Seriously Though, It’s Time For Replay in MLB

Look, I get it: Baseball is a sport all about tradition. Part of that tradition is fat men in funny little hats making judgment calls on the field. But because humans are inherently flawed and incapable of being perfect, these fat men – also called “umpires” – make mistakes. So why not implement instant replay, an insanely advanced idea that involves cameras and monitors, in Major League Baseball? Every single sport that matters uses it. I mean, tennis – tennis! – has replay, despite their balls being brighter and their field of play being smaller than baseball’s.

This unoriginal rant stems from two blown homerun calls in the last four days. First, in Sunday night’s Mets-Yankees game and then again in last night’s Orioles-Yankees game:

Clearly, baseball is already a slow game that doesn’t need to be further slowed down by reviewing plays, so I’m not suggesting the ability to review everything, obviously, just homeruns. In the time it takes from the umps to huddle, discuss whether the hit was a homer or not, and eventually get the call wrong, someone upstairs could look at it on a television and get it right.

(Aside: We meant to post the reaction from umpire Bob Davidson after the game Sunday in which he blew the previously mentioned home run call:

"I f---ed it up. I'm the one who thought it was a f---ing foul ball. I saw it on the replay. I'm the one who f---ed it up so you can put that in your paper. Bolts and nuts, I f---ed up. You've just got to move on. No one feels worse about it than I do."

So, if nothing else, replay would do wonders for Mr. Davidson's blood pressure.)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.