I’ve written enough columns railing against instant replay through the years that I’d lost count.
My computer, though, had no trouble searching an archive and coming up with a number – 16 – in about the same time it takes to read this sentence. That is still the only argument for instant replay that ever made sense: Technology made it easier to be precise, and is making it easier by the minute.
But the argument against instant replay will never change. It’s not foolproof and won’t be, at least not as long as humans make the first call and the last one. In the meantime, it delays games and intimidates officials. And as the dates and datelines of columns turned up by the same computer search show, the camera is steadily clogging up the arteries in every corner of every game, often with unhappy and occasionally even dangerous results.
So, admirable as it sounded to hear baseball commissioner Bud Selig say that instant replay won’t be used to decide anything beyond “boundary calls” on his watch – “Not as long as I’m the commissioner” – it can only mean one of two things: Either Selig is hopelessly naive, or he doesn’t plan to be on the job much longer. Every other league that has employed instant replay has gradually expanded the number of calls under review.
As even hard-core fans of the NFL – the league with both the longest experience and the most calls – would concede, the only thing more maddening than seeing officials blow a call once is waiting around to watch them do it again and again. Especially since few crowds are likely to while away the extra time constructively. In December 2001, booze-fueled Browns fans in Cleveland rained bottles, batteries, coins, cans and at least one portable radio down from the stands after inconclusive camera angles and bungled communications between on-field officials nearly turned an instant-replay delay into the run-up to a riot.
Selig expressed confidence during a conference call Tuesday that deploying the new replay system wouldn’t be a problem. That was undercut almost immediately, though, when a questioner from Tampa inquired whether baseballs that struck the four catwalks spanning parts of the playing field would qualify as boundary calls. Currently, balls striking two of the catwalks are called home runs; balls striking the other two remain in play.
“That’s a difficult issue,” Selig began his answer, then paused.
After a moment of consultation with staff members, he added, “The ground rules stay the same.”
Sounds easy enough. Now imagine an umpire trying to explain the same situation in front of a loud, jittery crowd of almost 45,000 at Tropicana Field in the middle of a pennant race; or for that matter, on Thursday night, when instant replay is scheduled to make its debut in three regular-season series.
Few managers, if any, have been briefed on how the system works and what to expect.
“I shouldn’t say it not going to work, but this could turn into a little bit of a fiasco initially,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. “All we get all spring is speed up the game. This certainly is not going to speed up the game. If it takes too long, this is not like football. You’ve got a pitcher who’s standing out there.
“Baseball’s got to look at this thing carefully,” he added, “they really do.”
he plate.
“In the quiet of winter,” was all Selig said, “it’s something we’re going to think about.”
The game’s general managers then voted 25-5 to explore the limited use of instant replay, but Selig stuffed the ballots into a desk drawer soon after and forgot about them – until May. That’s when a handful of blown home-run calls in some parks with less-than-standard configurations raised enough of an outcry that Selig turned on a dime and abandoned his lifelong stance that the “human element (translation: blown calls)” and the serendipity it occasioned were part and parcel of the game.
MLB insists it can head off crowd problems by tossing anybody who leaves the dugout to argue a boundary call and barring replays of those same calls on stadium video boards. It countered the argument that additional delays in games that are already too long would be offset by fewer arguments.
Fat chance of that actually happening. Especially when guys like Piniella, whose battles with umpires easily qualify as some of the most entertaining replays baseball has generated, have no idea how the process works.
“What’s the format? What do you do? I’d love to be able to throw a red hankie or a green hankie,” he said, then brightened. “Imagine being able to throw something on the field and not be ejected.”
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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org.
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