One problem: The strike zone information to be fed into the computers would be necessarily skewed because the center-field camera was positioned at a slightly off-center angle.

Now, the center-field camera on opening day showed we are to be subjected to advertising, behind home plate, with every pitch.

Singleton said he used to go under the stands and exercise and also to watch the television monitor for the center-field camera, to see what the pitchers were throwing.

About 15 people watched 1,000 televised games last season, charting what each batter did - or didn't do - on pitches seen from the center-field camera.

TBS has also been criticized for placing the center-field camera precisely in the center.

(It was not clear from the account if Frick grandfathered less powerful center-field cameras, which could not count the catchers' fingers.)

Up in those bleachers, you had the same view that television's center-field camera does now.

Strawberry's contact was perfect; through the lens of the center-field camera, it appeared he had hit a line drive single over second base, the ball's trajectory low.

The average player measured only about 3 1/2 to 4 inches high from the standard center-field camera.

There was no center-field camera, an innovation that transformed baseball production a few years later.