Baseball Instant Replay

OK folks, I don’t write all that much about baseball, but my stepson John Webb is a pitcher for the Iowa Cubs (AAA), and though I grew up overseas watching soccer and cricket, I’ve learned to love the game.

I recall one game last year when he was playing for the Memphis Redbirds and they were in Nashville playing the Sounds. The umpire kept calling “obvious strikes” as balls, according to the Memphis announcers and all fond stepfathers at least! The catcher was ejected for arguing with the umpire, and finally in a great tangle, John was thrown out along with the coach, and the pitching coach. It was quite a scene! At that moment, one is strongly tempted to go for instant replay, just so you can rub that umpire’s nose in the errors he’s made, make him ‘fess up, and get the game right.

I don’t have a strong opinion, because again I’m somewhat new to baseball, but I do like the human factor of the game, and I fail to see why that shouldn’t extend to umpires as well. In my experience thus far, umpire errors don’t, in the long term, favor any one player or another. They are what they are, and you live with them. I recall one game I watched with the Pensacola Pelicans (home town team) at which an umpire (I believe a minor league strike replacement) truly did not have any clue where the strike zone was. I think I can say that with some confidence because both teams were equally annoyed at him. From where I was sitting in the stands I could make no prediction before his call as to what it would be. But it was still a fun evening, both teams suffered and both benefited.

Mike Celizic has an article on MSNBC.com, titled Baseball needs instant replay, now, with the subtitle MLB must get over its stodgy traditionalism and make the game better. “Better,” of course, means more accurately called. But I’m not sure that the sport would be made better. It would be more accurate, it would be different, but there’s a certain fun in sitting in the ball park watching a tense coach come out to argue with the umpire, observing the interplay of the catcher with the umpire and sometimes with the batter.

Technology will make it possible to be 100% accurate, if it hasn’t already. But I suspect soon we’ll be looking for ways to make our recreation more human. We could have machines to send the balls perfectly over the plate, and hit them with extreme accuracy, but that would be no fun either. I’m not all that excited about replays in other sports. As a relative newcomer to baseball–going on 8 years since I married Jody and inheriting baseball playing sons–I find the possibility of error makes the game more interesting.

Mind you, that won’t make me any less angry when blue calls one of John’s good strikes a ball, but hey, that’s all part of the fun.