Toronto, ON – The Toronto Blue Jays stunned baseball fans and physicists alike last night by clinching a 23-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners. Players credited their success to Major League Baseball’s recent installation of Quantum Umpire technology, an AI-driven officiating system said to make “probabilistic” calls in order to reflect the true uncertainty at the heart of sport.
Developed at an estimated $450 million by the MLB Office of Play Integrity and IBM’s Schrödinger Division, Quantum Umpire is the first on-field official powered by entangled supercomputing. The system, run on a network of helium-cooled servers beneath Rogers Centre, is programmed to interpret pitches and bats according to both classical and quantum mechanical principles. “We believe this brings the game into a new era where all outcomes are possible at once, until measured,” said MLB spokesperson Janice Rivers, demoing the control console which features both ‘Pause Decoherence’ and ‘Invoke Wave Collapse’ buttons.
Several players reported confusion during the game as the strike zone appeared to “flicker between three places” and, in some innings, “occupied the entire batter’s box and foul territory simultaneously.” Blue Jays shortstop Devin Marchant described bunting into what he thought was a double play only for both balls to be called safe. “You just go out there and observe what happens,” Marchant said. “It’s different every time you look at it.”
Mariners coach Rex Harlowe attempted to appeal the third-inning play in which a bunted ball traveled in two directions, resulting in three fielders being tagged out and then instantly reappearing on base. The Quantum Umpire issued a notice that, due to superposition, “all challenged calls are both correct and incorrect until reviewed.” The official review resulted in the score increasing and decreasing for both teams. “The scoreboard is now both ahead and behind,” stadium announcer Wendy Hsu stated with apparent resignation.
Fan response has been muted but persistent, with multiple observers reporting that beer prices both doubled and halved during the seventh-inning stretch. The stands were observed to be both full and empty, while the hot dog vendor reportedly delivered food to Section 102, 109, and a point somewhere between the third and fourth dimensions. Physicist and Blue Jays consultant Dr. Gavin Lockwood commented, “Quantum Umpire has resolved arguments over balls and strikes by making both outcomes true. This is expected to reduce conflict and increase existential uncertainty.”
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred declared the system “a home run for sports science,” noting that quantum officiating ensures fairness, provided you do not measure the results too closely. As of press time, the Blue Jays have both won the pennant and failed to qualify for the postseason.
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