Phanatic vs. Machine

Johnny Baseball

No, the Phanatic's not taking on Pat the Bat. I'm talking about Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, Ken Jennings vs. Watson, Dave vs. HAL. Tomorrow, a robot created by Penn’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab will throw out the first pitch against the Phillie Phanatic. According to this article, the robot rides around on a Segway and has a motion-tracking camera "head" that can locate the strike zone on any fat, furry, green creature.

Before this matchup for the ages, former Phillie Randy Wolf will take on the Great Doctor and Cy Young Collector Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III, who according to this podcast (talk of "baseball" begins around 16:22) also parties with replicants (not to mention, makes up one quarter of R2C2). Quoting some dude or one of his brothers: "The Phillies. Half robot. Half of their league. Half of their bench is robotic. There's some mixies in there. There's some half and halfs—half robot, half human. Roy Halladay. 100% robot. He's actually a pitching machine."

While this source cannot be trusted since he goes onto call Brian Wilson a "great American hero" that "isn't a robot at all," I do admit that it's hard to watch Doc without wondering about his superhuman abilities. It's like Roy walks into a phone booth dressed to the nines before every game and comes out in a Phillies uniform ready to pitch entire games. I do agree that Brian Wilson isn't a robot, but if not a robot, what is he? Discuss.