Baseball Must Expand Instant Replay

Disagree

Mr. Schlesinger,

There is something you're missing: throughout history, a baseball team's success can be attributed to good fundamentals (i.e. pitching, hitting and fielding) but also how adept it is at cheating. If you haven't already, read Derek Zumsteg's The Cheater's Guide to Baseball. It's a really fun book, but also makes a great point: "cheating-within reason-is not only not a bad thing, it actually makes baseball a more nuanced game." Zumsteg probably uses the word "cheat" to get more attention, but the point is that baseball has a long, glorious history of players and managers bending rules as far as they can for competitive advantage. If you take the human element out of the game by using technology you take away part of the heart of the game. After a botched call, Earl Weaver calling a computer's mother a lying, scheming you-know-what just wouldn't have the same effect.

umps

Jon of Tx... I remember a world series years ago, I think the Braves were playing, when the home plate umpire was making wildly wrong ball/strike calls... abysmally bad. He went on through the 5th inning or so , when I believe he removed himself from the game... claims he had something wrong with his eyes. Turns out he couldn't see squat the entire game! I think there should be an appeal of some sort in a case like this... the man was calling strikes for Maddox 8 inches outside. Perhaps something like removing the ump if he makes 3 or so obvious, terrible calls. At any rate, it's just odd that baseball is so slow to allow replay, as if bad calls are just an accepted thing, like it will all even out. Well, it won't even out if the fix is in, and that is something that could be minimixed with replay.

baseball

I agree somewhat with Todd of PA. There might be room for IP in some areas, but never base-running or balls and strikes. With the home run cam I could also see the fair ball/foul ball instant replay come into the game.

I disagree

I could not disagree more. Baseball is an eminently human sport. There are no clocks, the tools of the game are rudimentary, and its traditions are idiosyncratic. Precision is not its hallmark. And, yet, it achieves a fairness that eludes other sports. In any given game, bad calls happen to both teams, and they have an uncanny habit of offsetting each other, as they did in game 2 of this year's series.

Instant replay--in its current and proposed forms--represents an egregiously selective application of mechanical precision to a game that otherwise spurns it. It is not just unnecessary, it is antithetical to the spirit of the game. In my opinion, this is a game that needs to be equally imprecise in all its facets. If we introduce more extensive instant replay, then we might as well police the strike zone electronically and use a play clock.