Instant replay will start on Thursday
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- August
- 26
According to the Associated Press, instant replay will start in baseball on Thursday. Replay will be used on “boundary calls.” Those mainly involve home runs.
Replay is a good idea, especially given the nooks and crannies of the new stadiums. But why make such a big change on Aug. 28 with fewer than 30 games remaining in the season? Shouldn’t the entire season be played under the same rules?
Are you for or against replay?
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on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 2:50 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Against for this season, so all the games are played under the same rules
you put it in now b/c the last thing anybody wants is a controversial homer call in the postseason…
Should have waited til the beginning of next season.
I want Arods non homer that hit the staircase in front of the bleachers awarded back to him.
The entire regular season should be played under equal conditions. If they can’t wait ‘til next year, then start in the playoffs.
I would guess the last month of the season is to tweak the bugs so Fox doesn’t go ballistic if it doesn’t work during the Playoffs. It could confuse Joe Buck.
Fredo Corleone:
Agreed.
How much time do they have to check instant replay. Do they call upi to the both otr watch the jumbo tron…
for it but its dumb starting it at the end of this season.. wait till next year and work any kinks out in ST.
If they don’t check replay and the other manager wants it, does he throw a red flag from the dugout.
the sooner the better, but i think it’s kind of strange to do it mid-series.
that said, they’ll be at least one contreversial HR call today or tomorrow, somewhere in baseball.
automate the strike zones!
More plays that might extend and result in runs (difference between wins and losses) are blown at 1st and 2nd base than on home runs. Perhaps the leagues need to hammer the umpires on getting this correct, first. Home plate calls on pitches is a lost cause.
I am against replay for this season. If they want to do something this season to improve calls, they should go to 6-man umpiring crews, like in the playoffs.
Hesitantly for instant replay, but agree it should be implemented at the start of a season. Entire season should be played with the same rules. Especially something as potentially impactful as instant replay. (As opposed to the Sean Avery rule which took affect mid-playoffs and was designed to keep one idiot from destroying the game—but it was hilarious!)
“If they don’t check replay and the other manager wants it, does he throw a red flag from the dugout.”
i think they’ll have someone watching all calls, and inform the crew cheif if the wrong call was made regarding a boundry/HR/non-HR…
if it makes the yankees go to the playoffs, yes.
if not , no…
about that kid its really unfare not to let him pitch its like mlb saying to a guy like ruth, you are to good go play some where else.
does boundary call include foul lines as well I wonder.
Is there any doubt that there will be a controversial call during this upcoming series between the Yankees and Red Sox? You can bet the mortgage that the instant replay will be used on Thursday.
Implementing instant replay during the home stretch is dumb. This is a system that should go into effect during Spring Training where is can be tested with nothing on the line.
I would hate to be a pitcher crusing along in a game, only to have the game halted for several minutes while a play is under review.
Using instant replay to begin next season makes sense, but using it this season without proper testing makes no sense at all.
So now are they going to be more likely to let close plays fully develop on the field and then go to the replay? If a ball drops close to the foul line, are they going to just call in fair to be safe all the time and let the players run around the bases? Call quasi-homers still in play?
I like instant replay for everything but the ninth inning. Granted that may be the most important inning, but I can’t stand the idea of having to stand silent after a game winning home run and wait for the replays to be watched. Imagine if someone hits a world series winning home run, but it may or may not be foul. Do the players just stand around and wait to celebrate? Of course, the odds of this are slim I suppose.
Obviously, playing 80% of the season under one set of rules, then 20% under another set… well, that’s certainly not ideal.
My main contention, though, is thus:
Why just HR calls? Shouldn’t it also include safe/out and fair/foul plays?
How unjust would it be to have a solo HR overturned but let a double down the line, which would have cleared the bases scoring 3 runs, remain a fould ball b/c the ump blew the call?
OR, like in the SEA game last year… Have a guy in the 9th inning, in a 1-run game, steal second base… is thrown out by 3 feet but the ump blows the call and calls him fair?
THE adage in baseball is that over the course of 162 games… bad calls even themselves out: you win some, you lose some.
But now… that isn’t the case. This upsets the natural karmic balance that’s always been. How do you live with a bad call now?
It’s one thing to have a ball called a strike… but what if a double is ruled foul, costing you 3 runs, but your opponent gets the proper call on a solo HR?
IR is a long time coming, but to start it now is stupid. It’s not fair to the players who got cheated earlier in the year.
Right now, it’s for boundary calls, but I bet it gets expanded to include bang-bang plays once they see how often the umps are wrong.
They shoudn’t have waited.
I dont see how this is gonna “slow” the game down, or for that matter have any effect on what happens on the field.
Pete, you missed one phrase in the AP Report: ”...in series that start Thursday.”
I read this to mean that replay won’t be in effect for the Sox-Yanks on Thursday, and would start Friday for those two teams.
I like it, but as many above, I can’t see it starting mid-season.
Maybe they want to start it early to have the kinks out by the playoffs?
Phelps Phan:
Let’s hope not, some Redsox Yanks games are 4 to 5 hours..
I’m all for it since it isn’t a rule change. The idea is to get the call right. The rules remain the same, and the idea was to get the call right before too – just that you have another option to prove it. It’s like an umpire with good eyes.
Saying that it affects the outcome of the season or similar is a little weak, because every team has to play under different umpires – so there is always a slight difference.
So when an instant replay proves a homerun the ump wouldn’t have scored, it’s like having another umpire who would have got the call right, if he had been there.
“Let’s hope not, some Redsox Yanks games are 4 to 5 hours..”
haha, agreed
I’m all for tradition, but not when it affects the outcomes of games.
I’m unabashedly for instant replay—and on the basepaths, too.
They will have to have some type of protocol, time-out call the “booth”...how much time is aloud…who changes the call, Home plate ump?
I’m all for it. The last thing anybody wants to see is another blown home run call by the umps. The goal here is that everyone wants to get the call correct.
I wish robots who can call balls and strikes with 100% acuracy could replace umpires.
So I am for replay in all areas, not just homerun calls
I’m not against just the timing of it.
It could wind up costing us now, who know’s, and not have helped us earlier…remember the I-rod score…I mean he was safe by a mile…who know’s that call changed momentum.
They should have waited..
I’ll reserve judgement (that is until I know if it helps or hurts the Yankees)
WIN OR DIE!
“How unjust would it be to have a solo HR overturned but let a double down the line, which would have cleared the bases scoring 3 runs, remain a fould ball b/c the ump blew the call?”
i don’t see how a scenario where replay could work for fair/foul calls like this. once a batted ball is called foul, the play is dead. it’s not like they can reposition everyone and yell “go” if they over-rule and call it fair, after the fact.
I actually think in the long run instant replay could prove to be less of a time expenditure than people are afraid of. Think of the close call arguments that occur during the course of a season, both boundary calls and basebath calls. First you have one side argue and then the other, depeonding on how the call goes, and then sometimes you have managers extending the argument (usually after their ejected) to get their “money’s worth.”
Think of it – close call – request repley – watch replay – make call. No further argument.
The more I think about it, the less I am objecting to it as far as plays at the plate, at the bases, fair/foul, HR/not HR. Now, balls and strikes – I don’t know. Why have an ump at all?
Of course much of this would not be necessary if umpires were accountable somehow for blown calls. But in fairness to them, there are an awful lot of close calls they get right, that we, with benefit of replay, need to slo-mo and re-angle several times before ascertaining what the “right” call might have been. They have to make instantaneous calls.
The technology is there; I suppose it should be used.
saucy –
Overturned fair/foul on a ball hit down the line – make it a ground rule double if it is re-ruled to be fair instead fo foul?
“i don’t see how a scenario where replay could work for fair/foul calls like this. once a batted ball is called foul, the play is dead. it’s not like they can reposition everyone and yell “go†if they over-rule and call it fair, after the fact.”
EASY… Players play everything out… wait until the play is over… then see if ball is fair/foul. Basically, Umps will call any close ball FAIR and then review afterward to see if it was foul or not.
I mean, it’s not like football just has replay for TD plays, right?
A 3rd or 4th down completion or INC might be just as crucial to the outcome of a game as a blown TD call.
SO, the point is… if we are to rush to implement INSTANT REPLAY… on the logic that we want to get calls right… Then why limit the scope? Why are some calls more important than others?
Man – I just re-read my posts. Lots of typos today. Sorry – foggy contact lenses!
Doreen, they could do that. and the results would obviously be better than the blown call. i was just trying to give an example of why i think they’re limiting it to boundry calls for now.
calls where the play is dead, whether a 3rd out or foul ball is called, just isn’t as cut-n-dry.
but I totally agree with you: “the technology is there; I suppose it should be used”.
Play ball!
The replay will not improve the game of baseball, which has always been both blessed and “plagued” with a human element.
Radar in baseball is a stunt, a gimmick.
Come on Doreen….blaming typos on foggy contact lenses is pretty weak. Be honest about it, like me. I just blame Rebecca for being my proof-reader.
Saucy –
Yeah – they’d need to sit down and figure out some new ground rules if they were to extend it past what they’re going to use it for at first, and I doubt that will be an easy process.
GB7 –
Well, if I was to be totally truthful, it would have to be the typos are the result of the headache I’m fighting through from going to the mall with 3 late-teen girls; and the chocolate hangover from the cheesecake we shared at lunch. But foggy contact lenses is the most proximate cause, so I’m stickin’ with that!
Mark Alan –
Unfortunately, it’s hard for baseball to continue to turn its back on a technology that could help get the calls right. Yes, you do miss out on the human element, but the fact is that because all of us watching at home get to witness just exactly how many calls are blown each night as we watch our own t.v.’s, and since the umpires and MLB are always saying how important it IS to “get it right,” how do you not use the technology?
I wouldn’t say to invent the technology if it wasn’t already here; but since it is here, and other sports are using it, it’s kind of silly for baseball not to.
And I can’t believe I’m of that opinion.
EEKKK…three teen age girls shopping? I always broke out in hives when I took my three teenage granddaughters shopping….or, anywhere else for that matter. It was like being a wolverine or a badger when they would get caught in a trap, and gnawed their leg off just to get away. My sympathies to you.
The whole point of everything is for the umps to get the calls right, isn’t it?
Start the instant replays today, not Thursday.
How is the a rule change? It isn’t. Saying the entire season should be played under the same rules doesn’t apply to this situation. A rule change would be giving batters 4 strikes instead of 3. That wouldn’t be fair to start at this time in the season. As for replay, that’s about ENFORCING current rules and getting them current…
It’s idiotic to say because they didn’t have it in the beginning of the season, they shouldn’t have it now. Let me get that straight, because they butchered calls in the beginning of the season, they should continue butchering them for the rest of the season? Why wouldn’t you stop missed homerun calls as soon as you possibly could?
I can’t understand why people think if they missed calls up until now, it wouldn’t be fair if they started getting them right, now. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Can’t they wait just a few more months? No need to bring it in when baseball is so close to the postseason.
For it if it is done like Hockey and Tennis.
Against it if it is done like Football.
I refuse to watch the horribleness that is the NFL right now, it is such a trailer trash league – seemingly designed for the Jessica Simpson’s of the planet. That instant reply they use is a trainwreck.
Booo
I’m against this. It takes away the human element. That’s part of the game. Blown calls are a part of the game. Managers kicking dirt on umpires and getting thrown out are a part of the game. We’ll get the calls sometimes and we won’t. That’s a part of the game.
I am absolutely, 100% FOR IT.
The sooner we replace umpires like Joe West with robots and lasers, the better.
Of course they should use it. The do it in football and hockey and now in tennis. Getting the call right is much more important than the integrity of the game. Technology has changed so should the game.
I’m not fer it, I’m agin it!
Seriously, don’t change the sport. Leave it alone, stop tinkering. We have enough “era” debates as it is.
Yeah, let’s go back to 50’ from the mound to home plate, too.
Against. They’ve played a thousand years now without it, and the world’s still on its axis.
From a masochistic perspective, what fun is it if you can’t tear your hair out over botched calls?
Also, it’s a slip on a slope from home runs to balls and strikes. And that’s where instant replay-
or better yet, robot umps-would really help the game. But they better look at least somewhat human. May I suggest Joe West for the model?MLB is scared to death that playoff baseball will be decided by a call like Delgado’s HR down the left field line or ARods HR off the railing – neither of which were called home runs. That is why they are rushing this into place. They risk screwing it up even worse, of course. It is a good idea which should be put into place for next year, but like I said, they are scared to death…
Bob
I agree whole heartedly with Matt Fraguela.