Instant Replay in Baseball

For me, pair of images mark the first half of a baseball season that is stretching toward Tuesday’s All-Star Game. The first is the collision at home plate between the Marlin’s Scott Cousins and the Giants’ superstar catcher Buster Posey. The second is Dee Gordon of the Dodgers sliding into Angels’ catcher Jeff Mathis in the bottom of the ninth inning in recent one-run ball game.

Posey was taken out and Gordon should have been called out. But he wasn’t. Immediately, I started my annual plea for instant replay. It led to some interesting dialogue with a baseball-loving friend. He is a wise and intelligent man. He went to UCLA and also has a Masters in Theology. This fall he’ll be starting law school. But his arguments against instant replay confused me as much as the Casey Anthony verdict.

I think that umpires are correct 99 percent of the time. However there are mistakes. I watch a lot of baseball. I see these mistakes. On Tuesday, Tigers ace Justin Verlander lost a game to the Angels, 1-0. Howard Kendrick of the Angels reached first on an infield hit after replays showed he was out. He soon scored the game’s only run on a bloop double. Thursday’s highlights on the MLB Network showed the Dodger’s Juan Uribe scoring a run when replays showed he was out.

Honestly, I don’t see the problem with using the available technology to get these calls correct. Major League Baseball currently allows umpires to watch replays of homeruns. I would like to see instant replay used on plays at the bases and home plate. Nothing more. I think that baseball managers should be given one “challenge” per game for a call to be reviewed. My hunch is that most games would go without the challenges being used. But they’d be there as a safety net at critical moments. I think pro and college football games are enhanced by replays. Basketball referees are permitted to check the on-court video monitors in certain instances. In hockey, questionable goals can be replayed. Why is this so evil? Why can’t MLB follow suit?

My friend’s first argument was that the games would be too long. One or two replays are not going to dramatically extend games that already trudge at a glacial pace. In this week’s Tigers-Angels series, Detroit skipper Jim Leyland was on the field arguing with umpires as often as I saw those annoying AM/PM commercials. A manager continuously on the field is not “too much good stuff.” Numerous pitching changes, conferences on the mound, visits between pitchers and catchers, and trainers caring for every stubbed toe all add to lengthy games.

Next, my friend said that baseball is special because of the human element. He said that the reason baseball has “marked the time” – a reference to James Earl Jones’ speech in the movie Field of Dreams -- is because the human element separates the game from the other “replay” sports. Listen, I’m not suggesting we get robots to govern the games. Humans used technology to fire off the space shuttle today. Humans used technology to put a helicopter of Navy Seals on Osama Bin Laden’s back porch. Baseball umps should be able to use technology to get a few more calls per week correct.

The human element is not why baseball has “marked the time.” Every sport has a human element. Baseball is special because it is a different sport. It doesn’t have a clock. The defense starts each play with the ball. The diamond is divinely laid out such that a throw from a catcher and bag-swiping runner arrive at the same time in 2011 just as they did in 1911. Baseball has “marked the time” because it gave immigrants in the 1920s something to connect to, because it gave hope to the unemployed during the Depression, because it diverted the attention of a worried nation during the wars of the 40s and 50s. Baseball has marked the time because it’s been played since the 1880s.

Baseball is not the same game as in those grainy black and white films when batters didn’t wear helmets, photographers crouched on the field, and players left their gloves on the grass. Like them or not there have been changes. The mound was lowered. The DH was born. Expansion. Divisional play. Wild cards. Tim McCarver. It needs one more change.

There have been one-game playoffs in three of the last four years which makes every run in every close game crucial. Scott Cousins was trying to put his team ahead in extra innings when he plowed into Posey. Gordon’s run tied the score in a game the Dodgers went on to win. It should have been the third out of an Angel victory. If players are going to use all their skills and determination to touch home plate, shouldn’t baseball use everything humanly possible to not only mark the time but to mark it accurately?