We confess to being lifelong Mets fans here (with an apostate Phillies backer on staff, but we don’t talk to him), so we were happy to see that Major League Baseball is starting to embrace in-game wearable tech.
The Associated Press has learned that MLB has approved the use during games of the Motus Baseball Sleeve and the Zephyr Bioharness. The former measures stress on a pitcher’s elbow; the latter gathers heart and breathing rates. MLB’s Competition Committee has also reportedly approved the use of bat monitors during practice.
Elbow and respiratory stress could be useful competitive data points, so the information will not be accessible during games, the report says. This year is the first that iPads — and no other electronic technology — will be allowed in dugouts, and those iPads will have Bluetooth disabled. (Baseball is a particularly tradition-bound game between the lines.)
The data is to be used internally by the teams only — no sharing with the media or licensing it out — and the MLB Players Association insists (reasonably) that the data be shared with the player, who has the right to opt out of the whole thing altogether.
Major League Baseball declined comment to the AP. We’ll try ourselves, and update if we hear anything.