Monday, May 19, 2008
Ump Apologizes; Raises Questions
After losing out on a clear home run ball Sunday for the second time this season, the New York Mets might become the newest proponents of Major League Baseball instituting instant replay. Yes or No to instant replay?
In Sunday's Subway Series finale, a Carlos Delgado fly ball down the left-field line was ruled a three-run home run for the Mets by third-base umpire Mike Reilly. After Yankees captain Derek Jeter argued, home plate umpire Bob Davidson overruled Reilly and called the ball foul.
Davidson readily admitted his mistake to reporters after the game.
"I [expletive] it up. I'm the one who thought it was a [expletive] foul ball. I saw it on the replay. I'm the one who [expletive] it up so you can put that in your paper," Davidson said. "Bolts and nuts, I [expletive] up. You've just got to move on. No one feels worse about it than I do."
...All of the talk on New York radio stations suggest that the MLB decide to go with an instant replay system for fair or foul balls on home runs only. This leads to a slippery slope because say one team gets the replay in the top of the 9th to go up by 1 run on a ball originally called foul and then in the bottom of the 9th the other team has a runner called out at home who is actually safe. Of course that manager is going to go crazy that he can not have that reviewed even though it is equivalent to a foul ball home run. That system simply would not work for there are too many holes.
The one problem with comparing this to an NFL is that on a play like a foul ball home run the NFL does not review those plays. It is a judgment call call, like when a player catches on a ball near the line in the end zone and the ref calls him out of
One system fans seem to think will work is giving each manager 1 challenge per game. This is the best idea, but still has flaws as to when they are allowed to challenge and what type of plays are they allowed to challenge. To set up rules for this will take more than one winter so unless this happens numerous times in the World Series we should not even expect a change until 2010.
I personally feel the baseball purist will continue to vote against this and I have no problem with that. Baseball is just a much different game than football, hockey, or basketball and we all just want the umps to just get it right, the majority of the time they will get it right. I am just afraid once they pass a rule saying they can challenge plays people will get carried away and it may forever change the style of baseball played for over one hundred years.
