Replay in Baseball

I think I'm up to about 5 requests for a post on this topic, which in LB world, is like a 50% return rate. Henceforth, I provide my solicited opinion (for once) on the topic at hand during Game 5 of what has been an awesome Stanley Cup Finals. Seriously, if you're not watching, you're really missing out. Unofficially sponsored by ShopRite this evening, which is a local grocery chain out here, and whose bakery makes a damn good chocolate truffle cake, compliments of Mrs. J.B. Just a small benefit of living with a pregnant lady. A couple quicks notes on the "oops" perfect game, which obviously got us to this topic...

- Mojo has the following request for the blog: "Whenever referencing when someone f-ed up, it should be called a 'Joyce.'" He actually used this in conversation at breakfast this morning when he and his wife were coming through the area on their move to West Point (Mojo and LB living within 2 hours = more podcasts). C-BOST (committee for bleeping out sports things) is putting this on their agenda for next month, and it's looking pretty good cause C-BOST likes Mojo.

- To everyone's credit (except one person, which we will explain in a minute), this could not have been handled any better or with any more class. Jim Joyce deserves a lot of praise for admitting his error, and the Tigers, especially Gallaraga and Leyland, were extremely gracious about this (though it looked like Cabrera's anger management classes haven't been totally effective yet). This is the only reason why it hasn't been blown totally out of proportion. Random story... my dad was actually at the game, and said they could tell from their 2nd deck seats above first base that he was out. Joyce is actually a good umpire, worked a couple World Series and lots of playoff games. Just absolutely blew it. Sad, really, seems like a good guy.

- Bud Selig is an idiot. Just overturn the freaking call. You're going to enact replay within the next year. This guy is like Mr. Magoo, I swear. Thank God he already announced his retirement.

- This has nothing to do with baseball, but they just showed Michael Jordan standing with some friends during the Flyers/Blackhawks game, and in my unending quest to convince the wife that Jordan pushed off in Game 6 against the Jazz (Michael Jordan is her favorite athlete of all time, by far), I said, "I think Jordan just pushed off the guy next to him." The wife/soon-to-be mother's response? She gave me the finger while on the phone with her mom.

Now that I'm done not talking about replay in baseball, let's talk about replay in baseball. In sum, I am all for it. However, this has to be done with a lot of caution, since baseball is already slow, and we don't need umpires spending 5 minutes in a booth 3 times a game reviewing calls. So here's how I plan on setting it up when I'm in charge of the world. And yes, this will be high on my to-do list when I'm in charge.

1. No "manager challenges" ala the NFL. We don't have time, and I don't want to see red flags flying all over the diamond.

2. No challenging balls and strikes, and no putting some laser/computer generated machine to call balls and strikes. That is dumb. Besides, if we do that, the machines will eventually become self aware, and we'll either be at war against them (Terminator) or living in non-reality (the Matrix).

3. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but the NHL has this right (in other words, Bettman had nothing to do with it). Set up a central body somewhere watching all the games and buzzing down to the home plate ump when they want to take a closer look at a play. Too many games, you say? How many close calls do you really think would be reviewed in a game? I bet it would be less than one a game. I would train the reviewers only to buzz if it were REALLY close or if there were an obvious blown call, ala the other night when the ump Joyced it. There you go, Mojo. I think C-BOST is going to approve/

4. Keep the home run review thing as is. It's working. Good for them.

The main arguments against replay (I think, because I really don't know anyone who is against it) are that it damages the purity of the game and the games will be longer. I handled the latter with my brilliant central body idea, and as for the purity of the game... how pure are you when you can have a perfect game ripped from the record books over something everyone, including the umpire, knows is an injustice? The precedent is already set with the home run replays, so you can argue "we don't to set precendent and start down the stereotypical slippery slope" Replay is going to happen within the next 12 months anyway, just turn this one over and make everything right. Though many have already pointed out that Gallaraga will probably be more famous for this than if he got the perfect game.

Baseball is the last of the "old white men running the sport" hold outs, and is slowly awakening to the fact it's the 21st century and we have this really neat thing called "technology." We promise, guys, it's a lot of fun, like hoola-hoops when you were kids. We'll keep watching the games, we'll keep loving the sport, and people who like to bitch will continue to bitch about the length of the game, then call in to sports talk radio making references to 1950s mid-July games.

As we conclude this evening's proceedings, with the wife very annoyed by a 3-0 Flyers deficit after the first period, I told her I put in the story about her giving me the finger. Wife, "I'll deny it... not." Guess I still got some work to do. Off to YouTube, hasta.