MLB will soon emulate the NFL, NHL, and others by using instant replay to check umpires' calls. (Photo by Scott Ableman)
There's nothing quite like the smell of the fresh cut grass, the crack of the bat, the sight of the afternoon sun on an early fall day, the feel of the ballpark ... and the image of an umpire huddled by a TV monitor, squinting to see if they got the call right. That's what fans can expect to experience starting Thursday.Don't get me wrong: I support the limited use of instant replay in major league baseball. Most sports have embraced some use of technology to help combat the fallibility of human judgment. And they have done a good job of ensuring that not every close play gets reviewed. But when it comes to significant, unambiguous mistakes, baseball should use video or other techniques to get it right.
To those who believe that instant replay will take the slide on the slippery slope to encroach on elements of the game beyond boundary calls, I point to the National Hockey League. The Lords of the Boards have made sure that instant replay is not used for penalty or offsides calls, but merely for goal judgments. And that's perfectly appropriate.
In football, limits have been established regarding the number of times that replay may be consulted during the game. I take issue with that approach because it sometimes leads to circumstances where an obviously blown call goes uncontested because a coach has no challenges remaining -- or doesn't want to expend them too early. In football's case, the more appropriate approach would be to allow a coach to continue challenging as often as he wants -- so long as he wins every time. One strike and you're out.
In America's pastime, there's no doubt that bad calls get made. Are they all boundary disputes? No, but these do seem to be occurring with increasing frequency, especially with modern ballpark configurations that bring fans closer to the action and involve more elaborate structures near and behind outfield fences.
The jury is still out on the specific methodology embraced by Commissioner Bud Selig in making the actual in-game determinations. Hopefully, it will get the call right -- when the cameras can provide indisputable proof of an error -- and not take an inordinate amount of time.
My own preference would have been to get this experiment underway at the start of a season rather than in the midst of a pennant race, but one could argue that over the course of a 162 game season no game is technically more important than any other, so it ultimately doesn't matter. In any case, I look forward to the change.
Baseball may be a game of tradition, but it is also one of innovation and change. As fans, we should embrace enhancements -- such as replay -- that improve the game without challenging its integrity.
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