Bob Davidson is back at it again, this time overturning his crew chief Mike Reilly (I’m sure that will make him popular among the crew for the next few weeks) on a Carlos Delgado home run on a nationally televised game. Davidson is internationally infamous for his World Baseball Classic snafus and, in general, is perhaps one of the weakest umpires in the game.

But of course the case for instant replay has resurfaced as everyone is chomping at the bit to get instant replay into baseball. As many of you know I’ve been umpiring junior college, high school, and youth baseball for over 10 years now and so of course I have an opinion on this and here it goes.

I have a few interesting ideas on instant replay for homeruns, and I’ll get to that later. Having said that in all other cases I am completely and utterly opposed to instant replay. Everyone points out the moderate success that instant replay has had on basketball, football, and hockey and thinks it should be applied to baseball. The problem is baseball is unlike any other sport. Besides the fact that baseball is the only game (among the other three examples) where the offense is not in possession of the ball, puck etc, more importantly baseball is the only game where there is no ticking clock. In theory every half inning could be played without a stoppage of time where the ball is always “live.” This is important to our discussion of instant replay because of the effect that instant replay would have on the “time” of a game.

Forget the purist argument (which I support) that says that the game shouldn’t be delayed, and the “human element” should be a part of the game (human element = umpires blowing calls). Let’s look at the logistics of instant replay. Last year during the one game playoff for the NL West between Colorado and San Diego the instant replay argument heated up with those who contend that Tim McClelland erroneously ruled that Matt Holliday touched the plate in the 13th inning. Many of the pro-replay folks contend that McClelland should have been able to use replay to determine if he touched the plate or not. Well, there’s a huge problem here. The play involved a bobbled ball at the plate that squirted a few feet away from the catcher. There never was a tag on Holliday as the catcher would’ve had to scramble to get the ball and then make the tag, but that never happened due to McClelland’s safe call. So the question is: logistically how would’ve instant replay been effectively used in a situation like that? McClelland’s call effectively put an end to any further action on the play (meaning the catcher couldn’t scramble to go get the ball and make a tag). Would instant replay allow the umpire to go look at the play, determine Holliday hadn’t touched the plate, and then make him lie down on the ground, put the catcher back in his position, and the ball back where it was and then yell “GO” and let them finish the play? Same thing with a tag no tag situation at a base, or a banger at first – what happens to all the other playing action if we have to replay those calls? Example: bunt down the line, 2 outs with a runner on second. Let’s say that runner rounds third as there’s a bang-bang play at first. Umpire calls the runner out, three outs. But now we want to replay it as it looks as if the first baseman pulled his foot, etc. So let’s say the replay shows that, indeed, the runner is safe at 1st. Now the umpire has to essentially determine whether or not the runner would’ve scored from third because the call was overturned. It would be hard to make such a determination considering the runner would’ve more than likely slowed down after the out call. Again, baseball isn’t like football (or any clock sport). After a in-bounds/out-of-bounds call on a touchdown or sideline pass the playing action effectively stops and no other action is to occur. Therefore, you can go back and determine whether or not a foot was dragged, etc. But baseball, baseball is a great timeless game. And the thing that makes it great, is the same thing that makes it completely incompatible with instant replay.. that is of course unless it’s a homerun……

Homeruns and instant replay

One thing that I think can effectively be handled by replay is a home run situation. Often times there are questions about fair or foul, over the fence, certain interference, etc. And let me tell you from experience, a ball bending around a foul pole, or going over a fence or hitting something behind the fence is a very very difficult call. I have two problems with instant replay for home runs though: A) It will unnecessarily delay an already long game (especially in the AL) B) In many reginoally televised (read: non-national) games there isn’t adequate camera coverage to really get the job done. Even in a nationally televised game a ball hooking around a pole or over a pole is still hard to determine with a replay. What I’d really like to see is if they can adopt what the IFAB (International Football Association Board )is working on in the football (soccer) world. Specifically Adidas and a German company called Cairos are developing “smart ball” technology that embeds a microchip in the football that can determine whether or not it crossed the plane of the goal line. If it did, it sends a signal within a second to the refree’s watch and the goal is counted (if it wasn’t already). It would be interesting to see if this technology could be adapted to home runs. Give the crew chief the watch and have him intervene if necessary. No delay of game, and it’s more effective and accurate than camera based instant replay.

Of course for a sport that is incredibly slow to ANY change, hoping for something as advanced as smart ball technology may be a pipe dream – but I think it’s the perfect solution to the instant replay problem in baseball.