5 Yard Penalty, No Home Run

MLB General managers voted 25 to 5 Tuesday morning session (Nov. 6, '07) to explore the possibility of Instant Replay technology to help settle disputes on various types of plays: home run calls, fair or foul calls, in or out of the ballpark calls. This vote gives the technology a good chance that it will be available on a limited basis in Major League Baseball games. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071106&content_id=2293785&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

My question is... WHY? Why would people feel that Instant Replay technology benefit baseball? Yeah, it can help calls, but it eliminates the human element from the game. While they're at it, they might as well have robot umpires to correctly call every play... thus creating the most boring game in the world. What's next? Baseball gets 3 time outs every 4.5 innings? Managers can throw a red flag onto the field and challenge plays? This ideology of brining replay footage into the hands of the umpires completely destroys the excitement of the game.

Speaking on the point of complete BULLSHIT, Yankee GM Brian Cashman said, "It's amazing that umpires are right as much as they are. About 99.9 percent of the time they're accurate. But nobody wants to be in a position where you work morning, noon and night for 12 months, and have it go down to one call in one game. Each game is important. All I know is I support any form and fashion of baby steps toward utilizing technology to benefit the umpires and the game." You know what I say? You're retarded Brian. Umpires are trained to make those borderline calls, and in all honesty, I can't think of a time when an umpire mad a bad call. There have been arguable calls, but they're ultimately the keepers of the keys.

In opposition to the vote, Houston GM Ed Wade said, "The umpires were more right than wrong 99.9 percent of the time. With the increased time of the game, at some point you'll get to a stage where managers are almost compelled to challenge and that's why I voted against it. I thought the guys on the committee made some very good points. There's a lot of validity to what they had to say. I just think that if you're going to do something like that on a limited scope, it doesn't stay limited." I agree with him, it won't stay limited. If you use it to call close home runs, you're going to start using it on every play. Now consider this scenario: 3-2 count, bottom of the 9th, tied game, bases loaded. Pitcher throws it on the outside corner, called strike, home team manager challenges the call. What then? You're going to argue the pitch that ultimately could've won the game? 'Let's go to the overhead cam... play reversed, team wins.' Or better yet, similar situation, except there's just a man on first, batter hits a game winning home run that's caught by a fan a little below the top of the outfield wall. Too bad, play reversed, thats only a double. Wow... I don't think I could ever watch baseball again.

I applaud Selig for acknowledging that inserting the technology into the game could have a devastating effect. Some believe that he has seemed to soften on the issue when asked about the issue in Arizona, where the Rockies were playing the Diamondbacks in the National League Championship Series. But what difference does it make? The Rockies still won, they were still on fire, and they left the D'Backs out in the Colorado cold. "I don't like instant replay because I don't like all the delays," Selig said. "I think it sometimes creates as many problems or more than it solves. But I am willing to say we'll at least talk about this if people want to talk about it. I'm going to let the general managers discuss it, let them come back and make recommendations. No, I'm not a big advocate of instant replay." Good Bud... keep it that way.

In discussing how to implement the instant replay feature, general managers determined that one central replay location somewhere in the U.S., would be able to review and ultimately put into play a replay review, just like the National Hockey League. But doing this would be a huge expense for the MLB, as so many more cameras would have to cover the entire outfield wall, and then some. I can understand some managers thinking, but it's just wrong. "Personally, I think with all this technology out there, at least you've got to consider it," Omar Minaya, the Mets GM, said. "Of course, it's how we use it. That's the key. I am a traditionalist, but I also believe that you would hate to see a season or a World Series end on a controversial play." But, how often does it come down to that? How many times has a season ended on a controversial play? How many times did the umpires make the wrong decision in that situation?

If Bud Selig allows the use of instant replay cameras, it will be the end of an era for baseball, there'll be another asterisk in the record books, and there'll be more disappointed fans then ever. And when the day finally comes when instant replay becomes a part of baseball... I don't think I'll watch the sport ever again.