The Season Pass

    Major League Baseball announced a feasible tragedy on Wednesday.
    On Tuesday, the MLB General Managers voted 25-5 in favor of bringing a limited version of instant replay into baseball. This is the first time such a recommendation has been passed by the group.
     Instant replay would be available only on boundary calls, including fair or foul, whether a ball is a homerun or not, and fan interference.
    Call me a traditionalist, but this is a terrible idea.
    I absolutely cherishe the game of baseball. Growing up it was the only thing I wanted to do or think about. I spent countless hours watching baseball and 14 plus years playing the game.
    Needless to say I have seen plenty of bad calls, but instant replay is hardly the answer to bad umpiring.
    Instant replay makes sense in football. The game moves so quickly and it is often very hard for referees to get in a good position to make a call.
    In baseball, however, the umpires are positioned in a place where they should be able to make those calls.
    One argument is that instant replay will slow down a game that is already slow. While to me that is non-factor, to the average fan it could, indeed, become a problem.
    The biggest problem I have with incorporating it into baseball is that baseball is a game of tradition. It is a game that has not witnessed drastic changes over the years.
    This limited instant replay opens the door to replaying more and more.
    Baseball is a game that has a lot of  human qualities to it, allowing machines to check calls takes some of that away.
    So, come on, Major League Baseball, leave it alone and keep the game the way it is supposed to be.
    At the very least, don’t let instant replay trickle down the ranks to college ball. I don’t want to see it at Division II games.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 9 2007. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry