The reserve clause is dead. And so are wool uniforms. There are no longer eight teams in each league. And the Houston Astros have departed the National League.
Major League Baseball is now about to disconnect the landlines that link dugouts to bullpens. Long after the rest of society embraced cellphones, managers and coaches will soon be able to discuss pitching changes on Samsung Galaxy S III phones.
The 21st century 4G dugout-to-bullpen connection that is being created by T-Mobile USA as part of its wireless sponsorship with Major League Baseball was announced Tuesday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“This is baseball’s continued push into the digital age,” said Tim Brosnan, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president for business. “It’s also about a very aggressive wireless provider that sought us out to create this unique communications platform.”
Baseball had not thought of a dugout-to-bullpen phone system in its talks with various wireless providers about a national sponsorship over the past decade, Brosnan said.
The wireless system will be tested at the World Baseball Classic in Arizona in March; after assessing how it worked, and fixing any problems, it will be rolled out in the major leagues. Whether each stadium will have it in 2013 has not been determined.
T-Mobile’s sponsorship plans also include enhancing network connectivity for fans at all ballparks and helping MLB Advanced Media create content for smartphones and tablets.
To create the dugout-to-bullpen communications system, each ballpark will get the equivalent of a small cellular system with a miniature cell tower.
But while wireless companies like T-Mobile are continuously trying to broaden their national coverage territory, the dugout-to-bullpen system will have limits enforced by a technology called geo-fencing. So, managers and pitching coaches will not be able to chat with the bullpen coach from the pitcher’s mound. And bullpen coaches cannot ask, “Can you hear me now?” once they leave the bullpen’s environs.
“The guidance we’ve been given is that we shouldn’t fundamentally change what makes baseball baseball,” said Mark McDiarmid, T-Mobile’s vice president for engineering. “There is reason to be cautious about how far the coach could move away from the dugout before the umpires might think it’s inappropriate.”
Baseball is not shifting to cellphones because of an incident during the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 2011 World Series when the noise at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington caused Derek Lilliquist, the Cardinals’ bullpen coach, to misunderstand Manager Tony La Russa’s instructions about which relievers should start warming up.
Twice, La Russa asked that Jason Motte get up. Lilliquist apparently did not hear the first request. When La Russa called again to get Motte ready, Lilliquist thought he was asking for Lance Lynn. The miscommunication led to La Russa’s surprise when he summoned a right-hander and Lynn arrived at the mound, not Motte. Lynn stayed in long enough to issue an intentional walk; Motte quickly got ready and replaced him.
Lilliquist might well have heard La Russa’s instructions if they had used the cellphone system, with multiple microphones, noise mitigation and the ability to raise audio levels.
Given T-Mobile’s investment over the next three years, it is not surprising that each dugout’s branded cellphone docking station — about the size of a personal computer tower — will be about as visible to TV cameras as the Gatorade vessel is.
But, Brosnan said, baseball has not ordained the obvious commercial tie-in: that each call to the bullpen on Fox, ESPN and TBS’s national telecasts be sponsored by T-Mobile.
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