Give Me Replay or Give Me Death

Lee Russakoff, Comcast Sports
Fri Jun 4, 2:15 PM EDT

I have one question for all you “Purity of the Game” people:

How you like me now?

I ask because baseball doesn't feel so "pure" today. I ask because I've been hounding MLB to install instant replay for the better part of the decade, only to hear guys like Bud Selig champion the "human element" of the sport. I ask because Armando Galarraga had a perfect game stolen from him last night by a bad call, and it isn't the umpire's fault ... it's yours.

With two outs in the ninth, having already retired 26 straight Indians, Galarraga enticed Jason Donald to weakly tap a ball to first baseman Miguel Cabrera. Galarraga covered, received the toss from Cabrera and beat Donald by a full step.

Perfect game. Hoo-ray.

Except no. Never happened. Why? Because first base umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Joyce was in the right position, he saw the play clearly and still blew the call. Joyce thought Donald beat the throw and called him safe. Donald was out.

Galarraga, to his credit, only smiled. The rest of the world went ballistic.

Change the call. It’s not fair. Burn Jim Joyce at the stake.

But baseball shouldn’t change the call. This isn’t about what’s fair. And it isn’t about Jim Joyce.

We can’t blame a human being for making a human error. That's idiotic.

No, the blame for the larceny of Galarraga falls at the feet of one group of people: baseball purists.

It’s the baseball purists who make the insane argument that somehow human error is part of baseball’s charm. Really? Ask Galarraga today how charming human error is. Or more poignantly, ask Jim Joyce.

Bad calls aren’t charming. They’re just bad. We’ve had the technology to fix them for years. But have refused to do so because … well, frankly I have no idea.

Now is not the time for replay in baseball. The time was 10 years ago.

If baseball wasn’t littered with stubborn, anti-progressive mules, Galarraga would have his perfect game today. Instead, we’re left with this ridiculous debate.

Should we get the call right or should we get it fast?

There’s no charm in being wrong. There’s no value in the fallibility of man. We live in a world that allows us to watch live games and replays of blown calls on our iPhones, but we can’t use that technology to right wrongs on the field of play?

Baseball has already admitted to itself that replay is the way to go. When it decided to add the limited replay on home run calls, baseball joined the rest of the sane world in emphasizing the importance of being right. Unless, somehow MLB thinks it's only important to get some calls right, it's nonsensical to argue for the current system.

I know we human beings hate change. But enough is enough.

During the 2009 World Series, after two blown calls in what became a playoff known for blown calls, Selig said:

"Times change, but I'm still in favor of keeping the human element as a part of it.”

I'd love to get a quote from him today ...

Getting the call right in a reasonable amount of time is not only possible, but it’s become commonplace for every sport but baseball.

The NFL, NBA and NHL all use replay. Tennis uses replay. Hell, horse racing has been using replay for decades.

Adopt the NHL model. If you watched Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final last night, you saw two questionable goals go to replay. The league reviewed both calls – each in less than two minutes – and got both right. As a result, professional hockey is athrill with an exciting series free of controversy..

Contrast that with the state of America’s pastime today. The sport is in chaos. An umpire and a pitcher have been wronged. And baseball is actually considering going back and overturning a call on the field, an unprecedented action that pushes the sport down a steep slippery slope.

It’s all so silly. A quick offsite replay for close plays (NOT BALLS AND STRIKES) is extraordinarily easy to implement and could be done in such a way that would not slow down the game at all.

Think about it, managers come out and argue all these close plays anyway. As I’ve written multiple times before, why not do away with managers crossing the white lines and replace all that actually wasted time – time that never results in anything changing – with replay time to ensure baseball gets it right.

This is not a complicated problem. The problem is that simple men are trying to make it complicated. Bud Selig and the rest of baseball’s donkeys (copyright ZooWithRoy.com) need to join the rest of us in 2010.

The time for MLB replay was 10 years ago. But now will have to do.

Email me at russakoffrules@comcast.net; follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/russakoffrules.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.

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