My Quarterly Call for Instant Replay
Written by Bill   
Saturday, 10 October 2009 09:00

I wrote a long post about how instant replay is an absolute necessity and how the arguments against it are utter bunk, and I clicked to submit, and my computer or bloguin or somebody ate the entire post. I don't have the stomach to write it again now. Condensed to three things:

1. I've written it all before, in a context that didn't hit quite so close to home.

2. Umpires are not an essential part of baseball's tradition or lore or anything else. Umpires only matter at all when they screw up; the only notable things about umpires are the stereotypes that they're fat and stupid and blind. Not that I'm arguing for removal of umpires completely (though if anyone has a workable idea, I'm all ears), just that each and every one of their decisions that don't affect continuing play before the next pitch (such as, oh, say, when a ball lands completely in fair territory and then bounds into the stands, or when an outfielder either catches or traps a low liner with no one on base, or on one of those absolute crapshoot check-swing calls) can and should be instantly reviewed in a matter of seconds in high definition.

3. Cuzzi didn't lose the game for the Twins. Delmon Young and Joe Nathan and (especially) Carlos Gomez did. But Cuzzi's call very well may have changed the outcome of the game -- there can really be no doubt that Mauer would have scored if it's a double rather than a single, which means that Teixeira's homer (which travelled all of like 20 feet and wouldn't have been out in any other park, but I digress) could only have tied the game -- and while Delmon and Gomez and Nathan made mistakes, those are baseball mistakes, made by baseball players. Those happen, and are part of the game. Cuzzi's mistake was the unfathomably incompetent mistake of a person who has no business impacting the game on the field, and it was utterly avoidable.

Instant replay now. Or, you know, in 2010.



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Comments (1)Add Comment
Maybe...but....
written by Eric W, October 10, 2009
Be careful not to take this idea too far Bill. I agree we can look at the possibility of expanding some of the role of instant replay but we can't go overboard. I am just as appalled at the terrible foul call in that last game. I see no reason that he should have missed that call. He was in perfect position, was still so he could see the play, and just flat out missed an easy one. That is a call that you have to make as an umpire at any level.

I think we could potentially allow instant replay on ground rule double situations. But with one exception. You could reverse a situation where the ground rule double wasn't called, but not the other way around. If an umpire calls a ground rule double, play stops and there is no way to know what would have happened to the runners if the ground rule double would not have been called.

But please do not try to take that situation and apply it to the other things you mentioned: traps in the outfield and check swings. If we were to have replay for traps/catches with no one on base as you suggested, it would only be a matter of time before people start arguing about what the difference is between runners on base or not for that call. And do you really think it is worth the time to go out there and review a trap catch every time it happens with nobody on base? I would bet (without stats to back it up) that a missed call on a trap/catch in the outfield with nobody on base that actually affects the outcome of a baseball game happens on average less than once in a year.

Lastly, check swings should never be reviewed as you suggest. Tell me, what is the rule on what constitutes a swing? I promise you it has nothing to do with what the announcers say on tv. There is nothing in the rules about the bat crossing the plate, or the player "breaking their wrists". It is purely a judgement call regarding whether the batter "struck" at the ball. I could show a replay and we could still argue whether he "struck" at the ball. Whether you agree with them or not, that is one of the reasons that the umpires exist. Someone has to decide and there is no concrete right or wrong answer in those cases. Sorry.

And please, please, please, please never suggest that we should have any kind of replay or other system for calling balls and strikes. Just look at the stupid tracer they put up on tv. Sure technology might be able to call the pitch precisely by definition of the rule book, but watch the bottom of that tracer. A curveball that is at the bottom of the "zone" is going to be bouncing in front of the catcher. No player, coach, or fan will ever want to actually see those things called strikes. Sorry for the long comment, but I just had to share.

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