More on the MLB Instant Replay

More talk of the road to slowsville here. It actually looks to be a somewhat reasonable plan, which has me a bit worried. A provocative memo surfaced. For instance, no Piniella tantrum-replays:

If the replay plan laid out in the memo is adopted, it will differ significantly from what is used in the National Football League, because major league managers would have no power to prompt a replay. In the NFL, head coaches initiate the use of replay, except in the last two minutes of each half, when league officials determine which calls should be reviewed.

I kind of like some of the projections:

• An umpire supervisor would serve as a replay coordinator, and would communicate with the crew chief.

• The umpires would have access to all video feeds — television broadcast feeds, home and visiting feeds, and MLB.com. This would allay concerns that a home team television producer would serve as a filter for what replays the umpires can see.

• It is expected that retired umpires eventually will play some role in replay supervision.

• Major League Baseball believes replay would be used only about 10 times each season.

I’m particularly fond of the bringing back retired umps idea, which would do us the favor of casting into doubt the replay’s supposed certitude.

Human Error is Part of Baseball

We can all agree that some rules in baseball are quite subjective. Balls and strikes seem to depend more on who the umpire is than whether the pitch was in the correct “zone.” Often times runners are called safe when they are actually out creating the loved “bang-bang” play. People have come to accept these elements of the game so long as they are relatively consistent and not disruptive to the overall outcome…whatever, bad calls have affected outcomes of at least a few games since the inception of the game.

What is hard to say then is where to draw the line with the use of replay technology. If it can take a simple auxiliary camera angle replay and about 5 seconds for the basic fan to determine what really happened, you would think the umpires could figure out a way to check at least, as was said in a previous post, as long as it takes for them to have their little group gathering.

So I don’t think the timing is the issue…the precedent is kind of interesting in terms of changing the culture of the game. There already exists a product that will tell the umpire in his ear whether the pitch was a ball or a strike according to some laser painted strike zone. Also, if replay is then used for bang-bang plays around the bases, what do umpires become? Will they fired and replaced by robots? (Don’t think the umpire union would like that)

Everything about baseball that is gray and in between the lines and not quite fair but not quite foul has lead to an enormous amount of stories, legend and lore over the years (the pine tar incident…) and by continuing to introduce replay technology, baseball is turning a corner toward becoming a modern American sport as opposed to just a pastime.

Replaying Instant Replay

Like Travis, I don’t care all that much about instant replay, or steroids, or the sanctity of the game.

But, I don’t think it will slow the game down, at least as long as they only use it for home runs, and especially if they implement a challenge system a la the NFL.  After all, when there’s a close home run call, all the umps gather round and jibber jabber anyway, so using replay on home runs could actually speed the game up, since it’s usually pretty easy to see whether the ball was a home run, so they wouldn’t have to go through the whole “did you see it? did YOU see it?” rigamarole.  And of course there will still be situations where replay isn’t definitive, just not that many of them, and those will just go back to how it is now anyway.  In any case, there will be plenty of plays (balls and strikes, 1st base out/safe calls) that still give fans opportunities to call the refs’ mothers whores.

As to the question of the “truth” of the play, this is a legitimate matter, but the fact that we have instant replay on telecasts (and sometimes on the Jumbotron) already takes the power to produce meaning/truth away from umpires and places it in the mediation itself.  The genie’s out of the bottle on that one–while the umpires still may control meaning within the context of the game, replays on SportsCenter and elsewhere produce another sphere of “truth” that exceeds the present of the game, a sphere in which fans have their own sense of what “really” happened.  If replay only functions outside the domain of the game, you get things like Cubs fans wanting to kill Bartman, people still complaining about that kid taking the ball away from Tony Tarasco, and all kinds of whining that, in my opinion, is far more irritating than it is fun.  Complaining about bad calls during the game is fun, but when people are still doing it several years later, it gets a bit old.  As long as replay enters the game itself only on game-deciding plays, like home runs, I’m in favor of it.  Giving managers challenge flags, like in the NFL, would likely limit replay only to these kinds of game-deciding calls (nobody’s going to waste a challenge on one ball or strike).

Other Instant Replay Shenanigans

Chipper Jones wants the replay. And so does some umpire.

Let the snooze-fest begin.

MLB Instant Replay?

Apparently baseball is not slow enough. The MLB is flirting with the idea of adding instant replay—experimenting with the upcoming Arizona Fall League.

According to a poll attached to the article, roughly 50% of readers would like replays “for all controversial calls” in baseball. Only 18% did not approve of any replays
First, I’m a bit surprised that so many fans, considering all the purity myths surrounding baseball, would condescend to such technological supplements to the game. It seems like a kind of epistemological performance enhancement—HGH for the eyes. I would venture to guess that 50% of espn.com readers do not approve of steroids.

I don’t really care about the instant replay, the so-called sanctity of the game, or steroids. And I don’t have any dystopian fears of the game’s increasing mediation. Our obsession with truth in these performances will probably ensure a steady increase in these kinds of technologies. I can’t remember where I read or dreamed this, but isn’t there talk of adding some kind of chip to footballs that will indicate whether the ball crossed the goal line, first down marker, etc.? I guess my beef is with the idea that folks ought to care about the “truth” of a play outside of the time and place in which it is performed. Officials, right or wrong, are key parts of any close play—they create its meaning. Second, bitching at officials is probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. Cursing the laws of physics is not nearly as fun as calling some fat ump’s mom a whore. Last, what happens when those inevitable plays come up when the instant replay cameras don’t give us a definitive picture of a play’s truth? Won’t this just come down to the same old fashioned judgments? Isn’t this how it works anyhow—officials huddle together around a monitor and make a judgment call in retrospect with a clearer—yet not absolute—view of the play?

The increased boringness that will result will allow networks more advertising time and stadiums more time to shill $9 beers. But if people have as short an attention span as me, this might be enough to wait for the highlights.

On the other hand, the replay could very well create a sense of drama and suspense in a sometimes pretty boring game.