So why are people so up in arms about having instant replay in baseball to acknowledge the validity of a homerun? Is this that big of a deal? I think instant replay should exist not only in every aspect of sport, but also in every aspect of life. If I could get a replay of my co-worker jamming the copy machine maybe they would be less inclined to blame me.
I could care less about ‘human error’ and ‘tradition of the game’ when it comes to getting to the appropriate results. Robots for umpires? Sure, why the hell not. These teams spend countless hours and millions upon millions of dollars to compete to win only to get their hopes and dreams crushed by some guy who makes a call based on a flashed judgement. And I’m not blaming the umpires here, they have an extremely difficult job that involves tons of scrutiny and amazing eye sight. I actually thought of becoming an umpire one week back in June of ‘05 and then decided that my time would be better spent sitting in an office all day wishing the power in my building would go out.
One of my clearest memories from childhood was during my years as an Orioles fan. It was the 1996 ALCS, game one. We’re up one in the bottom of the eighth when Derek Jeter’s lazy fly ball lands in the glove of one Jeffrey Maier, while Tony Tarasco is perched underneath waiting to make the out.
Of course, this wasn’t football, there are no interceptions and the fan interfering with the ball should have obviously been deemed an out, which it wasn’t. And despite the fact that Tarasco would have probably dropped the ball anyway, since that was kind of his thing, the fact still remains that the Orioles should have been one out closer to winning game one in New York. This story ends with Maier being given the keys to the city by Rudy Guliani and eventually becoming a minor league wash-up. If anyone ever tells me to vote for Guliani for president I punch them in the face because of this incident.
Anyway, imagine if there was instant replay. You go to the video tape and everything is cleared up. I don’t understand how replay is okay in the three other major sports as well as college but baseball is just too good for new technology. They’ll allow years of steroid abuse and controversy, salary caps that make your head spin, all-star games ending in ties, strikes, lockouts, the Devil Rays, and worthless hours of arbitration to attempt to fix it all, yet we can’t have a computer that tells us if the game is fair or not?
I’m all for tradition, but last time I checked Joe DiMaggio never played on Astroturf, made $12 million in a season, or had a freaking hill to deal with in centerfield. The game changes, just like everything else in this world. Why not let technology assist in making decisions that ultimately change the game and are near impossible for an umpire to make that is standing 80 feet away.
Let’s hope the GM’s voting results (which weren’t unanimous? really? what is wrong with you people) inspire the league to take a look at some of these issues. If for nothing else, so I don’t have to watch people like Jeffrey Maier being congratulated for cheating on Late Night with David Letterman, which by the way, I have not watched since…
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