Refrigerator Copy
Column published the week of August 25,
2008 www.theleeonline.com © 2008, Lee Ostaszewski
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Let’s Go to the Replay |
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By Lee
Ostaszewski It wasn’t enough that the Olympics started
messing around with baseball by coming up with strange extra innings rules right
before tossing the sport out entirely in 2012. The new Olympic rules included beginning
the 11th inning and on with runners already on first and second
and in the 11th letting the team at bat choose where in the
batting order to start. Not sure if teams
were also allowed to ask for do-overs and place a keg
of beer at second base. Not that I’m
implying that these new IOC baseball rules were bush league or anything. But now Major League Baseball is getting
ready to initiate something perhaps even worse. This is from an organization that last
changed a rule in baseball only after consulting with Abner
Doubleday personally. It is a change
that many baseball purists probably won’t like: They are adding instant
replay reviews. The implementation of instant replay to
review close plays threatens one of baseball’s most cherished and
longstanding traditions: the bad call by an umpire. The bad call is as much a beloved part
of the game as pine tar, spitting, and the ever popular man hug. Get rid of that and you might just as well get
rid of what makes this game so human, endearing, and yes, even romantic. I’m still talking about the man hug. In the same way, getting rid of bad calls
would change the game too. For one
thing, it would leave the baseball fan who’s watching at home little reason
to jump off his sofa and start screaming obscenities at the umpire on his TV screen. I should pause a moment while we are on
the subject and clear up a common misconception. When baseball viewers watching the game on
television think they are yelling at an umpire on their TV screen, what they
are really yelling at is a high-definition image of the umpire made up of
tiny magic particles floating inside their TV set called pixels. Despite the intensity of the fan’s rant, it
is not the actual umpire he or she is addressing. The more magic pixel dust per square
inch a TV set has, the more real the umpire appears, adding to the |
confusion. Generally, the fan’s rant involves
explaining to the pixeled ump which part of his pixeled anatomy (usually his head) he should remove from his
pixeled rear end. Despite scientific research proving
otherwise, most sports fans are quite certain yelling at their television set
does help. Maybe not necessarily on
that play, but we feel we are sending a message so that the next close call
goes our way. If it didn’t help, why
would we continue to yell at our TV during sporting events year after
year? We’re not that
nuts, are we? For instance, just as many Red Sox fans
have done from time to time over the years, I too yelled at pixeled Manny on my television screen to run out ground
balls or to not stand and watch long fly balls as they fell just short of
being home runs thus turning a double into a single. And all that yelling never once produced
the results I wanted, at least not until the end of July when I started
yelling to “go ahead and trade him if that’s what he really wants.” Amazingly, that worked. But before there is any rioting in the
streets over the implementation of instant replay in baseball, let’s examine
what type of plays will be under review: From what I’ve read the new instant
replay review will be limited to what are called boundary plays. Basically, plays that may or may not be
home runs or foul balls and generally occur in an area of the field far away
from where the umpires stand, meaning one of them would have to run a real
long way really fast to get close enough in time to make a correct call. So after some negotiations with MLB, the
umpires are now on board with the plan to add instant replay reviews. (“You mean we get to watch the play on TV,
then make the call? Awesome!”) And for now fans still get to yell at the pixeled umps over close plays at the bases and, as
always, on balls and strike calls.
Truly, a win-win situation for all involved. By the way,
via a séance, Abner Doubleday was consulted and he gave
instant replay the thumbs up sign. Unless
that was the out call he was making. ■ |