Instant Replay: Change We Shouldn't Believe In

Memories can certainly be strange things. In my mind, I not only know that Tom Glavine struck out Lenny Harris with a ball 2 feet off home plate to end the 1998 season, I can see the pitch. I know this happened as much as I know that Carlos Delgado hit two home runs the other night. And I was gonna use this fact as the lede to this little posting I got my arm twisted into making.

So then I head over to baseball-reference.com just to find out what the count was when that pitch was made and I find out that Mike Piazza popped out too second (boooooo!!!!!!) off of Rudy Seanez to end the 1998 season. Guess this makes sense… no reason the 106 win Braves would have let Glavine pitch a complete game heading into the playoffs.

So, anyway, every memory I have before, like, yesterday is now suspect. Fortunately, I can still see clearly into the future.

October 1, 2028

ATLANTA – With the bases loaded, Tom Glavine, Jr. struck out Julio Franco, 70, to send the Braves to the playoffs by one game over the New York Mets. Unfortunately, for the Braves, home plate umpire Bob Davidson broke up the victory celebration to award a game winning base-on-balls to the Mets. Instant replay demonstrated the pitch did not, in fact, just catch the black.

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Let there be no doubt that this is where baseball is headed. Sometime in our lives, the same ball tracking graphics that bring "certainty" to tennis line calls will be introduced to fix the errors of home plate umpires.

Instant replay started yesterday only for home run calls. Apparently, it is simply unacceptable that umpires get some miniscule percentage of home run calls wrong. Especially if one of them is on a nationally televised Mets-Yankees game.

Major League Baseball will eventually extend replay to fair-foul line calls (it's only the natural extension of home run calls and the Brewers would've made the playoffs in 2009 if we had this rule in place). From there, plays at the bases, hit-by-pitches, foul tips, and eventually strikes-balls.

Unless MLB can control its Al Gorian inclination to control anything and everything we are heading in this direction. The game will slow down. More importantly, the green grass, wood bat, and beautiful infield that takes your breath away when you get to your seats every Opening Day will be joined by a television/phone system that resembles a microwave.

All to "fix" something that is not, in fact, a problem. Major League umpires do a tremendous job. Over the course of a season – and certainly over the course of a lifetime – the mistakes equal themselves out.

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Even if replay does not become an integral part of the game, it still sucks. Sports is entertainment, it's not life or death. Part of the entertainment of sports – even if it's occasionally a kick in the gut – is having the umps blow a call. Life's unfair and, sometimes, so are home runs calls.

Think of the most famous blown home run call of our lifetimes – Jeffrey Maier's catch in right field at Yankee Stadium.

It is possible that if that ball gets overruled and called an out. The Yankees probably don't come back and tie the game and, therefore, don't win it in extra innings. Maybe the O's go on and still win Game 2 and then, up 2-0, they win the series. Seems likely the Yankees still would've won the series, considering they won the series 4-1, but there's no doubt that would dramatically change the way the series played out.

If that happened, not one person would remember Jeffrey Maier today. Nobody would've cared that he played centerfield for the Wesleyan Cardinals. None of us at Williams would have had a blast heckling him at Williams-Wesleyan baseball games. All a pretty good time.

There's nothing wrong with a blown call. It creates a villain. It adds to the drama (read: entertainment value) of sports. And, crucially, they are extremely few and far between.

No doubt I'm standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" here, but for me instant replay is schoolmarmish.

- Nails