Mike Fitzgerald's new card game concentrates on the 2045 season. Our man takes a look at the 2038 season ... and how it ended.

Quantum Tater and the demise of baseball

Major League Baseball has been changing as data analytics, sport science and new computer-generated, on-field strategies have altered the way the national pastime is played with it’s three true outcomes - walk, strike out or home run and lower attendance at ballparks across North America. Stephen A. Sighfigh looks at what the future could bring for Major League Baseball and its millions of fans across North America.

Oct. 28, 2038

By Stephen A. Sighfigh
Canadian Baseball Network

New York City, NY _ Quantum Tater looked uneasy in the on-deck circle while awaiting what would undoubtedly be the most important at bat of his career. The light from his Sony laser bat resting on his shoulder cast an eerie shadow across his furled brow. He knew now was not the time for a short circuit.

Tater, triple crown winner and best hitter for the New York Algorithms in the inaugural season of Major League Techno-Ball, could not hear the data streaming through the speakers built into his batting helmet. He realized he should have stuffed it into its Mylar-coated helmet bag before the rain came. Now, he feared, it was too late.

The data, streamed into his helmet from the Algorithms” corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, would normally tell him pitch mix, speed and spin rate for the repertoire of the each opposing pitcher. The data would analyze infield and outfield positioning and combine it with data about each potential pitch. The final sentence in the stream was always key … it would tell him which pitch to swing at and, given the game situation, alert him to the proper launch angle adjustment using the keypad on his Sony laser bat. But, at the worst time imaginable, his helmet was filled with only static.

It had been a tight, back and forth seven-game championship series so far. The Algorithms took the first two games at E-Sports Ballpark in New York. The East Gwillimbury Electrodes, representing the new mega-city north of the former City of Toronto, subsumed by the rising waters of Lake Ontario caused by the warming of the earth’s climate, had taken a 3-2 series lead by sweeping their home games in Bell Gigapex Park. The Algorithms had struck back and tied the series with a 4-3 win when Tater smashed a 895-foot grand slam to win it for his team.

But this seventh game had been one for the history books so far.

As Tater watched from the on-deck circle, lightly slapping the side of his batting helmet in the hope of restoring his data stream, he thought about what had put him in this situation in the first place.

The Algorithms’ ace pitcher Mouse Ramm had fanned all 27 Electrodes’ batters, as expected. Not even a walk or home run.

The Algorithms had hacked the Electrodes’ batting data housed at the University of Waterloo Sports Data and Technology Center. The hacked data showed every conceivable weakness of each Electrodes’ hitter. Ramm knew exactly the speed of each pitch to throw, the spin rate that would have the greatest impact and the location within the Auto-Ump Ball/Strike Calculator. There was nothing left to chance.

The Algorithms had entered the seventh and deciding game of the championship series fully armed with Electrodes’ data and confident they would be celebrating a championship victory.

But the Electrodes had secretly devised a counter strategy.

Their team of 24 data scientists had hacked into the OptimEye wearable technology that each Algorithms’ player wears in a harness between their shoulder blades during games. The OptimEye is outfitted with a GPS locator and provides data via an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer to measure the lean, the turn, and the force of the body. By measuring every athletic movement of each Algorithms’ player throughout the season, the Algorithms’ management knew their players’ optimal playing fitness.

They rested players in the playoffs leading to the championship series. They were confident each of the team’s starting nine was rested and in peak physical condition.

But the Electrodes’ data scientists were a step ahead.

Head of their data science team, Robin Fisics, had created a worm to attack the Algorithms’ Athlete Management System that stored data generated by the OptimEye. The worm altered the data that showed Algorithms players would be in peak condition for the seventh game of the championship series. The Algorithms on-field manager, Eric Code, who had been recruited from Microsoft before it went out of business years earlier, thought his players were in peak condition. The data showed it.

But the data had been altered, the Algorithms’ players were physically worn out. The Electrodes also hoped they had found a way to crack the Algorithms’ patented data streaming, batting helmet technology.

A loud clap of thunder jarred Quantum Tater back to the reality.

Bottom of the ninth inning, scored tied 0-0, two out, bases empty. The championship was on the line. Tater knew he was capable of a game-winning 800-foot blast if only he could receive the data inside his helmet and make the necessary adjustments on the keypad of his Sony laser bat. As he strode to the plate, another loud clap of thunder made him flinch. A huge storm was in the offing.

As he reached home plate, Tater glanced skyward. The invisible weather shield was slowly moving into place to cover the stadium. The buzzing sound of the computers told him so. But, suddenly, there was another clap of thunder, this time louder than he had ever heard. He not only flinched, but reached up with both hands to cover the ear holes in his space-age batting helmet.

When he took his hands away he had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t hear the static in his ears. He couldn’t hear anything. The greatest hitter in the short history of Major League Techno-Ball was approaching the plate with the game on the line and no data stream, not even static. He was on his own for the first time in his star-studded career.

He dug into the batter’s box. He took a few practice swings through the pulsating Auto-Ump Ball/Strike Calculator. When he looked back at the Electrodes’ catcher Earl Meggabit, the catcher had a wry smile on his face. Odd, thought Tater, for such a tense game situation.

Suddenly, a deafening boom emanated from the massive scoreboard in centre field. Sparks flew willy-nilly, like the sparklers of a million children on Halloween. The giant digitally-created image of Tater started to fade into itself and in seconds his smiling face was replaced by a dark screen.

Immediately, the scoreboards in left and right field blanked, shuddered and went dark. The light towers shook, the floodlights started to pop one by one. The stadium was dark, except for the eerie light coming off Tater’s Sony laser bat.

Tater looked on in amazement. How could this be happening? Seventh game, two out, championship on the line and the technology all around him was failing. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand what was happening. Like in the on-deck circle earlier, he was uneasy about what was ahead.

First, it was the giant light tower in left field. It cracked, strained, broke off at the base and with steel bending, screeching and crumbling, slammed into the ground across the outfield, protruding into the infield. The right field standard followed. E-Sports Stadium was coming apart at the seams.

Then, the field went totally dark and silent.

The next day, online publications in New York streamed major news headlines describing the scene into the wristwatches of baseball fans across North America … “Electrical storm wipes out championship game” … ”E-Sports Stadium in ruins, came apart at the seams as thunder, lightning and heavy rain pummel New York” … ”Quantum Tater, game’s greatest star, dies after batting helmet short circuits, setting uniform on fire”.

Later, speaking on Algorithms Online Network, team owner Joe Madden, an early adopter of analytics and a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. lamented the storm and the role technology played in the passing of the game’s greatest star. Looking for something uplifting to say that could reassure fans amid the wreckage and carnage at E-Sports, Madden said:

“The good news for everyone is that there were no fans in the stands like there would have been twenty years ago. If we’re looking for a silver lining, I guess we could say technology does have some advantages.”

The funeral for Quantum Tater, the game’s greatest star was held days later at the site of old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx of New York. Thousands of baseball fans streamed in silence past his casket during the three days his body lie in state.

An elderly, white-haired visitor lifted his grandson for a look into Tater’s casket.

“Take a good look sonny,” he said. “You’ll never see another man like him.”

Looking 20 years into future and how sadly first Techno-Ball season ends