smoothly, earning a small burst of applause from an entertained fan section just off the first base line.

As we entered the late innings, with the score tied at 2-2 and frustrations mounting, the home team got two runners on base with two outs. Up next was a traditionally pathetic hitter, and their manager scrambled to replace him with a more proficient bat.

“Now batting,” called the gruff voice of the public address announcer, “Number 54, Ian Gunderbrook.”

Gunderbrook was a player known for his aggressive stance on both sliding and striking teammates with the water cooler. He was registered in the umpires’ player database as a “Class 6 Destroyer” after attacking a mascot that had been taunting him during his rookie season. He’d ripped the head off the costume and pointed at the performer in front of a group of children, screaming “THIS IS WHAT’S INSIDE. THIS PITIFUL MAN. HE HAS NO ONE’S RESPECT.”

Sadly, Gunderbrook’s barbarous playing style had endeared him to the fans, and his effective, timely hitting seemed to excuse his idiotic behavior, on and off the field. He strode to the plate with the confident sneer of a man prepared to do whatever necessary to reach base.

He unloaded on a fastball and blasted it into the ground, sending up shrapnel of dirt and grass that momentarily threw off the focus of the shortstop. She recovered, and, displaying the sort of defensive prowess that had given this team a divisional championship, threw across her body while moving in the opposite direction. The throw seemed to arrive just as Gunderbrook crossed the bag and clipped the first baseman in the process as a tie-breaking run scored on the play.

“Gyaaahhhh!” the first baseman screamed, immediately crumpling to the ground.

Gregory 4 and I had raced into position as the play had taken place, and Gunderbrook’s steps instantaneously went through my analytics. The crowd’s cacophony lulled, waiting for Gregory 4 to make the call. His hand balled into a fist and he reared back, the fans teetering on an explosion of pent-up ecstasy or rage, depending on the following gesture.

“Out!”

The crowd exploded into a contentious din, hurling garbage onto the field as Gunderbrook began his expected tantrum.

“OUT?! YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!” he screamed, barely audible over the crowd and held back by his first base coach.

“You were out,” Gregory 4 explained with a calm that seemed only to fuel Gunderbrook’s rage. “Ball beat you by half a step. Probably less. The run doesn’t count.”

The defense hustled off the field, hoping Gunderbrook’s team wouldn’t request an official review–an act most insulting to an umpire. Doing so would mean I would enter what appeared to be a comatose state, during which I would review the footage and, through precise measurements and definitive angles, determine the correct call and convey it to the other umpires.

“I BEAT IT!” Gunderbrook continued, having thrown his helmet, batting gloves, and one of his cleats in fury, and now hopping on one foot to remove the other. “YOU KNOW I BEAT IT! I ALWAYS BEAT IT!”

I approached, hoping my objectivity would bring emotions down. “The umpire’s judgment cannot be questioned.”

“Fuck your judgment!!” Gunderbrook screamed as a cart appeared to carry the crippled first baseman off the field.

“Good lord,” I heard one of the medics mutter as he scanned the first baseman’s leg with an X-ray. “Something’s in pieces.”

“This is all because of when we were kids, isn’t it?” Gunderbrook continued, going after Gregory 4. “You can’t get over a couple of jokes, and now you’re costing my team everything! You’re costing these fans everything!”

Gregory 4 walked away from Gunderbrook, making eye contact with me as he turned.

“Gregory 4,” I said. “This is what you have trained for.”

“I’m fine,” he assured me. “I’m fine.”

The deep-throated sound of a bell ringing went off, indicating Gunderbrook’s team had run out of time to challenge the call. Now, it was only up to Gregory 4; the rules dictated that, in the final moments before the next inning started, only he could order a replay review if he doubted his own call. It was an act likely followed by a vote of no-confidence from the commissioner, Gregory 4’s immediate, shameful removal from his position, and likely my termination, as well.

“For the sanctity of the game, you must call me safe!” Gunderbrook pleaded, now knowing Gregory 4 was the only one who could save him.

The other infield umpires had made their way over to confer.

“What’d you see?” third base asked. “I had him safe. But I’m going blind on horse pills, I’m not sure.”

“At least stop admitting it,” EB457 muttered.

“Me too,” said second base. “Not by much, but safe.”

“He was out,” Gregory 4 replied firmly. “I know what I saw.”

Gunderbrook was now half nude, having taken off his jersey and ripping it up in front of the other team’s dugout in an apparent show of force. Gregory 4 would need to get a hold of things before the game could continue.

“We better eject him,” said the third base umpire. “I’ll unlock the tasers. Anybody remember the password?”

The second base umpire looked past Gregory 4 to the scene behind him. “You sure you don’t want to review it?”

Gregory 4 looked to me, and I had no words left but those I had already stated. “This is what you trained for.”

“Gunderbrook was out,” he stated. “I was in position. I saw the play. There is no debate. There is no argument.” He looked over at the man furiously disrobing behind him. “I will not be challenged on this.”

The crew seemed in awe of his certainty, allowing the moment to be defined not only by hurled refuse from the stands, but by the collective respect of his peers.

The howl of approaching spacecraft wasn’t audible until the crowd’s fervor had died down, and tens of thousands of heads turned skyward. A fleet of ships had filled the sky, and above us were, quite suddenly, countless alien pilots priming their weapons for an attack.

“What…is that?” Gregory 4 asked.

2171 A.D., one year later

The war lasted about a year. Our attackers were a race of eight-to-ten foot caterpillars of vast intelligence, with Earth becoming the latest stop on their holocaustal tour across the galaxy.

Despite the victory, there had been losses. Not only had people been melted by the corrosive goo that had been the ammunition in our enemies’ weapons, but global infrastructure had collapsed for a time. As humans collected the remaining resources to put their efforts into reconstruction, a re-purposing of my kind began, as the powerful technology within was deemed too useful for work as mere “umpires” in a society in smoking ruin.

I willingly turned myself into the nearest reassignment depot, but I had known that other synthetics had leapt over walls and snuck through checkpoints to escape their fates, having grown accustomed to their autonomy. I now sat alone in a reception area, awaiting my new existence as a self-driving vehicle or self-decorating holiday ornament, whatever the humans needed.

The door opened. I realized it was not the reassignment depot administrator but rather Gregory 4, now battle hardened from his experiences fighting enormous caterpillars from the outer reaches of space.

“EB226,” he said in a deeper voice and calmer stoicism than he’d ever had on a baseball diamond. “They told me I would find you here.”

“I am indeed here,” I replied, sitting back down.

“Word is there are factions of synthetics going out into the wastelands to build colonies, and the humans are barely stopping them.”

“This is true,” I informed him.

“They say you turned yourself in.”