G vs Sami Vol. 5

As I have stated before, I like to think of myself a baseball purist. Of course me being for inter-league play contradicts that, but I still have many beliefs that push me more toward the purist side. One of those issues is a hot topic now a days, and that is instant replay being used to help umpires on close calls.

The proposal that was overwhelming approved in November, is to have the umpires have the ability to use instant replay on home run calls. The idea is to aid the umpires with fair/foul, over the fence or not, and fan interference on disputed home runs. Major League Baseball is aiming to have a system similar to the NHL where officials are at a centralized location watching each game, ready to fire up the replay when called upon by the umps on the field.

The most obvious negative to this system is what it will do to the pace of the game. For years Baseball has been trying to find ways to speed up the pace of play. After all, I don't know about you, but I am a little tired of seeing a new Baseball put into play after every pitch, the batter stepping out after every pitch and managers making 12 pitching changes a game. Adding any kind of replay system is undoubtedly going to slow down the game even more, making those 4 hour marathons that much longer.

The second problem I have with replay in Baseball trying to figure out exactly how is it going to work. The beauty of the NFL's replay system is the idea that the coaches actually have to make a decision to challenge a call and if they are incorrect they are penalized a timeout. This obviously prevents teams from challenging every and makes replay a part of the strategy of the game. I think the fear of penalty is essential to a replay system and I do not see how that can be down in Baseball. Penalizing a losing challenge two balls really is not enough, while penalizing an extra base is too much. Without that fear that the team is going to be hurt in a way, replay would just slow the game down and require no thought.

Finally think about when these calls are in questions. The network shows the play over and over again stop and start and showing the play in slow motion. After 10 minutes and 120 different camera angles, I am sitting there even more confused than I was before the replay was even shown. What I am trying to say is sometimes these plays are close and it is hard to tell which way the call should go even with the replay.

I will admit there is a problem with the home run calls however. The best solution moving forward can be what MLB does in playoff games and that is adding an umpire down the RF and LF lines for regular season games as well. This keeps the human element in the game and allows for more accurate calls.

Adding replay will slow down the game and will not guarantee that the call is accurate 100 percent of the time anyway. I know Bud Selig is on my side and I hope he is not persuaded by these people who would go as far as to have robots umpiring the game. There is something about the human element in sports and I think Baseball should do whatever it takes to keep it.