Time For Replays

Enough people ignore Major League Baseball when the NFL season starts. I am included in this group, especially this season seeing as my Red Sox have been out of the race for me since the injuries to Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. It seems that everything gets moved to the back burner once Week 1 gets underway.

By Friday baseball was again at the front of the news -- not for good reasons though. Roy Halladay's no-hitter, only the second in playoff history, should have been the story, even two days after the fact. But the top story was about how truly terrible a job umpires have done only two days into the postseason. Thursday alone all three games (Rangers vs. Rays, Braves vs. Giants and Yankees vs. Twins) were impacted by missed or non-calls. As a fan, why should I bother to watch games knowing the umpires can't do their jobs correctly, thus affecting the game? Instant replay clearly needs to be added, and the way to do it is by having a challenge rule similar to the NFL.

To recap, here's how all three games were affected by bad or missed calls yesterday. In the Rangers-Rays game, Texas was up 2-0 in the top of the fifth. They had two runners on and Michael Young at the plate. With the count at 2-2 Young checked his swing on the next pitch to make it a full count. The only problem is that it looked like he went around, and he should have been called out on strikes. Much to the chagrin of the Tampa Bay bench, though, first base umpire Jim Wolf said Young held up. Next pitch, he hits a three-run blast, and all of a sudden the Rays are down 5-0 instead of 2-0, and without manager Joe Maddon, who was ejected after Young hit the home run. Texas tacked on another run and won 6-0, going up 2-0 in the series.

In the Braves-Giants game, a 1-0 decision mind you, San Francisco catcher Buster Posey went to steal second base. Replays showed Posey was tagged at least six inches before he reached the base. Umpire Paul Emmel called him safe. Instead of two outs and no one on, it was one out with a runner on second. Two at-bats later, Cody Ross singled to drive home Posey, who would be the winning run.

(Little side note: You know why it's time for Bobby Cox to retire? Because after the missed call, he didn't come out to argue. Didn't even budge. After the game when questioned about it, he said "I haven't seen [the play].... From the dugout, you can't see anything and I didn't see a reaction from our infielders." Since when has the poor view from the dugout ever stopped Cox from going out, kicking dirt, swearing and getting tossed? The Bobby Cox we all know and love would have been out there before Emmel was finished making his "safe" signal. To make an excuse like that, you know it's time for the man to retire.)

And in the Yankees-Twins game, the game was tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh when Lance Berkman stepped to the plate. With Jorge Posada at first, Berkman took what appeared to be strike three on the inside corner. It was called a ball. Similarly to Young, Berkman sent the next pitch to the wall for a double, scoring Posada. Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire argued and was ejected. The Yanks added insurance and won 5-2 to take a 2-0 series lead going to the Bronx.

Of course, one could argue that all three teams that benefited from the poor calls would have won anyways. The Rays didn't score a run, so they would have lost anyways. Tim Lincecum pitched a gem, striking out 14 Atlanta batters and getting a shutout. The Yankees added runs after the Berkman double. Essentially it is the team's own faults for losing. If the Tampa Bay and Atlanta offenses got going the calls would not have mattered. If Chad Qualls and Carl Pavano made better pitches there would not have been an issue at all.

But that's not how sports fans think, especially when it involves their favorite teams. If I were to go out and tell a Rays fan (oh, right... bad example...). So like I was saying, if I were to go out and tell a Braves fan that Lincecum was untouchable and that the team would have probably lost anyways, I would be told quite the opposite. "No way, man! That call changed the momentum of the game! It sucked all the life out of the team!" That's just the way sports fans are. It is never the team's fault in cases like this. The loss is entirely on the umpire for that one bad call, among the hundreds of pitches in a major league game. And the case for instant replay will be made.

Which brings me to my point. Give the fans what they want. Face it, sports today are for entertainment. As one colleague told me last week, "They don't blast fireworks after every White Sox home run for the sake of it. They do it because it entertains the fans." That is what ultimately matters. Teams relocate if fans don't support them. Leagues shut down entirely. Obviously baseball is in no danger of folding, but it is certainly not the number one sport in America anymore. If the fans want instant replay, which is the best thing for the sport, expand it and give it to them.

Critics against the use of replay say that it adds too much time to the game. If I'm going to sit and watch a three to three-and-a-half hour game, what's an extra five minutes to make sure that a key call was made correct? Or better yet, to annul the added time, restrict either the number of times a manager can go to the mound, or how long the meetings can last. For a devoted fan, an extra five minutes (if that) per game is nothing. For the two biggest fan bases (Red Sox Nation and whatever the hell the Yankees call it now), their games are always four hours. At least. That little time added to make sure the umpires correct a call is well worth it, and wouldn't add to the ridiculousness of the game's length.

The only way the critics would be correct would be if replay were expanded for everything except balls and strikes, but there were no restrictions. There would be a good chance every play that was even remotely close would be reviewed. That would add to the time. Here's my proposal:

Give the managers two "challenges" per game, just like the NFL, that can be used for anything except balls and strikes. There would be no penalty if the play were overturned, but there would also be no reward for getting both challenges correct. If the game goes into extra innings, the managers would get one reward every four innings, with no rollover. That way the game is not in the hands of the umpires as much. Yeah, there would be flaws. On some plays, it will be hard to determine where runners on base should go. The best possible solution? If the play is very questionable and the call could go either way, make it so the ball is in play (i.e. the ball was trapped, not caught). Let the game run its course and see what happens. That way, if a manager chooses to challenge the play and the ball was foul, caught, etc, the runners merely return to the bases they held before the pitch. And if the call was correct to begin with, the umps aren't left pondering where runners should go, if they should be allowed to score, etc. It's not 100% foolproof, but it's better than what the system has now.

Some baseball "purists" will complain that expanding replay will ruin the game. Well, right now the purity of the game is being ruined by the umpires.