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REPLAY THE REASONS WHY BASEBALL NEEDS REPLAY
By Dan Barrack
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. --- Baseball is America’s past time, but there is one thing about baseball that remains in the past. Major League Baseball is the only professional sport that has not adopted instant replay, and is the only sport instantly paying for it.
There have been many instances in sports history where a bad call has cost a team a game, or an entire season. Within the past decade, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and the National Basketball Association have adopted instant replay to avoid any altercations that could arise from a mistaken call during play. Each league has its own variation of instant replay, all of which are safety nets for human officials.
In a sports world where we emphasize the unacceptable act of cheating, baseball is cheating itself by not jumping on the replay wagon. While an umpire’s mistake is not the same as a player using steroids, someone or some team will maintain an unfair advantage.
When discussing instant replay, there is the subject of which kind of replay baseball should have. Football has a complicated instant replay rule, giving each team two challenges against a call made on the field. If one head coach thinks that the referee has made a mistake, he can challenge the play and have it reviewed. In hockey, instant replay is used for one thing, determining if the puck went past the line in the goal. Basketball is similar to hockey, reviewing if the ball left the players hands before time ran out. In both cases there is a yes or no answer. It is not necessary for baseball to review every facet of the game, but instant replay should be implemented on homerun calls and calls on the bases.
Since baseball originated, human umpires, not video tape, have determined every homerun call and every safe or out call. The commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, thinks that replay will take the human element away from the game.
“I think the human element in baseball is really very important,” Selig told Barry M. Bloom of MLB.com. “The umpires for the most part do a wonderful job. Sure, there are controversial decisions as there are in every sport, but I think overall, the umpires have really, really tightened up on everything, and I’m satisfied with the job they are doing right now,” he said.
Selig is right, there are controversial calls in every sport, but every other sport has adopted replay to back them up. The referees in football, hockey, and basketball are respected just as much as baseball umpires, but respect and reliability have nothing to do with it. Replay is about the players, the teams, and the fans. Teams go decades without winning championships, and fans live or die by their teams.
The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series was in 1908. Ninety-nine years later, they have yet to win another. What if next season, on the team’s 100 year drought anniversary, the Cubs make it to the big show? They play a game seven, it’s bottom of the ninth inning, one out, Cubs down by one run with runners on second and third. Derek Lee, Cubs first baseman, hits a fly ball to center field which is caught and the runner on third attempts to score on a sacrifice fly. It seems as if the runner safely gets his left hand under the tag of the catcher, and the crowd waits for the call… Out!
It looks like the wait is now 101 years. A simple look at the replay would have shown that he was safe, and the game should have been tied. Imagine being a Cubs player, better yet, imagine being a Cubs fan. Yes, baseball is just a game, but so are all of the other ones. A call like that can be lethal.
Players have been known to commit suicide after life changing calls, as well as fans that have done the same. Donnie Moore was a pitcher in the American League for the California Angels during the 1980’s who killed himself after blowing game five of the championship series to the Boston Red Sox. Moore did not end his life over a missed call, but a missed call could have the same results. Not only can bad calls be dangerous to people, they can change the course of history.
In the past and at this moment, missed calls haunt the credibility of baseball. During the 1985 World Series, a call in game 6 affected the winner of baseball’s championship. The St. Louis Cardinals led the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in a best of seven series, and held a 1-0 lead going into the ninth inning. First-base umpire Don Denkinger called Royals Jorge Orta safe at first-base to lead off the ninth inning of that game.
The safe call sparked a Kansas City rally, and the Royals beat the Cardinals 2-1. The Royals eventually went on to win the series in the next game. Replays have shown that Orta was out, totally changing the situation of that inning. Instead of a lead off runner on base only down by one run, there should have been one out and no one on base. One call changed the momentum of the game, and the series.
Currently, the Colorado Rockies have won 22 of 23 games this season, including a 7-0 postseason record. They are awaiting their opponent in this year’s World Series, but perhaps the Rockies should be playing golf with all of the other teams who failed to qualify for postseason play. Colorado forced a one game playoff with the San Diego Padres to decide who would win the National League Wild Card and participate in the postseason. With a tied game in the bottom of the 13th inning, Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday was in a very close play at home plate during a sacrifice fly play. Holliday was called safe, and the Rockies are now in the World Series.
If we take a closer look at the play, it appears that Holliday never actually touched the plate, and therefore was tagged out at home. If the play had been reviewed, Holliday would have been called out, and the game would have resumed, which is just one more example of why instant replay is needed.
Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd is in favor of replay for home run calls but not for safe or out calls, as was reported after the Rockies win over the Padres. O’Dowd commented on this in an article by Thomas Harding of MLB.com.
“I’m not in favor of it on calls on the bases,” said O’Dowd. “We don’t want to take away the human element.”
The human element is once again the reason for a negative perspective of instant replay. San Diego Padres fans would argue O’Dowd’s convenient post game opinion. Padre fans might now wonder why the human element affects plays on the bases, but not home run calls. Why can’t the human element be taken away from baseball, but it can be taken away in all other sports?
Tom Hill, a junior at Marist College, and radio analyst on WMAR 1630, is in favor of instant replay for baseball, and doesn’t dwell on the effect it might have on the human element.
“People can make errors all the time, no matter what sport it is,” said Hill. “It is especially hard when you’re an empire watching to see if a homerun just barely made it out. You need the assistance of cameras and other umpires to see what it is,” Hill said. “Also, plays at the plate have many elements. If the umpire doesn’t see a ball fall out of a catcher’s glove on a tag, he would be called safe when he shouldn’t be.”
The commissioner of baseball, the Rockies general manager, and others who oppose instant replay all say that it will take away the human element of the game. There will still be human umpires, just like there are still human officials in other sports, even after the addition of instant replay. Football, hockey, and basketball have a history just like baseball does, so why is this only a big deal for baseball? The National Football League is more popular and more watched than Major League Baseball, and replay is a non issue.
Others who oppose replay say that it will slow down the game, but if anything, it will speed it up. For every questionable call, there is at least a five minute delay because of a manager screaming at an umpire for making a bad call. Substitute that with two minutes to review a play on video, and you have actually saved time. There will be no argument if there is visual evidence of the correct call. There is really only one reason that people such as Bud Selig don’t want instant replay; they are stubborn.
It isn’t that complicated. Place cameras at every base and on the outfield fence. If a home run call is questionable, review it. If an umpire makes a risky call at a base, review it. Teams should be able to challenge a questionable call, or umpires should review video tape any time they have to meet to discuss a decision. That’s it. No additional information needed. It won’t slow up the game, but it will enhance it. Every other sport is doing it, and every other sport has had success with it. It makes the game fair.
Bud Selig, the commissioner who is against instant replay in baseball, is the same man who decided that the All-Star game should decide who has home field advantage in the World Series. That rule has been highly debated and is still highly debated. The only people who will continue to debate instant replay in Major League Baseball are the people who have nothing better to do. Adopt instant replay like every other sport. The time is now. Let’s re-“play ball.”