Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Baseball and Instant Replay
I was watching the Indians the other night and Victor Martinez hit a shot off Kenny Rogers that bounced off the wall before settling into the outfielders glove. The outfield held up the ball like he had caught and since the umpires were out of place they ruled Martinez out. No even close a blown call. I'm not a baseball traditionalist. I don't mind night games or wild cards or even inter-league play so I'm going to propose something radical - instant replay for baseball. There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have instant replay on close plays (e.g. home runs, plays at the plate,etc). The umps have a tough job and while I would never infringe on their right to call whatever strike zone they see fit, one could see how having instant replay on some key plays might prove to be beneficial. Lets be honest pausing play in baseball isn't like pausing play in football (there is no flow in baseball hence the need for beer). I imagine it will take a blown call controversy in the playoffs for baseball to inch towards the modern world and adopt some form of instant replay but that won't prevent me from getting up on my little soap box and declaring for baseball to get with it and get the calls right.
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2 comments:
The Yankees lost last night on a blown call in the 3rd inning. Tino Martinez was called out at the plate when he should've scored the Yanks' 4th run of the game. Had the game's other events unfolded exactly the same, the Yanks would've won 4-3.
That said, I'm somewhat scared of instant replay. I can't give you the exact reasons why but there's something about it that I just don't like. I don't want baseball to get to the point of football where we have managers throwing out tampon-looking things to protest if the ball was 1/100th of a centimiter foul.
I think blown calls are just part of the game and, frankly, they don't happen so frequently that a team can really say that they'd be X wins better or worse if the quality of officiating was better. These things tend to even out over time so that every team gets a few good calls in their favor during a season and gets robbed about the same amount of time.
I would probably ask for a system similiar to what college football has (specifically the big 10) where the refs ref themselves (eg if the refs want/feel they want a 2nd look they can. its not in the hands of the coaches). While it probably averages out in the long run, I feel it might not during the playoffs and as such at minimum it should be instituted under such limited time horizons like the playoffs.
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