Replay in baseball would really be foul

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June 13, 3:46 PM

by David Bush, S.F. Baseball Examiner

 

 

Major League Baseball  is talking about using instant replay on disputed home run calls. What a terrible idea.

No details have been announced, if even they have been decided. So we don’t know how extensive the use of replay will be, whether it will automatically be invoked on close calls or whether it will require a manager’s challenge. And who makes the decisions? The umpiring crew, similar to what the NBA does, or a replay official ala the NFL.

No matter, it stinks. For one thing it could lead to the use of replay in other situations:. fair or foul balls in general; close plays on the bases; was a ball caught or trapped.  Once the monster is in the building, no telling what will happen. The same people who are trying to speed up the game would be slowing it down.

But even if it is just limited to determining whether a ball leaving the park is a home run or a foul ball, I still don’t like it. First of all, it puts all the home run records in question. Barry Bonds didn’t have the benefit of instant replay. Maybe he would have several more homers, or several fewer. Same with Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth and anybody else who ever went deep.

And, records aside, there is a question of fairness. Unlike the NFL where every game is on the air – or cable – somewhere so cameras are in place, baseball does not televise every game. So video equipment is not always available, at least not at every necessary camera angle. And the quirks that give ballparks their personalities, such as the weird dimensions at AT&T Park, work against a uniformity of camera angles and placements. In not every park will the replay video provide as good a look as what the umpire had standing on the foul line.

Camera shots can be deceiving. Baseball found that out a few years ago when they tried to use an video system to evaluate how umpires did on ball and strike calls. That failure of  QUESTEC, or whatever that thing was called, demonstrated how human eyes are better than man-made lenses, no matter how powerful.

One of the endearing qualities of baseball has been the fallibility of the umpires. No they don’t always get everything right, but they are correct more often than you think. And watching a manager and umpire argue can provide some memorable moments for spectators. Who want to see Lou Piniella kick dirt on a video camera?

And if replay were in use in the minor leagues several years ago, it would have deprived us of one of my favorite stories. Ron Gardenhire, the Twins manager and one of the game’s good guys, was asked in a conversation if he had ever been kicked out of game in the first inning.

He told how when managing in the minor leagues he was ejected before a game started. The night before this game, his team had lost on a home run which he was convinced was a foul ball.

The next night they returned home and had the same umpiring crew. “We were going over the ground rules,’’ Gardenhire said. “And I was saying that a ball bouncing into the bullpen is in play, that over the fence on a bounce was a double and so on. Then I said, ‘And that’s the (expletive) left field foul pole. And if the (expletive) ball leaves the park on the left of it, it’s an (expletive) foul ball and not an (expletive) home run.’ ‘’

Now, the umpire’s reaction to that is a replay I would love to see.  

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