MLB to Expand Instant Replay.....?
 

I do think the "command center" idea is the best for any replay, and the idea of rotating umpires through the center is appealing, however the point of value is the crux of the matter. While it is appealing to get all calls correct, the effort to get there ultimately removes the human from the equation.

Bill Klem did not need replay, and neither do we.

I just don't understand why MLB doesn't just put robots on the field and they wouldn't need umpires because everything would be PERFECT.

Perfect Game pitched every time.
Every batter hitting 1000.
No Runs, No hits, No errors.
No need for whining players, just call down to the factory and get a new one.
No need for crying reporters having to pimp a story because the story would be the same every game.
No need to attend a game, just pay for an App and view it on your phone.

What a wonderful GAME!!!

EVERY TIME!!

:confused::confused::confused:

Tilt! :D

I hope the umpires tell them to stick this proposal where no replay can see!

Baseball was the one game that was left to humans and therefore, not perfect. It is not suppose to be timed, video replayed, huddled about or whined about. The more they try to take the human element out of the game, the worse the game gets. Managers are supposed to be out there arguing but players have no right to do so and need to be put in their places immediately when they cross the line. Umpires make snap decisions, sometimes in less than 1/4 of a second and their decision rules, not the 500 replays that the fans and the announcers get to see. I am so fed up with every play being dissected by no nothing people trying to change the game. I now have 50 years in baseball playing and umpiring. The game is fine..... leave the damn thing alone! Go screw up football some more!

Well football is more popular than ever. And replay has added drama to the game in many situations. But football has built in stoppages that makes replay more successful. Baseball seems to want to review everything or the people that call for replay do. Then again more people watched the Pro Bowl, a horrible display of the sport than a WS and All-Star game in baseball. So I can understand why they think this will help, but they would have to fix so many other things about the game as well and I do not see that happening anytime soon.

Peace

Fans complain about the Yankees and Red Sox games taking so long as it is. If some form of instant replay is used, we will have 5 hour games.

As far as replay goes, I think you'll find that 90 percent or so of people see replay as an overwhelming positive addition to both football and basketball. But both of those sports have more built in stoppages that are conducive to replay (as mentioned by JRut). Then again, replay is here to stay, and it will be expanded, so one better accept it.

Replays on TV don't bother me much. It's being at the game itself live that is boring as hell. After a TD commercial, and then a commercial after the kickoff is brutal. Just two huddles standing on the field for about five minutes.

Hey Yosemite, I think we were separated at birth or something! Baseball is not conducive to replay. The game worked just fine before replay came around. It has added less to the game than it has taken from it.

Oz, I agree 150% but you got to credit a lot of the whining to the media.
Not because the game is broken or there are missed calls , hell those things have been part of the game since it was invented. In fact in most cases it isn't even about the game. It's about writing a story that is more controversial than the next guys. Getting people to pay attention to their stories , which in turn translate to getting recognition and collecting a bigger pay check than the next guy.

And its not just baseball either.

Oz, we came from a generation where men sat down and worked out their problems over a beer and moved on, still with respect for each other.

In today's world they piss in each others beer, write a story about it or sell a video of it just to try and make a buck, and can care less about respect. I understand about having to make a living but, will never buy into accepting dirt money to do it.

Baseball has to be careful. If they do not implement it right, they will cause other controversies. It is one thing to get certain plays right, but so much can happen in baseball if the call is changed. And some of the plays that have been controversial have other implications that I do not think the public even thinks about.

Peace

The ump giveth, and the ump taketh away.

Johan Santana, "Come on down". This your lucky day.

Yeah, that ball got all chalk!

You know what will happen in a Beltran situation? The Cardinal's dugout would tell Beltran to step out of the batter's box until the people in the command center would have enough time to see the play.

Who needs robots when you have softball umpires.

I agree that MLB will have to be careful and think thoroughly about how certain replay situations will be handled. But it's a foregone conclusion that replay WILL be expanded...all this waxing about how baseball is officiated by humans and that mistakes are "part of the game" and it's been that way forever won't change that fact.

Critical "who knocked the ball out of bounds call" in Celtics-Heat game just reviewed with 41 seconds left in game. It took less than a minute to review. No big deal, Heat crowd barely made a sound when the initial call was reversed, Celtics get the ball. Probably saw it on arena monitors where replay was clear. Celtics win by 4. Big call, big correction aided by replay.

There were five hands there. I couldn't tell conclusively who touched it last.

Gee whiz, holy mackeral. How you miss make this easy call reversal, as was made?

That ball was conclusively off the Heat player's hand.

The game was fine 75, 50 and 25 years ago and it is still fine now. The umpiring and playing have gotten better over time.

Most of this is coming from the media, who have convinced the fans that something just has to be done. IR in football is a joke. Review everything or review nothing. I hate it in the NFL, I hate it in basketball ("Lets go to the monitor to see if the toe was on the three point line" :rolleyes:), and it will be even worse in baseball.

The umpires better tell them to shove it.

nah, Celtics would have won anyway ... :)

An OOB possession call with 41 seconds left, in a game won by the the team that benefitted from the reversal, on the other team's home court and the crowd barely made a sound when the reversal came, and the team that benefitted won by 4. How can anyone say that replay was a bad thing to have?

Celtics may have won anyway, but this reversal was huge, and clearly correct.

I agree with you 100 percent. Good gracious, each year there's a blizzard of articles saying "the umpires stink; something must be done." But your closing hope, that the umpires will resist this, is a lost cause. The umpires, as I understand it, embraced the current program regarding border calls, and why not? It relieves them of responsibility, ultimately, for controversial calls. This is "get the call right" carried to absurdity. I truly wish MLB umpires would tell Bud and Co., for what it's worth, to stuff it. But I'm not optimistic.

According to Jason Stark, the umpires have resisted expanded replay so far. I doubt if they will be able to hold it off for long, though.

From Today's Washington Post
 

More on the subject......

Instant replays could instantly fix baseball’s umpire problem - Nationals Journal - The Washington Post

“Life isn’t perfect,” Torre said. “I think this is a game of life.”

“Life isn’t perfect,” Torre said. “I think this is a game of life.”

One of the best statements I've read yet, concerning IR. Every coach from LL to MLB should have this tattooed on their foreheads so they can read it every morning when they look in the mirror!

They can read it while replay is STILL expanded in MLB lol ;)

And if it was ruled fair, then what?

Then by God you should not be a booth official in any sport. Everyone else could tell.

Changing fair to foul will not be difficult. Changing foul to fair (except over the fence) will be a mess... so if they go to replay on this kind of call, umpires will be encouraged to call anything close fair.

Agreed. It will make it like high school football is now. Televised football games have replay, so officials are taught to withhold whistles on close plays. With MLB replay they will be encouraged to rule fair, then let the camera sort it out. The rest of us will have to do it the old fashioned way. Make me wonder how this will effect MiLB umpires. Perhaps they will use replay at AAA also, so those on the cusp will get used to how the big boys do it.

Whole lot simpler and cheaper to shun the monitor to make the call in the first place.

Oh look, our favorite troll is back. Time to let Brad know.

Wow. Didn't even really try to disguise yourself this time around...

If you look at other sports that have more extensive use of replay, there are still plenty of situations where replay can't/isn't used, so no, it's not "correct calls at all costs."

If the MLB owners really wanted human umpires replaced with techno-bots, they would have already done so. The technology exists, and the money isn't an issue.

They (and the players) are, for now, willing to accept less-than-perfect officiating as part of the tradition and color of the game.

What kind of line of thinking is this? Of course the goal in officiating is 100 percent accuracy. I never said otherwise, but apparently, at even the highest levels of all officiating, incorrect calls are expected and allowed to stand, or every single single play would be reviewable.

Agreed, which makes the whole issue a slippery slope. The MLB guys working under enhanced, ever present replay of the future will have to learn on the job how to call individual plays so that replay CAN correct. The rest of us will keep doing as trained, bust a$$, get to the best spot, make the best (sometimes wrong) call and move on. The whole replay concept sucks, especially in baseball.

Nope. I've sent Brad a message.

Back on Topic - 7/27 Update
 

Selig: MLB will expand instant replay

From the article:

"He, told a radio station in New York on Friday that Major League Baseball will expand replay to include trapped balls and line drives down the foul lines."

Then Terry Collins will tell the catcher to visit the mound to stall for time so that the command center will see it.

Instant replay should be used to overturn egregious calls, not 50/50 calls, otherwise we might as well use replay to overturn every call.

Makes sense, although I would think that going from foul to fair, MLB will probably make it an automatic ground rule double.

If fair/foul is reviewable, does that mean that a batted ball that might have hit the batter in the box but is fielded in fair territory by the pitcher becomes reviewable if the on-field ruling is that it didn't hit the batter in the batter's box?

Joe Torre says, maybe next yr......