MLB and the Detroit Tigers social media team are pestering players daily with light-hearted questions when not roasting Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal for their coffee obsession. MLB had kind of a fun one yesterday that had a few of us cracking up trying to think of the ideal actor or celebrity voice to use as the voice of PitchCom.
As you’re probably aware, the catcher enters the pitch and location into the keypad on his arm, and the robotic sounding PitchCom voice says “curveball, down and away” or
what have you. Some teams seemingly don’t use the location settings, but some do. Apparently the system isn’t advanced enough yet for the catcher to send messages like, “hey dummy, you’re flying wide open at release” or “perhaps you should attempt to throw a strike at some point.” The early days of technology always have some bugs to work out. Sarcasm upgrades will no doubt be available in PitchCom 2.0.
I can’t help thinking that if I was pitching, I might find myself calmed and focused by the voice of Yoda telling me “up and in with the fastball, you must” but hey everyoyne is different. Maybe you want Samuel L. Jackson emphasizing every pitch call with a choice expletive to keep you fired up. It’s your call.
Whose voice would you want as your personal voice of PitchCom if it was you on the mound? The pros had some solid answers.
