Baseball May Adopt Instant Replay

Make no mistake about it: baseball is going to have instant replay, perhaps even before the end of the 2008 season. The recent barrage of blown home runs call by entire umpiring crews have given a few more blackeyes to the men in blue, and have lit a fire beneath collective fat ass of sports talk america demanding that baseball get with the times and "implement replay now!"

Specifically, the call of many pundits and critics is for Major League Baseball to use instant replay in just the kinds of situations that happened this week: home run calls where there exists convincing video footage that establishes the umprie made the wrong call. A call, for example, like the one made against Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees on Wednesday, May 21 that appeared to sail over the wall in right -center field, bounced off a concrete stairwell and ricochted back onto the field. Umpire crew chief Tim Welke, however, saw it differently from his angle and ruled it a live ball that had hit the top of the fence. Rodriguez was limited a to a double.

The video replay clearly showed that the ball had been a home run. Even Welke admitted after the game that his crew had made a bad call. A-Rod was still stuck with the double.

And this happened in the same week that umps badly missed home run calls in Shea Staium and at Houston's Minute Maid Park. The three big screw-ups in one week got all of the usual suspects all heated up over the issue. Mets manager Willie Randolph, who'd seen his slugger Carlos Felagad lose a home run earlier in the week to a mised call, said:"If they're going to do something maybe on those controversial home run calls, I can see maybe doing something on that issue..

Phillies General Manager Pat Gillick, who is considered a baseball purist, surprised many by also coming out in favor of replay. "I'm in favor of it," he says without hesitation. "I'm a purist, but the way technology has evolved and the way it's being used in the other sports that you want to get the play right makes sense."

Luck y for them, baseball' plan to use instant replay for contropversial home rus has beenin th workls for more than a year and has garnered near unanimous support from the teams. In October of 2007, at the annual meeting of general managers, a measure was put forth tht would recommend to the comisionsioner that baseball use instant replay is their is a substantial evidence that the wrong call was made on a home run call. In an overwhelming show of support for the measure, 25 of the 30 General Managers voted in favor of the measure. After approving the measure, the general managers submitted the proposal as a recommendation. That was about six months ago. And still it sits on the Comssisioner's desk. What is he likely to do?

Selig Has Softened Stance on Instant Replay

In the past, Selig was adamant in his stance against instant replay. "I don't like instant replay because I don't like all the delays," Selig said. "I think it sometimes creates as many problems or more than it solves." As the years went by, however, the Commish started to soften his stance on the issue. A few years back, he acknowledged: " I am willing to say we'll at least talk about this if people want to talk about it. I'm going to let the general managers discuss it, let them come back and make recommendations. But No, I'm still not a big advocate of instant replay."

That was six months ago.

After the events of the past week, however, the Commissioner's Offcie has stepped up action on the instant replay measure. Bud Selig Appointed Jimme Lee Solomon to craft a proposal that could in the support of owner,s players, and umpires. Solomon refused to put a deadline on his project, but merely said: '."The times are such that our fans are used to seeing all the high technology and they're used to seeing the other sports that use these systems to make determinations, and the fans are clamoring for all the sports to look at that."

Expect to see some type of provisional use during the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Just a guess.

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