Look, I’d be lying if I said I followed baseball this season. I’m a Mets guy, and you just know that, once April hits, you’re in for a reasonably OK season, but one that just looses steam as the months go by. So why bother? What I can say, though, is that, given all this evidence, it’s about time that baseball adopt the instant replay. Correct calls outweigh everything else. We have the technology!
What? The Yankees were playing the Twins the other day, and a Twins batter (Joe Mauer) hit was SHOULD HAVE BEEN called a fair ball. But no! The umpire called the ball foul, thus preventing would very likely would have been a double. The Twins went on to loose, and have since been eliminated from the playoffs. I cannot wait to see all the Yankee hats on the subway now.
What’s the argument against the use of instant replay, that it’ll slow down the game, that it takes away from the game’s purity? Please, baseball stopped being “pure” some time ago, and the game is pretty damn slow as it is; there’s more waiting around than there is action. (Whereas in soccer, the action is more or less nonstop, so checking out an instant reply may well kill the momentum of the game. I don’t care.)
In short, anyone who is against instant replay in baseball (or in any other sport) really needs to get with the program. The integrity of the game is at stake.
While I can’t argue that instant replay has value in baseball, implantation could end up being a bitch.
As soon as the ump calls a ball fowl, the action stops. Let’s say that an instant replay is reviewed, and the ball is determined to be fair. What happens then? You can’t just *decide* how far the base runners may have gotten, or if they might have tried to go too far, and been thrown out.
Again, I agree that instant replay could benefit baseball, but how the hell it would actually work is beyond me.
Clearly, calling the play foul stops all action. Simply make everything fare if its close (within 2′ of line from an umpire perspective) and let the replay say its foul after the play has completed.
That way, the ultimate conclusion of the situation plays out without an umpire being subjective about the outcome.
MLB implemented a hobbled form of instant replay this season, but only limited to home runs. It was used quite a few times, but I agree that there needs to be more.
Each team should be given one “replay call” each game, to be used for base running, home runs and foul balls. One is probably more than enough and shouldn’t taint what remains of the purity of the game.
That being said, there probably needs to be a new revolution in the way that umpires are trained. Further, MLB umpires should be fined if one of their calls is judged to have been in error. Make these guys PAY for every blown call and you bet they’ll start paying closer attention.
Finally, on the extreme side, the best way to help ensure a fair call would be to “chip” the baseball. I think tennis does this, as does soccer. A tiny chip inside can instant relay its fair/foul or out/safe status to an umpire via a special wristwatch (as it’s done in soccer today).
One more thought about a chipped baseball:
A baseball containing a tracking chip and/or accelerometer would provide an entirely new dimension in baseball statistics.
Pitch speeds would be precisely accurate (eliminating the need for the often wrong radar gun), and the spin/rotation of a particular pitch could be examined. The exact path of a batter’s hit could be tracked and aggregated over a season allowing for close analysis.
If modern GPS sattelites can pinpoint my location within 6 feet, then a baseball in a tiny ballfield could be tracked within a millimeter or less.
I’m not too savvy on sports (or chipped sports equipment for that matter), but it seems baseball goes through several balls a game, if a ball touches anything but a glove it’s considered tainted and given to the crowd or the ump for whatever they do with it.
I’d imagine that chipping every ball would get very expensive (and would probably unbalance the ball) and I’m not sure how resistant they’d be when a 94mph ball strikes a bat going at 77mph.
I think a better option might be to use laser gates so that when a ball passes the foul line it opens the gate and causes it to register that the ball passed, but that is probably a more ridiculous idea and doesn’t solve any problems except foul line related things.
There’s probably a good tradeoff somewhere between human umps and electronics that would create a nice harmony that wouldn’t take away from the game, hell even video cameras that have software to identify a baseball on the screen would be pretty damn easy (I mean how many circular white objects of that size move around on a baseball field, though it may pick up any team members with white caps).
the Yankees are sooooo lucky, i swear.
Actually I think this goes to a guys point made to us at the bar. In MLB they favor NY and Boston to win against these teams you have to swing the bat. Boston or NY will get the strikes that are balls while pitching and ball that are strikes while batting. It comes down to economics both NY and Boston draw a much larger audience they don’t blatantly cheat for them but if it is close they will favor them.
Big James
are you still trying to tell me that the Yankees don’t pay off umpires? That ball is clearly fair from the NAKED EYE. This shouldn’t even have been an objectable call. The yankees have been doing this for years and no one has noticed why?
Just think, if we can get instant replay, maybe the Mets will remain competitive all the way into July.
It’s ok, they’ll lose the series if they get there.