Is it just me, or has the cry for the expanded role of instant replay become even louder this postseason?
After a few missed calls in game four of the ALCS, people are starting to throw a hissy-fit, crying for Bud Selig to step up and expand the use of instant replay. After watching shows like Around the Horn and Mike and Mike in the Morning over the last few days, I have grown tired of listening to people ramble on about how Major League Baseball should use the technology available to better the game.
Would it really better the game?
I am against the prospect of expanding the role of instant replay. I would like to see baseball go unchanged. There is nothing wrong with the way baseball is officiated, and you know the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it just as much as the next guy when an umpire blows a call. I have experienced my fair share of bad calls over the last decade as an Orioles fan. But umpires have been blowing calls ever since the first pitch was thrown in June of 1846. It’s a part of the game.
Implementing a broader jurisdiction for instant replay will undoubtedly undermine the backbone of baseball: the umpire.
The thing that is great about baseball is its umpires are always right, even if they are wrong (except on home-run calls). When an umpire blows a call it doesn’t matter how hard the managers, players, or even bat boys argue, what the umpire says, goes and it’s tough luck if you don’t agree with him. If the players or managers insist on continuing the argument, then they will get thrown out easier than a two-month-old carton of milk. It’s that kind of authority that makes umpires greater than any other official from any other sport and provides uniqueness to the “blue.”
If instant replay does take over, then manager-umpire arguments will be toned down to a fraction of what they are today. Who doesn’t love to witness an umpire being able to smell what a manager had for lunch that day? But with instant replay, all a manager would have to do is go out and tell the umpire to look at the tape and the call will be overturned, and the umpire will hang his head for the rest of the game and possibly the rest of the series.
Look at it from an umpire’s perspective. If you are supposed to be one of the top umpires in the world, would you want a TV screen to tell you how to do your job?
Umpires today don’t know for sure whether or not they blew a call until after the game, when they review the tape.
In that instance they will at least get to sleep on it.
But with replay review, umpires will be mentally scolded right in the middle of the game and it will affect their mindset for the calls to come.
Baseball isn’t like any other sport; it doesn’t go by the book all the time. If a runner beats the ball to the base, that doesn’t mean that he is safe. A runner is only safe when the umpire calls him safe.
Through unguaranteed ruling, players are challenged to play at a higher standard, to ensure that the call has to undoubtedly go in their favor, which in turn provides a higher level of play by both sides. How is that not good for baseball?
In This Corner: Keep replay out of MLB
Published: Sunday, October 25, 2009
Updated: Sunday, October 25, 2009
1 comments
Alex Boettge
You dont know what u are talking about. Look at NFL refs. They are told how to do their job by a red flag and a t.v. screen. "Dont fix it if its not broke." Well it is broke. Tim McClelland in game four who some could say is the best umpire in basball blew two obvious calls. Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano were both so far off third base my grandma could see it from the other room. And McClelland wasn't even looking at Swicher when he said that left third base early. So yes baseball is broke. Instant replay is the duct tape for it.
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