The Debate on Instant Replay
Drew Kort/ MoWeFri 9am
J.A. Adande and Bill Plaschke* engage in an Op/Ed duel that brings to
light the key points of the issue to all those involved and interested.
djpostl.wordpress.com
* note: I am taking on the personalities and bylines of actual authors for the purposes
of the Final Writing Project, but all opinons expressed in this paper are mine alone
Foul
By: Bill Plaschke
Unlike most husbands, I actually enjoy the cooking of my wife, and when 2 o’
clock Dodger’s games go three hours plus I have a better chance of getting mauled at
the zoo then enjoying a home cooked meal. Baseball is a game that most people
greatly enjoy even though it is admittedly long, littered with stoppages, and
relatively boring. Now, what would the expansion of instant replay do for the sport?
Make a long game even longer and increase the profits at my local McDonalds.
Yea yea, maybe instant replay has proven effective in most other major
sports, and this piece of information alone seems to be enough to deem it necessary
for the MLB, but it’s a different situation when it comes to baseball. The tension and
excitement created from close calls and even blown calls is something that fans
expect and prefer to see when they go to the ballpark. Am I the only one that enjoys
yelling at the umps and telling them that they should get off their knees because
they are, in fact, blowing the game? If an ump can simply walk over to a monitor and
re-watch the play in slow-mo, the entire thrill is eliminated. A homerun, a double, a
triple, and a skirmish between a manager and an ump all bring the crowd to their
feet, not watching an ump fast-forward and rewind a videotape of the previous play
while everyone waits for the next pitch.
Flow? No, the game doesn’t have much flow to begin with, so there is no flow
to interrupt. It’s more about overall length. The average game is close to three hours
as it is, and most of that time is spent watching a batter adjust his gloves or a pitcher
toss the Rosen bag before throwing to first instead of home. Kuensters got it right
when he says that no more time should be dedicated to anything else other than the
actual playing of the game considering how little time it takes up as it is.
Should this addition of time be a sacrifice in order to get all of these calls
correct? Oh that’s a tough one. Still no. The baseball season is a 162 game marathon
(if you will), and blown calls are bound to happen to every team, and every team’s
opponent as well. If you’re reading this then you’re probably an avid baseball
watcher, and you know this better than anyone. These calls are likely to somewhat
balance out when everything is finished, leaving no team at an unfair advantage.
People can go on complaining about blown calls when it’s against their team, and
claim that because of it a game or two or maybe even ten were lost when they
shouldn’t have been. But how many times throughout the season did that specific
team get lucky when a blown call worked in their favor? Who knows. Those calls go
unmentioned, and even unnoticed. Don’t sit there and act like you haven’t been
watching a game when your team catches a huge break because of a blown call, and
you shrugged it off like it was no big deal, or you maybe even convinced yourself
that it was the right call. The point is, it happens to everyone, everyone gets screwed
and everyone gets lucky.
Shwarz and Szczerban bring another fact to light: how often do you really see
blown calls, let alone blown calls that actually affect the outcome of the game? The
majority of incorrect calls are often calls that do not actually end up resulting in
runs scored, or preventing runs from scoring that should have. Usually it is difficult
to tell how one call would have affected a game.
In the overall scheme of things, there are much larger issues that should be
addressed. The salary cap that is absent in the sport allows big markets teams to be
able to purchase talent rather than develop it, but only big market teams are capable
of this. This is really what we should be debating, I mean, can a fan from Milwaukee
ever really get excited about their team? No, because the Yankees will just buy C.C.
Sabathia from you for 161 mil, and all of your hopes and dreams will be effectively
gone. Now that’s not fair. Each team having an equal opportunity to succeed in the
league seems like a larger issue than that of some sporadic missed calls that only
questionably affect the game.
There’s always the “human element” as well. Ever since day one, baseball has
been officiated using little to no assistance. Dating all the way back to the 19th
century baseball has been played with no technological assistance, and has become
“America’s Pastime.” Why would something that has been proven to be so enjoyable
to so many ever want to be altered in any way? Like the saying goes “If it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it.” If people enjoy it as it is, there is risk involved when deciding to change
the game.
Fair
By: J.A. Adande
What’s the date? Oh yea that’s right, its 2011. The self-driven car is being
developed; I think I read about a dog that was successfully cloned over in Europe,
and there is rumor that they are thinking of implementing full use of instant replay
in the MLB. Now, which one doesn’t belong in that sentence? The fact that the MLB
has not yet expanded instant replay to almost all facets of the game seems a bit
ridiculous, and here’s why.
Let’s remind ourselves of the most basic goal of the MLB itself (if your mind
immediately goes to “making money” then I guess there are two main points, but
this is not the one I am speaking of). Each and every season teams have month long
spring trainings before the regular season, play 162 games in approximately 180
days getting practically no rest whatsoever, and practice before each of those games,
and for what? It’s pretty simple: to earn a large profit so they can get that new
section of club level put in over the off season, yes, but what we would like to believe
is that they do these things to try to win the most games possible, win the World
Series, and become the superior team in the league. When a blown call affects the
outcome of a game unfairly, and a team that would have otherwise won ends up
losing, the goal of the entire league is corrupted. A player cannot practice for a
missed call, and this is the entire issue. Phil Taylor put it beast saying, these
mistakes, this “human element, ” it does nothing but “take the results out of the
hands of the competitors.”
It’s not such a big deal if there is an umpire error in little league or even
college baseball, but it’s a different story in the pros. Fans expect pro leagues, the
largest and most important leagues of their favorites sports, to get calls correct
almost all of the time. If any league should be enforcing rules and correct calls as
much as possible, it should be the pro leagues. “In pro sports or big-business college
sports, there’s so much money involved, you have to correct what could cost
somebody mightily,” says NFL coach Steve Mariucci regarding blown calls in elite
sports.
Farber questions: doesn’t it seem that the MLB should want to incorporate
this technology into the game? When there is a call that was blown, and everyone
watching the game can clearly see the mistake (because they are allowed to see the
replay), but nothing can be done about it, it embarrasses not only the umps, but the
league as well. Why not lift the pressure off of themselves? Instead of continually
being embarrassed, only be during the time that it takes the umpire to look at a
monitor and reverse the call. Think about the Jim Joyce incident regarding Armando
Galleraga. Based on how much scrutiny that Joyce went through because of the
missed call, and how much he suffered afterwards, the MLB should consider the
expansion just based off of this specific incident. This would at least take a little bit
of pressure off of the umpires that are undoubtedly going to make mistakes. “The
game of baseball has not changed, but the scrutiny has intensified,” Joyce said
himself after the episode. He received death threats for months after, why put
anyone else through this?
There are some things that concern me about the potential expansion,
though. Baseball games are often long and slow, and there really doesn’t need to be
another reason to stop the game; with this I agree. But I have some ideas. Maybe the
league should start enforcing a rule that is already in place regarding how long
pitchers can take between pitches (the rule is no longer than 25 seconds). Pitchers
take on average around 25 seconds between pitches, and reducing this time will
slowly but surely make up for time lost looking at replays (and this could very well
not happen at all some games). What are rules for anyways? The unease towards the
change in this sense is logical, but can be avoided by simply eliminating other
stoppages.
It’s really just a matter of time. A crucial call is going to be missed in the
League Championship or the World Series, and that’ll be the end of it. The MLB will
have no choice but to get with the times.
Works Cited
Question: Should the MLB expand its use of instant replay?
(2009). Play It Again? Current Events, 109(9),7. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from
EBSCOhost database.
Farber, M. M. (1996). Here's looking at you, kid: when a 12-year-old (Jeff Maier)
affects a playoff result, it's time for baseball to get instant replay. Sports
Illustrated, 85(17), 98. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from EBSCOhost
database.
Hiestand, M. (n.d). (2010) Tipping point FOR REPLAY?. USA Today. Retrieved on
February 9, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
Kuenster, J. (2008). Instant Replay in Baseball Has Its Pros and Cons. Baseball Digest,
67(6), 17-19. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
Schwarz, F., Lowry, R. (2010). Video Review in Baseball? NO. National Review, 62(12),
13. Retrieved on February 9, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
Szczerban, C. (2007). Tackling Instant Replay: A Proposal to Protect the Competitive
Judgments of Sports Officials. Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal,
6(2), 277-331. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
Taylor, P. (2010). Play It Again, Bud. Sports Illustrated, 113(7), 68. Retrieved on
February 9, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
Verducci, T., & Segura, M. (2010). A Different Kind of Perfect. Sports Illustrated,
112(25), 44-48. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.
White, P. (n.d). (2010). Umpires, replay still hot-button issues. USA Today. Retrieved on
February 9, 2011 from EBSCOhost database.