Live from New York, it's instant replay!

by AHaloInSF on Jun 14, 2008 10:05 AM PDT

Starting Aug. 1, Big Brother tunes in to baseball. Have a look at this bombshell my fellow Halos:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3443088

This is an interesting development, considering the whole Tim Donaghy fracas is seriously overshadowing the NBA finals, and it makes you wonder exactly who will be sitting in the so-called MLB "war room" to make these judgment calls. I hate to even suggest the possibilities that could arise from this, but it does no good to stick your head in the sand and pretend it'll all work perfectly too.

Is this a move that has a reward that outweighs the inherent risk?

This Fan-Post is authored by an independent fan. Tell us what you think and how you feel.

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Read More: instant replay, home run, fair or foul

Comments

For over 150 years

Baseball has gotten by somehow without instant replays. Now it’s on the fast-track.

This seems counter-intuitive to the suggestions recently made to umpires in order to speed up the game, even if this theoretically has limited application at this time to home runs. It’s still a can full of worms no matter how gingerly you open it.

Like George Carlin said, “baseball is a 19th century pastoral game.* Football is a 20th century technological struggle.” Therefore it makes sense that replay finds its way into football, a mash of chaos in which evaluative statements have to wait until the tapes can be checked later.

Do we really want baseball to be punctuated by committee meetings?

(*not technically true, ball was always played in urban areas)

Halos Forever.

by Zoe Necrosis on Jun 14, 2008 12:01 PM PDT reply actions

In what way would they be worse than what happens right now?

The manager comes storming out of the dugout and yells at the umpires, who circle up and appear to play rock-paper-scissors in order to determine whether it was the right call or not. If they uphold it, the original manager continues complaining. If they overturn it, the OTHER manager comes out and yells at them.

I fail to see how replacing this process with a simple check to the replay booth will somehow “slow the game down.”

~Till the Halo burns out...

by Zu Long on Jun 14, 2008 12:50 PM PDT up reply actions

Only thing wrong about your 150 years baseball without instant replay

its more like what 40 years of technogly avalibity

I Can See That Lit Up Halo All The Way In AZ.

by WillGoAngels27 on Jun 16, 2008 12:00 AM PDT up reply actions

Tank McNamara has been running a strip on this all week

Starting last Monday.

Here

Angels fan since '67

by red floyd on Jun 14, 2008 1:40 PM PDT reply actions

I agree with Zu Long's sentiment. How could it get any worse than right now? The fact is that it's not really comparable to other sports because unlike football or basetball, each park nowadays has different dimensions and nooks and crannies.

If every park where the same, it’d be a different story, but umpires lately have been having a tough time getting these calls right.

Whatever dude.

by Mayheminthehood on Jun 14, 2008 5:50 PM PDT reply actions

Mikey says:

http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080614&content_id=2927549&vkey=news_ana&fext=.jsp&c_id=ana

by ladybug on Jun 14, 2008 9:47 PM PDT reply actions

I share Torii's skepticism about it

Where will it end? “Limited scope” my ass.

by Higz on Jun 16, 2008 1:08 PM PDT up reply actions

Some place on the other side of this point:

A ball is hit down the line, bouncing close to the chalk. The ump, racing after it, realizes that he is not able to make an absolute determination. So he raises both fists above his head and crosses his arms, invoking the “fan vote lifeline”. The fans, all homers, punch in their results in the seatbacks in front of them. The vote comes back 98% – 2% for fair ball. The plate ump, as the crew chief, then turns to the panel of experts and requests them to make the call on where all baserunners should have ended up. Randy Johnson thinks that the dog blew it out, and it should be a triple. Paula Abdul tells us all how she loves the way that the batter looks so wonderful in the batter’s box. Simon Cowell reminds us that fans are idiots, the ball was clearly foul, Paula is an nutjob, but the rules mandate that we do what Randy says. Triple. Join us again tomorrow for the next pitch.

by Stirrups on Jun 16, 2008 2:43 PM PDT up reply actions