Replay’s The Thing
Posted: October 10th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 93 Comments »
First off, I don’t like replay in football. I don’t like it because of the way it interrupts the flow and pace of the game. And, no, I’m not talking about the time it takes to make a call. I don’t care about the time it takes. No. For me, the thing with replay around is that everything in football feels theoretical. A receiver for your team makes an impossible touchdown catch in the final seconds … do you cheer? Do you go crazy? Do you throw your popcorn and drop your beer and kiss the person next to you and go berzerk?
No. You put your cheers into the waiting chamber. You wait for the referee to go behind the curtain — like he’s going to take a black and white photograph of Old Hoss Radbourn* — and then you wait for him to run back out on the field, and you wait for him to turn on his microphone, and you listen carefully to his first few words to see if you can figure out what he’s about to say. It’s like going on a first date … you study his body language, the tone of his voice — will he overturn? Won’t he overturn?
*If you are not, you should follow OldHossRadbourn on Twitter. Not sure how Old Hoss has Twitter access considering he died in 1897, but the reach of the Internet is astounding. A typical Tweet: “So T. Hunter flipped his bat. Do that to me and I wouldn’t just bean you: I’d take the bat, kill you, and poison your pet cat.”
And suddenly your moment — the moment when the receiver caught the game-winning touchdown — has turned into the end of an episode of Judge Judy. If he does overturn the touchdown, then the moment never happened, it was all a mirage. And if he says the ruling on the field stands, then suddenly you are not cheering the breathtaking moment but instead you are cheering a middle-aged wearing black and white stripes and a wireless microphone.
Of course, that sounds preposterously fogeyish and anyway I’m not OPPOSED to football replay. I do want the calls to be right, and if that’s replay is price we pay then that is the price we play. I only begin here because I’m about to talk about the inevitability of replay in baseball, and it would be wrong to say I come from a pro-replay background. I see replay in football as necessary but tiresome. It has given us the right calls more often, which makes it worthwhile. But I do think there is a cost. I think it has taken some of the joy out of the game for me.
My feeling about umpiring in baseball is that it’s a lot easier than being a football official. The rules of baseball are much more concrete — a ball is fair or foul, safe or out, tagged or not tagged. Balls and strikes can be tricky, but the umpire is stationary and in the best position make the call. Plus the game moves at a slower pace. I’m not saying it’s easy to be an umpire. But I think it’s easier than being a football official. It’s much more black and white.
And because of that, I never really thought much about baseball replay. Every so often, there’s a passing thought. But before replay EVERY football game had three or four or five very questionable calls. Baseball isn’t like that. Umpires miss calls, sure, but it never seemed like an epidemic to me. It always seemed like they would get the vast majority of them right. I’m estimating, of course, but I would bet that for every time I have seen umpire make a bad call, I have seen four or five really good calls, the kind of calls that make me think, “Wow, he got that right. That’s really good.”
So, replay … maybe two or three times a year I would have a fleeting thought about whether replay belonged in baseball and I quickly then moved on to something else like how many players since World War II have had 20 or more triples but fewer than 20 stolen bases*. I just never thought about it much.
*Three. Stan Musial in 1946 (20 triples, 7 SBs), Dale Mitchell in 1949 (23 triples, 10 stolen bases) and George Brett in 1979 (20 triples, 17 stolen bases).
But, of course, baseball replay is inescapable now because these playoffs have been an umpiring disaster. I don’t know if it’s a trend — it probably isn’t a trend. It’s probably just a bad run of high-profile missed calls. But it has felt like an epidemic, and it was topped by the almost-impossible-to-believe missed call on Joe Mauer’s sure-double against the Yankees — that ball was fair by a foot. Trend or not, this is the sort of thing that gets people talking, and the talk now is replay.
And here’s the thing I’ve only just noticed: The arguments against replay don’t make a whole lot of sense. We all know the argument for replay. It would help get the calls right, which seems like the most important thing. The arguments against, meanwhile, sound pretty shallow. I think these are the three most common arguments against replay:
1. Tony LaRusssa: “You know, part of the game is umpires making their best calls.”
2. Joe Torre: “I think that the games are a little long now, and I have a sense they’d be interminable (if you started checking replay on safe/out calls.”
3. LaRussa: “I mean you watch us play, you watch me manage, nobody is perfect.”
Torre: “I mean, they’re human.”
So to sum up the arguments as I understand them:
1. Bad calls are part of the fabric of the game.
2. Replay would make the games too long.
3. Players aren’t perfect, umpires aren’t perfect.
I’m sure there are other arguments, but these are the three I hear most. And, to be brutally honest, these three arguments are pretty sad. If these are really the reasons against replay, they should install cameras and give managers red flags tomorrow.
Think about these individually for a moment.
– The idea that bad calls are part of the game is plain ridiculous. Of course they are part of the game … because for years and years there wasn’t a better way. Do you think that if in 1900, there were umpiring robots who could make perfect calls every time that baseball would not have used them? You think they would have said: “No, human error is an important part of our concept of umpiring?” I don’t think so.
And anyway — just because something is part of the fabric of the game makes it good. The shameful exclusion of African Americans and dark-skinned Latins is part of the game too. The 1919 Black Sox are part of the game. The fact that teams have to get rid of good players because they can’t afford the salaries is part of the game. Now we’re supposed to get romantic about BAD CALLS? What? I think of the line from “The Fabulous Baker Boys” — “Have you been eating (bleep) for so long, that you’re actually starting to like it?” Bad calls are BAD. They even have the word BAD in the title.
– Replays could make the games a touch longer — depending on how it’s used — and nobody really wants that. But didn’t we pass that exit a long time ago. If they’re willing to make the delay between innings longer to make extra bucks on commercials, can’t they add a couple of minutes to game time to get calls right?
– And then there’s the third one — the bit about umpires being human just like players. I’ve always just sort of lazily accepted this one in the past.
But when La Russa and said it Saturday before the Dodgers-Cardinals game, it suddenly hit me as completely off-key because it totally misses the point. Of course umpires are human. But umpires are not like players or managers. They have totally different jobs. Players, managers, they are trying to win a game. They will make mistakes in the process, of course, and this is part of what makes the game entertaining and frustrating and interesting. Their mistakes, in many ways, create the tension of baseball.
Not so with umpires. Their job is to balance the game. That’s all. They are not the entertainment division of baseball. They are in oversight. And the job is to get it right. Period. Seems to me that the comparison is flawed because we are not looking for humanity from our umpires. We are looking for accuracy. We want the most accurate weather forecasts, the most accurate traffic reports, the most accurate stock advice, the most accurate putters and the most accurate NFL injury reports. Get it right. And baseball should always be looking for more accuracy and a better way.
Is there a better way in baseball? Well, to be honest, it doesn’t matter now: The way they do things is unsustainable. There are too many camera angles. Baseball has had a 100-year-fight against illegitimacy — whether it’s gambling, racism, steroids or the disparity of big market and small. Bad calls are a threat too. Baseball has to do something. Maybe it’s a challenge system. Maybe it’s an eye in the booth like in college football. Whatever, something has to give. And something will, probably as soon as this off-season. There is too much money and interest and technology around today to allow an umpire to call a fair ball foul in the playoffs.
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Circle me Bert
Yeah!
I now just assume that every Twins-Yankees game will end the way yesterday’s did, just as a defense mechanism against devastation.
I’m with you 100% when it comes to fair/foul calls.
The whole purpose of the umpires in the outfield for the playoffs is to determine fair or foul. That’s all they have to do. And the guy missed it. Ridiculous.
As far as other calls go, I’m on the fence. My thought is that if you are allowed to second guess every call an umpire makes, what is to stop you from completely removing umpires altogether? I realize it is a rather big jump from instituting replay to complete eradication, but it would completely remove human error from the equation – at least directly. With seven or eight HD cameras covering each game, are they really necessary?
On a more emotional basis, if you remove umps who is there left to gripe at when things aren’t going your way? The camera guy for not getting the best possible angle?
I want to throw something at my tv everytime I hear someone argue that replays would take the “human element” out of the game. The only human elements I want in the game are the ones due to the players and the managers.
I am neither pro nor anti replays; I am pro getting the calls right as often as possible with the least disruptions, and I don’t care how they do it.
I can’t see the games live, but I saw a bunch of replays of Mauer’s ball on MLB.com. Everything was happening so fast — the ball coming almost straight down, being in sight for just a split second, and then kangarooing as fast as lightning into the stands — that I couldn’t really be at all sure myself, even after seeing all these replays, whether it was fair or foul.
Just sayin’.
I get your points about people stupidly romanticizing human error, but I don’t see your point about the length of games. The length of games now is a serious problem, and I don’t see how lengthening them doesn’t make that problem worse. I was looking at 1970s box scores on retrosheet, wistfully noting how a “normal” game was often under 2:30, and a “long” game was about 3 hours.
More importantly is your own point to open the article, which is that replay use really does mess with the cheering aspect of the game. The situation would be even worse in baseball. In football, we’re conditioned when we see a play to look for flags, knowing (even before replay) that anything we see can be brought back. That aspect has been blessedly absent from baseball, and I’d hate to see it come into the game.
And finally, what worries me most is something few people are talking about. In baseball there are a lot of calls that are “approximate” calls, which are not technically correct but we accept them anyway. Two examples: 1) the neighborhood play at second base, where we allow the infielder to jump off the bag early while turning the DP; 2) tag plays on the bases, where we frequently look the other way when a player might somehow manage to sneak a hand in, or maybe slides under a catcher trying not to get killed in a collision, but he gets called out because the ball beat him there. I think if we’ll be opening a lot of cans of worms if we start reviewing those sorts of calls, and that replay really could potentially start grinding the game to a halt.
I’m not opposed to the use of technology to improve the calls. I’m ready, for example, to use Questec rather than umpires (and their ever-changing interpretations) for ball-strike calls. But I fear that a widespread use of replay (especially on tag plays) could really have an adverse affect on an already tortuously slow game.
Even if the reviewable play universe included the Mauer ball, the play never would have been reviewed. The trigger for umpire conferences and HR/no-HR replays now is that the aggrieved manager comes out to argue, spurring umpires to get together and such. If Gardenhire had argued the Cuzzi play, there’s a really good chance the crew would have gotten together; if they had, I suspect the 3B or HP umpire would have told Cuzzi that they saw the ball was fair. The lesson: managers don’t argue enough!
By the way, why exactly do we even have outfield umpires in the playoffs? Last night was not the first time we’ve seen those guys on the lines blow calls. And really it’s not surprising, because the umps don’t spend any other time getting used to making calls from the outfield positions.
I’m just wondering if having the outfield umpires is more a sop to the union (to give some extra postseason jobs to their members) rather than a serious effort to improve how the games are called.
And to #5: I’m not sure what you were looking at, but under replay you could easily see the ball was clearly foul. I do think, though, that the umpire might have been screened in live action by Damon crossing the path of the ball while it was hitting the ground.
So I actually could see using replay on fair-foul calls, PROVIDED we did it with a replay official already in the booth, in order to keep the process as fast as possible. If the umpires on the field don’t like being overruled, too bad. That to me is the biggest flaw with the NFL system — it takes too much time to check the replays because the league gave in to the refs’ wishes not to let booth officials (who are already there and watching) govern the calls. Just note how much less disruptive the college system is, even though many more plays (every one actually) is being reviewed in the booth.
Another great post Joe.
I’m not sure where else you’d bring the replay in. I do like the home run replay but not sure how you could do it on fair/foul. Obviously if it is called fair, the play continues and you could review that. But if it is called foul, the players stop playing.
Overall, I like the human element of officiating. I imagine a world where there is a light behind the catcher that goes green for a strike and red for a ball. Sensors on the bases to call players safe or out. Bleh, it takes some of the passion out of the game if we don’t have umpires to yell at.
Replay is a good idea because it reduces bad calls. It would lengthen the game, but its a good idea. Bad calls are a proble, long games are a problem, but they are seperate problems. You fix one, then you fix the other.
I would LOVE it if MLB or somebody with access to footage from all the old games would go back and review all the calls that were made over the years. Every single questionable call. It would be an enormous undertaking, but it could provide some very interesting results. Maybe we could even find, say seven homeruns hit by hypothetically, Barry Bonds, that from a certain angle look like they stayed in the park. Or maybe we could find an extra Musial hr that would give him a triple crown. I think it would be pretty fun to post replays of these calls on youtube. I’d watch it.
As a retired ump/official, I can tell you it’s much easier to call a football game than a baseball game (if you’re behind the plate). You’re out there mostly by yourself, you have some time during the play to decide if it’s something that should be called or not. Really the only bang-bang call on a football field is pass interference, maybe unnecessary roughness. In baseball, everything is right now. Much more difficult, especially behind the plate.
I agree that expansion of fair/foul replay is inevitable. It wouldn’t be that hard to have speedy “booth review” of fair/foul calls. It’s really a question of will, not logistics.
#9 makes a good point about players not playing through a foul call, and I guess only one base could be awarded if a foul call were overturned by replay. That’s slightly unfair but no worse than runners on first who have to hold up at third on a ground rule double even though we “know” that virtually all of them would score on a normal double.
On the subject of new rules: Can we have a new rule that if your team is about to be swept out of the playoffs at home there’s no beer cutoff in the ballpark? I’m getting texts from despondent friends in STL who are at this game and just want to drown their sorrows. Let these poor bastards drink!
This has been partially covered above, since I ate dinner after writing it but before posting it:
The thing that I’m worried about is the stoppage of play. Take Mauer’s ball last night: what if it *hadn’t* bounced into the stands? If it’s fair, it’s still in play; if it’s foul, the play’s over.
So say the ump calls it foul: play stops. Then replay shows it fair. What do we do then?
I guess the only solution is to let every potentially questionable play continue to conclusion (i.e., pretend the ball is fair, the runner hasn’t been tagged, etc.), and *then* see if there are any red flags. And risk people getting hurt trying to score a run on what turns out to be a foul ball, or whatever.
And who gets to determine whether the play is questionable in the first place?
I’m just not sure it’s gonna work. Seems potentially much more unfair than what we have now.
#13: I don’t really see a problem with the “stoppage of play” calls like Mauer. We already have that in place with the fan interference rule, where we allow umpire’s judgment to place the runners in the case of a play that has been prematurely stopped.
I’m not sure how I feel about replay in baseball, maybe expand it to fair/foul plays and HR’s only. If we expand it to tags, I think we are in danger of lengthening the game to a ridiculous extent. In fact I think baseball needs to do something drastic to shorten the length of games. Four hour nine inning games are unacceptable. Remember when the NFL drastically changed the clock rules when games started regularly going over 3 1/2 hours. It was strange at first, but games have consistently been at 3 hours since they made the change. Perhaps starting counts at 1-1 the inning after the game hits 3 hours or maybe even 2:45. Four hour games will kill the sport.
Baseball has too many stop or keep playing calls for replay to work. I don’t want to watch a game where anything close becomes “keep playing and we’ll sort it out later”
I wrote something much like this (but much less eloquent) on my blog this morning. I have to say, Nate, if the ultimate end is removing umps altogether…I wouldn’t mind. They’re not really part of the fabric of the game. They’re only noticed when they do something stupid. If we can get these things right without them (and I think we’re a long way away from *that*, but still), we should. In the meantime, everything that can be reviewed by video should be.
As for the extra time, I have two feelings on that:
(a) if you’d rather have shorter baseball games that can be decided by incompetent umpiring, why are you a fan at all? (Or ARE you, even, really?)
(b) bar managers from coming out of the dugout to argue calls that can be reviewed (which would be most of them, frankly). The time saved by not having to watch two men smell each other’s breath and spit in each other’s faces would at LEAST balance out the time it takes to review the occasional close play.
There’s nothing good about a blown call. But there are SO MANY calls in baseball–every single pitch is at least one call. Replay is a slippery slope…so we start with foul lines and homers maybe…then in a couple years an ump completely blows a strike call in a key situation, and we say “hey, we’re looking at strike zone graphics all day long on telecasts, why don’t we incorporate that technology into the game” and then we’re reviewing balls and strikes. Because at the end of the day, EVERY call can be crucial if it’s the right situation–sheeyit, a game could turn on catcher’s interference. Or a balk. Or pine tar. And whenever something crazy happens, people will freak out and scream “THAT WASN’T A BALK, AND IT COST US THE GAME–WHY AREN’T WE REVIEWING BALKS?” So even as a Sox fan who’s bitter that my boys got hosed on some calls so far (not that it really matters, since we apparently are swinging hologram bats again) I still wouldn’t ever want to see replay involved. And it may be waaay down the list why, but yeah, games are too Traschel-eque already.
@#17 Bill: “(a) if you’d rather have shorter baseball games that can be decided by incompetent umpiring, why are you a fan at all? (Or ARE you, even, really?)”
This is a total straw-man argument. First of all, people who are concerned about the length of games ARE fans. We’re just fans who hate all the dead time that have crept into the baseball, especially during the playoffs. And the vast majority of games are NOT decided by incompetent umpiring. So to imply that we are willing to have crappy baseball if only it will be short in duration is ridiculous.
But if replay becomes widespread, the amount of dead time added to games WILL increase greatly, with only a small marginal benefit in improved umpiring.
Look, it’s always about the cost-benefit analysis. I actually like what college football has done; every play is reviewed from the booth, and the vast majority of them are actually confirmed quickly enough so that the flow of play is not interrupted. But do you see the all-powerful umpires union accepting an “eye in the sky” judging their members? No, we’ll get some system (like we have now on HRs) where on close calls we’ll have to stop the game, wait for the field umpires to talk first, then saunter to some indoor booth, wait several minutes, and then the vast majority of the time see the play in question upheld.
I am for replay for the fair/foul calls. The only one that would be difficult would be the screaming shot hit low down the line (assuming it hits the ground before it reaches first or third base). The ump has to decide if the ball crossed over the plane of the base. That would be a tricky one for replay I think because you’d have to be right over the bag and right in front of it at the same time.
“But do you see the all-powerful umpires union accepting an “eye in the sky” judging their members?”
I could see it if MLB expanded the umpiring crews to five members, and replay booth was part of one’s rotation. And really, that’s the best way to handle it. Replay official buzzes the crew chief to slow down for a second if something needs another look, then a double-buzz if the call needs to change. I’m a Northwestern student, and a couple of our big plays in today’s game went under review. We cheered the play, bitched when they went to review it, then cheered when the plays were upheld. It didn’t slow the game down very much at all, and while as a fan I want to get all the breaks, objectively I don’t want to win the game via screw-ups. As a Yankee fan, I had to arm-twist myself a little bit into being able to enjoy last night’s win, precisely because Cuzzi jobbed Mauer (Minny leaving seventeen on and failing to capitalize with bases loaded and none out in that inning certainly helped).
I’m definitely in favor of replay as it stands now (disputed home run calls). Beyond that though, it would depend. Take last night for example. This one happens to be obvious since it bounced into the seats, but say it didn’t. Umpire calls it foul. Replay shows fair. What then? Does Mauer get second? Why? Maybe Melky would have stopped him at first if the umpire hadn’t called it foul, so how is that fair? But does Mauer only get first? How is THAT fair when there’s no guarantee Melky would have fielded it? And if the umpires have to decide where he would have gotten to, you’re right back to human error. Hey, maybe the ball takes a crazy spin and rolls all the way to the wall! Maybe Mauer should have third! It gets complicated. Home runs are easy, you either score the run or you don’t, it’s fair or it isn’t.
For that matter, how do you determine when a replay is called? Because here’s the thing. For all those calling for replay as a result of the Mauer non double, what makes you think it would have even been called for? The ump thought it was foul. The bench thought it was foul since they couldn’t see it. Gardy didn’t even flinch. Mauer didn’t argue. Melky Cabrera’s probably the only one in the ballpark (save a few fans) who knew it was fair, and somehow I don’t think he’s going to ask for a replay. If you make it a “red flag” situation, I doubt Gardy would have even thrown it. If it’s umpires discretion, he obviously thought it was right. It can’t be unlimited challenges anytime you want or it really would take all night, why wouldn’t a manager dispute every single even semi close play? Booth review might work but I’m not sure.
I’m not automatically against replay and in some cases I’m for it. Definitely on disputed home runs, perhaps on a “play at first base” or “play at the plate” type situation. On balls that are fair/foul but not out of the park, I just think they need to determine a proper way of doing it if they go for that.
It was definitely a terrible call though. I’m not sure how the ump missed it. But despite the bad calls all playoffs, I think the fact that everyone is so shocked about how the umpire could possibly have missed it shows how rare the situation actually comes up in that blatant of a way.
The people complaining about the supposed time problems are taking that argument to an extreme that just doesnt really exist. The likelyhood of seeing even one replay on a foul line in any given series would actually be pretty small – and even if you did see one, you are talking about 2 minuets added; not 20. And if fans as a whole really felt like this, why do they do so many things to slow down the game themselves? I can tell you, when it comes to the games I have been to, I have probably seen as many delays because of beachballs or fans running on the field as I have arguments over calls.
Getting the calls correct is more important then the possibly of adding 2 minutes to every fourth or fifth game. And that is why I say you have to do it for the integrity of the game. Having game two of a division series possibly decided on an umpire not getting his job right in a non-judgment situation is just foolish. And I can recall too many games possibly being decided on bad calls* like this to justify leaving a flawed system in place when easy solutions exist – when the game doesnt do what it easily can to be correct, why take it that seriously? Just make a penalty for having a review on a correct call so there wont be frivolous protests and the game will be better off.
(*in fairness, this does include HR calls which can now be replayed)
I mean really, I imagine I can probably speak for everyone when I say that I would rather watch an umpire taking a minute or two to review an important play then spend the next 30 years hearing people complain about an incorrect call.
Oh, one last thing on the time aspect – what takes more time, watching a manager argue over a call, or watching an umpire review one? People do seem to forget that allowing replay means no arguing – its just a matter of objecting and watching that take place instead of the trash talking. When everything is said and done, I’m not really sure any time would be added to the game – it may just be transferred from another aspect.
The closest sport to this situation is not football, where so many calls are judgement calls, but tennis. In or out, black and white. Tennis matches are not significantly longer (they were already long anyway), and ewith replay we have the benefit of knowing very quickly whether the shot was in/out. What have we lost? Maybe a few entertaining tirades from the McEnroe types, but that’s it. That’s all we’d lose in baseball, too. Some screaming and dirk kicking.
The Twins should still be playing.
Install cameras in every key location in every ballpark and give both managers two red flags per game.
Like Yacapo says in The Count of Monte Cristo, “How is this bad plan?”
Jay @ 18:
There are certainly many calls in baseball. But not even close to every single pitch. The vast majority of foul balls involve no call by the umps. The vast majority of outs in the air involve no calls by the umps. The vast majority of HRs involve no calls by the umps. And it’s probably not the vast majority, but certainly there are plenty of groundouts in which the runner is thrown out by enough such that the first base ump is basically not making a call.
Greg @ 24:
I’m pretty sure the Twins ARE still playing.
Actually Bill, every single baseball action requires a call, it’s just that the vast majority require no decision to be made. Technically speaking, it’s not an out, or a home run, or a foul ball until an umpire calls it as such, but that’s just picking nits. I know what you meant.
There is one overwhelming argument against replay:
1985 World Champion Kansas City Royals
I have never understood the “time” argument against replay in baseball. In fact, the argument is, on its face, so outrageous that it never fails to get my blood boiling.
I mean, let’s be real here: what happens when there’s a disputed call in baseball? The manager comes out to argue about it. Now, how much time does that waste, especially if said manager’s got a good head of steam worked up?
In fact, I think that’s the real reason people are against replay in baseball: any properly designed method of implementing it would pretty much forever eliminate the entertaining spectacle of Lou Pinella throwing second base into right field. The time argument makes sense in football, where coaches have not historically been known for their tendency to delay the game with their infantile temper tantrums; therefore, a replay call does make the game longer.
But no, in baseball, the time argument is patently ridiculous because done properly it would shorten games, not lengthen them. Most calls can be cleared via replay in just a couple of seconds, and any call which actually requires more than a few seconds’ review is the sort of call that would result in a much lengthier managerial hissy-fit anyway.
No one has pointed out something about the left-field foul line play on Mauer’s ground-rule double, err…foul ball. The damn left-field line ump missed two calls!
Call #1: The ball deflected off of the leftfielder’s glove while the fielder was in fair territory….That’s a safe hit right there…When it bounced into the stands = ground rule double.
Call #2: The ball landed in fair territory by 6 freakin’ inches regardless of it hitting the fielder’s glove! What was that? The ump should be removed from the remainder of the post-season in my opinion.
Gardy and his guys didn’t argue because they could not see the play from the 3rd base dugout. Only their 3rd base coach may have had a clue that the ball was fair TWICE!!!
Again – That’s the first time I have seen a team get a ground rule double and then three clean singles to the outfield and fail to score while making no outs on the bases. Pure Bullshi# call gave the Yankees more help than they needed to beat the undermanned Twins.
But if replay becomes widespread, the amount of dead time added to games WILL increase greatly, with only a small marginal benefit in improved umpiring.
On what basis do you make this statement? The adoption of replay by college increased game times by about a minute on average; NFL games by a bit more, about 1:45.
I thought the fair/foul calls would be tossed in with HRs going into this season. Guess not.
But seriously, there’s a huge contingency you’re missing. What happens on a play like that and there’s runners on base and the ball stays in play? Do they get 2 bases, an extra base?
You’re opening up a whole can of worms now Joe.
But seriously, there’s a huge contingency you’re missing. What happens on a play like that and there’s runners on base and the ball stays in play? Do they get 2 bases, an extra base?
How would it be any different than a ground-rule double situation? In fact, most fair/foul situations are likely doubles if fair anyway. Even you can only min-advance because the call was initially foul (or out), isn’t that better than not having the call go your way at all?
My only concern (and this could very well be addressed, but I can’t really think of a solution at the moment) is regarding the continuation of play.
Let’s suppose there’s a guy on first when Mauer hits that ball. And instead of the ball caroming into the crowd, it bounces around in the corner. Once the ump calls the ball foul, the play is dead. Even if the call is overturned on review, what do you do with the runners? I assume you’d put Mauer on second and the runner at third, but what if the runner would have scored? The umpire’s bad call STILL affects the game.
How many calls would this affect? A bad call that changes the way the entire play goes down where if the call had been made correctly, something completely different might have happened.
I would be for replay if they can find a way to answer that question adequately.
Joe,
Can you please do a story about Sandy Alderson versus Mike Port? It seems to my naive understanding, umpiring used to be really bad, Sandy Alderson became in charge of umpire relations and umpiring slowly got better (both more accurate calls and fewer instances of hot-headedness by umps). Then Alderson left for the Padres, Mike Port took over in 2005, and Alderson’s gains seem to have disappeared. Instead of a bunch of fans and talking heads lamenting the state of poor umpiring, can you dig into the politics here?
How about, “Keep C.B. Bucknor and Phil Cuzzi away from the playoffs”?
You certainly don’t need the line umps for the division round. Take the top 16 umpires from the regular season for the divison round, then advance half of them on merit to the LCS, sort of like the NCAA basketball tournament does. The top 6 get to work the big show.
Didn’t see the Mauer foul/fair call but it seems to me to be the type of situation where, if the call was overturned, the tennis situation would be followed: play the point again.
With respect to #24, although you’re right about losing the screamers and dirt kickers, cricket is the sport with calls closest to baseball.
When cricket became a television product, with multiple camera angles the norm, it became apparent that batsmen were being unfairly advantaged in run-out situations (the equivalent of baseball’s bang-bang plays). Cricket’s rules state that where the umpire is undecided, the batsman is to receive the benefit of the doubt. Consequently, a huge proportion of batsmen who should have been given out were allowed to continue playing.
The current procedure, which everyone is happy with, is for the umpire to refer close calls to the “third umpire”, who sits in the stand. He calls for as many replays as he requires, which are shown on the ground’s big screen and to viewers at home, then gives the final decision.
Works perfectly, like the photo finish in horse racing.
It’s also used to clarify catches and whether balls have crossed the boundary ropes.
Within a year or two, players who believe they have been given out, or fielding sides who believe batsmen haven’t been given out, in questionable circumstances other than run-outs will be able to use a challenge system similar to that in tennis — each team will have three challenges per inning.
It’s been trialled in a West Indies v New Zealand series and worked well.
You all do know that TV cameras can’t reveal the “truth” either, don’t you? We are all children of television, and so have forgotten that camera angles can be deceptive too.
Two random comments, feel free to skip on ahead.
1) IMO – Pro football is better on TV. Baseball better live. Replay is custom made for TV.
2) If technology is the Hellhound that makes replay an inevitability MLB should have umpires wear camera glasses so when they blow a call we can literally see their exact angle.
Now that would be instant replay. And some damn good TV.
How do you deal with the problem of figuring out where the runners go on a borderline foul ball that ends up being ruled fair? Simple: Change the rules so that every ball landing within a foot of the foul line, if called foul, is a delayed dead ball instead of a dead ball. So the fielder fields the ball, the runners run, and the play continues until “no further action is possible” and the play is killed. If the replay official upholds the foul call, the runners return to their bases, any outs recorded or runs scored as a result of the play are nullified, and the play goes as a foul ball. If the foul call is overturned, everything stays as it occurred.
Yankees get calls at home again and again again. WTF?This has been going on since the Jeter homer in ‘96 and is ridiculous.
“Everything in football feels theoretical. A receiver for your team makes an impossible touchdown catch in the final seconds … do you cheer? Do you go crazy? Do you throw your popcorn and drop your beer and kiss the person next to you and go berzerk?”
I haven’t read the comments yet so maybe somebody pointed this out already — but football had that exact problem long before instant replay started. The reason you can’t cheer right away in football, the reason you don’t know whether you just scored a touchdown or not, is the penalty flag system, not instant replay.
Is it baseball as a whole who has long games (I don’t have the NL average time numbers at hand), or just the Yankees and Red Sox? Since I attended about 50 ballgames this year and aside from a couple with rain and extra innings, the only really interminably long games were the ones with NYY and Boston.
So, just eliminate those two teams from the league and MLB will be all the better. Great idea!
26, 28:
Yes, the accuracy police caught me red-handed, but my point is simply that there is *something* potentially reviewable on tons of plays during a game–just considering the strike zone alone. And more calls are blown on balls and strikes and baserunning calls than on foul calls or home runs…so how can you not have replay on those? How about when we have a more comprehensive replay system in place, but a playoff game gets partially decided by something controversial that’s not reviewable? There will of course be a knee-jerk reaction to keep expanding it.
It would certainly be nice if the game were perfectly fair. But teams play in different stadiums, different climates, different leagues, different divisions, different schedules, etc. etc. etc. I suppose I’m in the minority on this, and unfortunately on this website sometimes that equates with DEAD WRONG, but hell, call me crazy, I kind of *like* the system the way it is now. We are all living in a technology-driven world, and a hell of a lot of it isn’t exactly changing the human experience for the better. I mean, if you want things perfect, how the hell can you justify a human being calling balls and strikes, by far the most imprecise yet game-affecting call? Within a few years (probably less) we could totally automate that process. But would you all really want that, if the tradeoff for a “perfectly homogenized” strike zone was getting rid of home plate umps?
No, Joe, this isn’t akin to racism or throwing a game, and this isn’t romanticizing bad calls (although I’ll admit that I enjoy watching managers and umps argue)…it’s saying that sometimes getting something “perfect” by fundamentally changing things isn’t worth the small incremental gain from pretty damn good to perfect. Because once you make that leap, you don’t go back, you just go forward.
It’s completely and utterly ridiculous that one league uses a DH and another doesn’t…or that a lousy division winner could get in the playoffs with a bunch less wins than a much better team (e.g., a third-place team from a stacked division (that had to play that stacked division over and over again)). And on and on. But you know what? Baseball’s a pretty good product right now…what say we pretty much leave it alone for a bit?
We are far away from replay in baseball on other plays because the umpires are babied tremendously.
If you are at a pro football game, a call being replayed (or even a close one that is not) is shown on the big screens for fans to judge, complete with close ups and back and forth.
There is a fantastic video board at Kauffman Stadium, but you cannot see a replay of any reasonably close play even when not controversial, because baseball doesn’t want to “show up” the umpires.
You mentioned commercials lengthening the game. On the radio, at least here in KC, the between inning commercials nearly always intrude on the beginning of the next inning. When the game comes on I hear that Jose Guillen has already fouled out for out #1-or is facing a 1-1 count.
#29-Husker Nation- If there were replay in the 1985 series, the Royals would have scored a run already in the fourth inning, because a call more heinous than Denkinger’s went against them then. They then would score the winning run with 2 outs instead of one in the ninth.
Even without the run in the fourth inning, if Orta had been called out by Denkinger, worst case is that it is a tie game with runners on first and third, two out, Lonnie Smith up, Willie Wilson on deck.
If Smith or Wilson (if Smith walks or something) don’t get it done right there, it would go to extras. At Home. Against a team that was in the midst of a 26 inning stretch of hitting .143/.188/.143!!! with one run. (Royals .327/.404/.416) I LOVE my chances.
There is almost no scenario where the Cardinals would have won the 1985 series.
Far from being robbed, they were in the middle of the biggest offensive choke job in the history of post season play. Or perhaps they were just a victim of superb pitching. (or a combination of those)
All the call did was take away some of the glory. I wish he had made the right call. I am confident we would still have our championship!!
@#24: First off, the Twins ARE still playing. Second, come on, give me a break. First off you don’t know if Mauer would have scored. As Mauer himself said, if he’s on second, maybe the hit by Kubel gets fielded instead. Maybe if Mauer was on third the next hitter tries too hard to get a sac fly and pops it up instead of singling. You don’t know and neither does anyone else.
And if you buy into the predetermined outcome, everything else would have happened just as it was, then Mauer scores, Twins get only 1 run, Teixeira hits a home run, game tied again with nobody out and A-Rod up.
It was a bad call and it MAY have cost the Twins the game, but to declare that they would have won is ridiculous.
At least for fair-foul calls, I see no reason why baseball doesn’t adopt a system similar to the one that’s used in tennis. It’s quick, it’s highly accurate, what’s not to like?
Off the topic a little bit, Joe, I love how in the SI piece, you quote a random “Red Sox official” like we all don’t know who it is. How’s Bill doing anyways? That’s like back in the day when Peter Gammons would quote a random “AL East Executive” and everyone in the world knew it was John Harrington.
Keep in going Joe. Love your stuff and love both books.
Editor’s note: It wasn’t Bill. That was why I didn’t use the name.
who would throw Bobby Cox out of the game?
@46:
Not only that, but Orta was just a baserunner at the time Denkinger called him safe. If Orta had been called out, the Cards still would have needed to get two more outs without two runs scoring, and they utterly failed at producing *any* of those outs (the Royals gave them the only out that was recorded, on a sacrifice bunt).
It’s not like Denkinger handed the Royals the game: it’s that the Cards utterly failed at what they needed to do to overcome the momentary distraction of having an unexpected “guest” on first base. Not that there was all that much overcoming that needed to be done: just get three outs.
“The rules of baseball are much more concrete — a ball is fair or foul, safe or out, tagged or not tagged.”
This is actually the biggest problem with bringing replay to baseball: umpires don’t want replay because it threatens their jobs. Even with replay, football has enough judgment calls that refs won’t lose their jobs to replay any time soon. But most of an umpire’s job could be replaced with technology right now. Balls and strikes? Easy—TV gizmos already show how well the ump is doing. Safe or out at a base or home plate? Sensors in the ball, gloves, and the base. Fair/foul? Tennis has managed that difficult question for a while now. Maybe all this tech isn’t ready today, bu it’s not hard to imagine that with a little effort, an umpire’s role could be reduced to calling balks and determining when a batter has been hit by a pitch.
That scares the whosiwhatsis out of the umpires union, and it’s why we’re unlikely to see any form of instant replay as long as the union has the ability to fight it. It’s also why the “human element” is such a talking point. If the discussion focuses on accuracy instead of judgment, humans have a hard time winning.
Joe, you said: “We are looking for accuracy. We want the most accurate weather forecasts, the most accurate traffic reports, the most accurate stock advice, the most accurate putters and the most accurate NFL injury reports. Get it right.”
I don’t think this is correct. We want humanity in all of our endeavors. To wit: the first weathercaster that comes to my mind is someone with an interesting personality, the first stock market expert is Jim Cramer. While we wish for things to be correct, we desire the advice to come from an interesting human being.
Supplementing the umpire behind the plate with computerized ball/strike calls would increase accuracy, but in some way we find perfection boring. Maybe that’s why the NFL’s (and tennis’) challenge system has become popular: we like the humanity, but we also like the ability to appeal to an ultimate authority when we feel wronged.
Anyway, I found this interesting, because at the start of your post I was in complete agreement with you, but the more I think about it the more I think that while we say we want 100% accuracy, we may not be willing to sacrifice the human element in umpiring.
Joe,
My big question is this: How can we get through a 162-game season with four umpires, and then suddenly have a need for six? We had just gotten from April through September with four just fine, and now we need two more?
Let’s leave it at four and only put the best ones out there.
@53 – respectfully.
When looking at your doctor’s diagnosis of your medical condition and suggested course of action / medication. Would you prefer accuracy or “humanity”?
100% accurate joe and equally logical. Well done.
It doesn’t matter how MLB addresses the issue as long as it means that more calls get done correctly than happens now.
If a billion camera angles cannot show us what happened clearly, so be it. But for every one like that I suspect there will be many which are made right.
I would think that every twins fan (mauer’s hit) and every oriole fan (jeffrey’s interference) and every cards fan (need I say don denkinger?) should be out there actively lobbying for this to happen sooner rather than later.
And yes I know those are not the only key bad calls made in the playoffs.
I’d even support a tennis-like system that lets the umpire behind the plate know if a pitch is over the plate or not. You would still need him to call whether it is high or low and to make calls at the plate but no longer would he be able to call a pitch as much as a foot outside a strike. Electronics can’t be fooled in such things
For those who think replay on fair/foul calls would “open up a can of worms” with regard to where baserunners wind up, just use the ground-rule double rules. For Mauer it wouldn’t have mattered because the ball bounced into the seats anyway, but in a situation where the ball stays in the field of play, simply make it a ground-rule double, even if the batter is Mike Jacobs and it might only be a long single for him. Anyway, it still staggers me that Cuzzi missed that call twice, what with the carom off of Cabrera’s glove besides the fact that the ball landed well inside the line. And I don’t give a damn about the human element; I want the calls to be right as often as possible so that the game is played by the players with as little influence from umpiring errors as possible.
I know I shouldn’t revel in the misery of other people….HOWEVER, God was it fun to see Papelbon embarrassed in the ninth inning today and to see and hear the woeful crys from BoSox Nation. WONDERFUL!
Oh, I don’t like the Yankees either…..
#58–
that’s the kind of e-mail that–rather than pissing me off in the least–just makes me appreciate being a lifelong fan of a team that now makes the playoffs pretty much every year and as such inspires hatred from non-yankees fans and yankees fans alike. nice season, boys–deep down i think every sox fan suspected going into the playoffs that this wasn’t shaping up to be our year.
let’s see what brains and money can put together this offseason, theo. that combination is WONDERFUL!
@32 Scott P.: “The adoption of replay by college increased game times by about a minute on average; NFL games by a bit more, about 1:45.”
I don’t know where you found these numbers, but think about them. I can see the college number, because as I’ve said, they do a pretty good job getting replay done quickly, because it’s all done in the booth.
But there’s no way that number for the NFL can be accurate. There are at least 3-4 challenges per game (2 per team, plus the after 2-minute booth-initiated reviews), and without question each of those reviews takes 1-2 minutes, sometimes longer (even though the rules say they’re supposed to be limited to 90 seconds). There is absolutely no way less than 2 minutes per game is spent on replay reviews. The number you cite has to take into account countervailing clock rules taken by the NFL to shorten games, unrelated to replay.
And since baseball will likely do next to nothing to balance things off timewise as the NFL did, we can conclude that an expanded replay system (based on what exists now, and its similarities to the NFL system) will add significant time to the games.
As soon as the ump calls a ball foul, somebody stops running — the hitter, the baserunner, the fielder, somebody. If the foul call gets overturned on a ball that “should” have been in play, how do you recreate the situation?
@ 60 – Teams don’t often use all of their challenges. Do you have anything to back that up?
Also, the time in replay often replaces TV timeouts, which offsets how long replay adds to the game.
@ 53 Geoff
“Anyway, I found this interesting, because at the start of your post I was in complete agreement with you, but the more I think about it the more I think that while we say we want 100% accuracy, we may not be willing to sacrifice the human element in umpiring”
I can say with 100% accuracy that I don’t pay attention to the umpires until they F* something up.
@ everyone saying it will snowball into machines monitoring balls and strikes I can only ask, how? I mean, its not like it would be adding instant replay, its already in the game. If you feel its going to eventually snowball, adding fair/foul will have no real result – the addition is already there.
And here is the real important thing to think about – it is currently in the games to call field of play versus outside of field of play with relation to balls hit over the OF walls. A HR is a ball hit over a line which determines field of play and the area beyond that. How is that really any different then the foul lines? Why would it make sense to implement replay in an effort to get the ones that go over the far lines right, but not the ones that go over the side lines?
@ 60 Matt in MD
“And since baseball will likely do next to nothing to balance things off timewise as the NFL did, we can conclude that an expanded replay system (based on what exists now, and its similarities to the NFL system) will add significant time to the games.”
This is what would happen
+ 1-2 minutes for the replay*
- 1-2 minutes of manager arguing
= roughly same amount of time spent
(*which replay on foul calls really wouldnt happen much – foul calls rarely get an argument unless they are actually wrong or really, really close calls. Those things dont happen every game, or even every series to be honest.)
@ 61 David in Toledo
“As soon as the ump calls a ball foul, somebody stops running — the hitter, the baserunner, the fielder, somebody. If the foul call gets overturned on a ball that “should” have been in play, how do you recreate the situation?”
Couple options –
1, its always a one-base error – like players commit
2, its always a ground rule double
3, Umpire judgment call. He calls it a one or two base play depending on the specific situation. Basically, how close the fielder was to the ball. If the fielder was guarding the line or if the ball bounced toward the fielder – one base. Fielder making a long run or ball bounced away from the fielder – two base. Pretty simple. And on almost all of those plays, the fielder would have fielded the ball before they realize the play was called dead. Its not like they take their eyes off a ball they are chasing to see what the umpire is going to call, then pick up the chase after its called fair.
@64 Joey:
I don’t think we’re really talking about just adding fair/foul falls to the mix. You’re right, those calls alone wouldn’t be a big deal. But most of the replay conversation centers around implementing it much more widely, to the point where nearly every close call could become fair game (e.g. tag plays, outfield traps).
What makes you think having replay is going to stop managers from arguing on the field? We could stop managers from arguing right now by rule change (simply suspend them for leaving the bench), but baseball chooses not to do that because it’s traditional to allow managers to run out on the field to berate umpires — something which is not permitted in any other major sport, is it?
@ Matt in MD
I dont see most of the replay talk centering around every call at all – well, unless its the people that say adding any replay will maybe, possibly, create a snowball effect which eventually pulls in other aspects.
And what is going to stop managers arguing on the field? The fact they wouldnt need to! If replay was available on fair/foul calls, they wouldnt argue – they would say “replay” or throw a flag or whatever, then the ump would look at the replay. The time eaten in replay (probably 1-2 minutes) is countered by the 1-2 minutes saved where the managers wouldnt be arguing over those calls like they usually are now.
It doesnt mean managers will never, ever argue again – its just means they wouldnt argue over the specific plays in question. 1-2 minutes saved when they dont argue a fail call, with 1-2 minutes spent on replay instead. No time would be added to the game – it would be roughly the same amount of time spent in a more productive manor.
One way to limit the delays would be to give each manager one challenge per game. If they challenge a close call and it turns out the umpire was wrong (and, by extension, the manager was right to contest the call,) then they get their challenge back and can challenge a later play. If the ump was right, the manager has no more challenges.
That way, they’d have to be pretty sure the ump was wrong and, even so, they might not use it in a non-pivotal situation.
Of course, one potential downside to this would be possible discord between a manager and player. If a player feels he was robbed by a bad call and the manager doesn’t opt to challenge it, some players might take it personally and feel the manager doesn’t “have their back,” as it were.
As for the time added, I think it makes sense (as someone mentioned above) to have an extra official off the field, ready and able to watch video instantly. With technology being what it is, it shouldn’t take longer than a few seconds for a definitive call.
I do agree that it would be a hassle, however, if managers could contest balls and strikes. As it stands now, arguing those calls can earn a player or manager an ejection, so the line is already drawn.
But yeah, human error is part of the game as far as players go; I’d prefer if they got to determine the outcome of the game as opposed to umpires’ mistakes possibly skewing the results.
I don’t disagree that replay seems inevitable. Though I see a few issues – the first being the issue of exectuion.
It sames fairly obvious how you would adjudicate a HR call, or even a close play at a bag. But how would they have handled Maurer’s 2B that wasn’t – a ground-rule 2B? Or better yet, what about a ball that was ruled a catch but wasn’t – where runners had to return to their base?
Football umpires are constantly inserting themselves into a play after the fact. This does not happen in baseball except in an instance where a path is clearly defined.
I don’t like the idea of leaving information on the table (or burying my head in the sand). But your characterization of NFL fans waiting on and cheering for an official at times where they ought to be celebrating or booing an outcome seem very important distinctions to me. In the end, the value that these sports bring is not “getting it right”, as much as it is about the experience (the product) it provides to viewers.
Nobody likes to feel like they’re on the short end of the stick. But the insertion of replay in the NFL always seemed to be an attempt at adding drama to a sport that often found it’s most exciting moments whizzing by.
I just don’t think baseball needs it the same way. But yeah, they’re probably going to get it. I wouldn’t say it’s for the best.
Despite my demise, I can also read websites. Thanks greatly for the nice words! Much obliged.
I’m sure people have already mentioned this, but I’m not sure replay in baseball could work. Mostly because of, sure, you can see if things are fair or foul, but as soon as a foul is called, players stop playing, because the play is dead. If they go back and determine it was actually fair, how do they determine if it was a single, double, an RBI double where the runner scored from 1st, a triple when the RF misjudged the bounce off the wall, a single with the runner thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double..there’s just too many outcomes.
For HR’s it works, because the player will either already be on his base, or he’s circling the bases and they can call it a double (which is still touchy). But for the most part, the play is already dead, its just a matter of getting the scoring play right. But for most other things, instant calls need to be made. Its just how the game operates.
“First off, I don’t like replay in football. I don’t like it because of the way it interrupts the flow and pace of the game.”
But football itself interrupts the flow and pace of the game? Doesn’t it? Each team gets a maximum of 45 seconds between each play? 45 seconds of time in which they do nothing but stand there talking about what they’re going to do next? In what sense could a football game possibly have a flow when after every play, the players stand around and do nothing for 45 seconds? Imagine how long a football game would last if it consisted of nothing more than the game actually being played. Football is a game iteratively brought to a standstill by its own pomposity. To talk about the “flow and pace” of football is to lavish (unfortunately unironically in this case) in oxymoronica.
yeah, football is a terrible, ridiculous, horrible, stupid, pompous, overblown, craptastic game.
(okay, i confess, i love football…i’m just a bills fan whose team lost TO A QUARTERBACK THAT WENT 2-17 FOR 23 FREAKING YARDS).
so yeah, football is a terrible, ridiculous, horrible…
Also, baseball is much the same way. The flow and pace of a baseball game is what the spectator makes of it. How the spectator sees it. How she (or he) treats it. The time of replay is a span among spans. It is a piece of time within a larger piece that each spectator can experience and use as she (or he) chooses. A stretch to talk or ponder, to look or walk, to eat or drink, to make water or love. The time of replay does not great violence to the game or to its spectators; the time of replay simply adds a time to times spendable and well spent.
Or better still, let us do away with the metaphor. TIME IS NOT MONEY. Time is something else. It does not share money’s ontology. You cannot really spend time or waste time or lose time. No one can really buy your time or steal your time. Nor is time really a span. TIME IS NOT SPACE. TIME IS NOT AN OBJECT. There are no stretches of time or spans. There no pieces of time. We do not pass time. It does not approach. It does not pass.
You’ve all lost a game before because someone got it wrong. Wouldn’t you have rather they gotten it right? A game is played according to rules. The rules make the game. If you change the rules, you change the game. A ball that lands foul that is fair is the rule of a game. But that game is not baseball. You say, “But that was an exception. That was a mistake.” Can you move a pawn forward three spaces? Is that a mistake? An exception? Is it a rule? If so, of what game? For it is not a rule of chess.
plain and simple Cuzzi’s job for that specific 4 hrs of the day was to be the left field line ump and when he had to do his job for 5 seconds of that 4 hrs he absolutly blows it?? Secondly the ball clearly hits of Melky’s glove in fair territory before hit the dirt in fair ground and kicking up dirt. What is the most disturbing part of the whole play was how close Cuzzi was to it, perfect position looking directly down the line. I do understand the twins then loaded the bases with no outs and didnt score a run, but a man on second with no outs to start the inning is a lot different than a man on first with no outs.
a side note: it makes me sick to see yankee fans in the Midwest and then 95% of them are Cowboy fans on top of it just a bunch of bandwagon championship jumpers.
How about this? You have a video official in the booth, but the game is never stopped unless it is clearly a bad call.
Let’s face it, Baseball does not have as fast a game as football. How many times do you watch a football game and think you see something in fast motion, then when they slow it down, you see that you were wrong. (or that even in slomo you cannot tell)
In baseball we seem to be talking about blatant errors. If there is a bang bang play where it would take a booth guy more than 30 seconds (the time until the next pitch) to slow it down and think maybe the guy was wrong, you don’t review it.
If you have a blatant miss, where the umpire just blows it he would call down and reverse it. To pause the game, there would have to be a call that was highly doubtful in fast motion, and it would have to be clearly wrong in slomo-other tan that you just let it go.
If they insist on having “line” umpires in the post season, would someone explain to me why they place them halfway down the outfield lines where they can only help on fair/foul balls hit in front of them. Why not place them right under the foul pole? That way we eliminate the situation where a screamer is hit right at them, they don’t have time to turn around (and get out of the way of the ball) to see the fair/foul call AND (worst of all) their body, often sized “large” as umpires are prone to be, blocks the 3rd base or 1st base umpire’s view of the ball, so they cannot make the call either.
Put the ump right under the foul pole and all this is eliminated.
If the reason they don’t do this is because they are afraid of fan abuse of the umpires, then they shouldn’t have the position in the first place.
In cricket and rugby, they have a replay system that works fairly well. I think it’s relied upon too often (especially in rugby, but that’s another story) but it’s quick, and fairly painless. The official on the field signals for a booth review, an extra official somewhere checks the tape, and the results (safe/out, try/no try, etc) get flashed across the jumbotron. And the whole process takes about 15-30 seconds, usually. Now, a really tricky one might take a bit longer, but not much.
This is much, much better than sending three umpires off the field to check a home run with technology they aren’t necessarily trained on. Have a guy who is specifically trained to make these calls using the equipment specifically designed to make these calls, and it’ll all go much, much faster.
And that takes care of argument #2. They’d probably take less time than the manager-umpire, uh, discussions take on close calls.
I think that replay in baseball would disrupt the game just like you said it does football. I’ve heard players complain about the stoppage for home run replays. I wonder how long it would take before they are reviewing balls and strikes.
The thing I want is accountability for umpires. They make a bad call and nothing seems to matter. So they make a bad call, the manager comes out and argues and then gets thrown out of the game? I saw too many umpires on a power trip this year. Two immediately come to mind. The Braves were getting a lot of bad calls and Bobby Cox went out to argue and the umpire started bumping Bobby and pulls out the lineup card, threatening to toss players. The other was a late Royals series. One game the umpire got in Olivo’s face while he was catching, another threw out Greinke with no warning, and another taunts and warns the benches for a somewhat inside pitch.
I am perplexed by the time argument. If you don’t think there is a need for replay, then you must think that the umpires are doing a good job. If the umpires are doing a good job how many calls are going to be reviewed?
I also think that there have been more times when I’m watching replays of close plays on tv from several different angles and missed what happened on the next two pitches. I actually would like to see both. Cut out some of the bs commercial breaks and let sponsors in on the replays. There’s absolutely no reason that the games should be longer and I tend to believe like other people have pointed out that it might actually make them shorter. Two birds with one stone?
Great discussion (from a few years ago) at: http://tinyurl.com/ygk6fjr
Replace the plate umps with any system that doesn’t make a pitcher ‘prove’ he can throw strikes. Or calls a pitch a foot outside a strike because the hitter bitched about the last terrible call.
There is no more important action in the game than determining whether a pitch was in the strike zone or not – NOT the UMP’s personal strike zone – the zone as the rule book describes it.
Just get rid of them.
#61, #68, #70: You could go back and read my comment (#41). Or I’ll say it again, and use Q’s comment in #70 as a stalking horse:
“…as soon as a foul is called, players stop playing, because the play is dead.”
So don’t kill the play. You want a rule that allows the play to continue, but also allows the umpire to go back and change the results, you’ve already got it – it’s called the “delayed dead ball,” and it’s already in the rulebooks, used for obstruction calls.
If a baserunner is obstructed by a fielder, the call is a “delayed dead ball.” Play continues, but the umpire holds his arm straight out to the side to indicate a delayed dead ball. When “no further action is possible” (I stole that line directly from the MLB rulebook), play is killed and the umpire “imposes such penalties, if any, as in his judgment will nullify the act of obstruction.”
So you could easily use the same rule for “close” foul balls. Anything close to the foul line, instead of calling “foul” and stopping play, the umpire simply points foul and play continues. After “no further action is possible,” play is killed. The booth umpire or video challenge or whatever is used to determine if the foul call is correct; if it is, the runners are sent back to their bases and the batter to the plate. If it’s overturned, you’ve played out the play correctly.
You know, there were also a heck of a lot of bad calls last October when the Rays were playing. I remember thinking at the time that the World Series was an absolute disaster, and not just because of the whole rain and flooding the field thing. The ball and strike were absolutely atrocious at times and man, that’s the World Series we’re talking about.
I think the bad calls are always there, but we just don’t notice on a day-to-day basis because there isn’t as much hanging on every pitch and every call. In the post season, though, all the errors become magnified x100.
This should have been brought up earlier — great Shakesperean reference.
However they do it, they ought NOT to emulate the NHL replay system for controversial goals – that is, to have the ref publically emasculated by a bunch of guys in a replay booth in Toronto. There should be an off-ice official to review those calls and then the ref on the line should get final say by looking at it right there at the scorer’s table, as the NFL refs get final say. Now he just scoots over to the table and waits for the word on high to come down. I think it’s bogus.
I loved the idea Kevin S had way early in the thread, that a fifth on-crew umpire should be the review guy, and it should rotate the way the base umpiring does. I doubt the umpire’s union would object to an extra 25 or so paying jobs on the top level.
1) “…you are cheering a middle-aged wearing black and white stripes…”
A middle-aged WHAT?
2) “…and if that’s replay is price we pay…”
that’s?
3) “…then that is the price we play…”
The price we play?
4) :,,,when La Russa and said it Saturday…”
La Russa and Torre?
5) “And baseball should always be looking for more accuracy and a better way.”
And sportswriters should proofread their blogs and not depend on spel chekkors.
Nightfly, glad you liked the fifth-ump idea, but isn’t the ump getting emasculated anyway? I think things are a lot worse for Phil Cuzzi because the wrong call stood than they would have been if he had been overruled – we certainly still wouldn’t be trying to figure out if he’s blind, inept, or corrupt. People are much more willing to forgive mistakes if their impact is minimized. Anyway, part of the reason to give the replay umpire final say is to alleviate pace-0f-play concerns. Time is wasted when the crew chief or whoever leaves the field to look at the screen. I think it’s preferable to the wrong call standing, but I would prefer even more still if we could get the right call and keep the game moving.
I’m a big fan of baseball replays. But this is a sport that rejected the orange baseballs of Charles Finley and then makes teams play in the grey domed ceiling of the Metrodome and acts surprised when ball players lose the ball, or they make them play in late afternoon so line drives to Matt Holiday come in right out of the lights. I mean, some of the biggest errors of the post season could have been prevented by choosing balls with consideration towards what the human eye discerns best, but let tradition reign is baseball’s attitude.
Me, I think fair foul, caught/trapped, homer double, runner beating the throw, all should be fair game for review. I’m sorry for shouting, but WE ALREADY BUILT IN DELAYS TO BASEBALL AS THE INFIELDERS CHUCK IT AROUND THE DIAMOND. During those delays there’s more than enough time for two, maybe three different camera angles to get displayed, and then correct the blunder (if blunder there be).
I’m still against strike zone review, because what almost every player wants behind the plate is consistency (sorry, I just heard several heads at FJM explode). Seriously, though, as long as the ump makes the same calls the same way all game, players don’t mind if the strike zone shifts six inches towards first base. Now if the ump pinches the plate in multiple directions, that’s bad, and probably has an extreme effect on control pitchers over talent pitchers. But if inside strikes become balls, and outside balls become strikes, I think the game will be just fine. But those bang bang plays at first base, chalk kickers down the line, they all should be reviewed and overturned. Baseball should just sell naming rights to Lenscrafters or perhaps Clear Blue Easy (home pregnancy tests) and run an extra commercial, or better yet run the first commercial of the next half inning during the review and SHORTEN THE BREAK the next half inning. No extra time wasted, the game goes on, and I get to stay off my Caps Lock Key. Yes, everybody hates to see their team lose. But they really really REALLY hate to see them lose on a bad call.
Time is an over rated consideration…in fact one could fairly argue that it should not be considered at all. …….replays in the NFL average about 10 minutes of the 3:15 average. Measure that 3:15 against the amount of action (average stopwatch timed by the writer on 4 occasions) of 13 minutes 53 seconds . Many of those 10 minutes coexist with TV ad time (that is the primary game extending factor in the NFL over the last 40 years.)
Baseball’s replay consideration has far less time implication than does football for the following reasons: 1) tempo and flow of the sport, 2) very high percentage of presumed replays will be more “black/white”, yes/no decisions……quicker decisons. 3) Baseball is intrinsically a more cerebral activity than is football.
Baseball’s game lengthening causes would appear to be more closely aligned to subtle changes in habits, tactics and strategies….more pitching changes, more sign considerations, increased intelligent player “psychology” activities,
Bottom line is that (IMO) baseball would be very wise to LEAP at the opportunity to incorporate some form of replay. They should do it now.
Kevin – I can only speak for myself (a low-level hockey goalie and referee): I would prefer the opportunity to see for myself if I missed something and correct it – whether a puck crossed the line completely or a shot down the line landed fair or foul. I’d feel better for having the chance to correct myself. If I simply had to stand there while replays of my gaffe rolled overhead and then someone a hundred miles away overturned me, I’d be doubly embarrassed – first on the error, and second on the overruling.
I admit that line judges and other NFL refs have that situation already, because it’s the ref who speaks for the whole crew, and he’s the guy who looks at their mistake and comes out to overturn it. It doesn’t seem to rankle them. (At least not publicly – but when’s the last time a side judge got a lot of publicity? All of Ed Hochiuli’s crew could walk past me in their stripes and I wouldn’t recognize them unless Hochiuli was there.)
[...] on bad calls without adding much time. Won’t it remove the human element? As Joe Posnanski points out, wanting a human element in our arbitors is downright nuts. And if we’ve survived this long [...]
I know I’m late and I don’t feel like reading >90 comments to see if anyone else made this point but,
Football replay is not a good indicator of how baseball replay would work. Many challengable calls in football allow the play to continue after the call is made or missed. For example, a QB rears back for a pass, gets hit, the ball hits the ground and a fumble is called. The DT picks it up and rumbles for a TD. If it was a fumble, it’s a TD. If it’s an incomplete pass, then it’s the next down for the offense. That’s pretty clear cut.
Yet, if a pitcher starts his wind up and an umpire calls a balk, the play doesn’t continue to allow the batter to hit a HR or strikeout. The play stops, the ball is dead and the umps award the baserunner the next base. I don’t know if balks will be reviewable but, if they will be, then there would be no way to put a team in the position he would have been in had not a balk been wrongfully called. That’s pretty unclear cut.
I guess my point is that baseball has alot of rules, infractions, and calls that result in a dead ball whereas football has many more reviewable calls for infractions that allow play to continue. I would even say that the rules of baseball require play to stop so that the rule can be enforced to make the game as it should be.
To use replay the way the NFL does, we’d have to change decades old baseball rules to accomodate it. That would indeed change the game of baseball as we know it. I want umps to make the right calls but not at the expense of the game itself.
[...] a slightly more well reasoned analysis of the replay issue, let’s look at a column written by Joe Posnanski on his blog. Posnanski tears down the three most popular arguments made by thise opposed to replay. [...]
[...] Smith has his glorious, winding poetry; Joe Posnanski has his astute conversationalism; any number of beat reporters have their notepads and press passes. And for what? To take something [...]