To Go Forward- Or Rewind?

With the new season well underway, the Chicago White Sox are the reigning champs. However, due to umpire miscues, they did not get to the World Series without help.  Major League Baseball must stop ignoring the problem of their umpires’ inability to be perfect.  After all, what team wants to be considered lucky rather than great?   Umpires miss calls. It’s human nature to err. In Game 2 of the 2005 American League Championship Series, it was clear that White Sox batter, A.J. Pierzynski, should have been called out after replays were shown. And in the 1996 ALCS game between the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles, Yankee Bernie Williams hit a winning homerun that, after review, had been caught by a fan reaching over the right field wall, taking the ball away from the Orioles’ outreached glove. The outcomes of these postseasons could have been different. Or, at least, less debatable.

And I am sure that we can think of numerous close calls over the years during both the regular and postseason. Major League Baseball does not have to be archaic and refuse usage of current technology. A system can be put in place similar to the one used in the NFL: a team can ask the referee to review the play, but if the call remains the same they lose one of their timeouts. Although timeouts aren’t used in MLB, there are other ways to regulate replays. If there is a system put in place where during close games, say 3 runs or less, a team can ask for a review of a close play if two umpires are unsure of whether the call was right or not.

It may be hard to directly work in this type of replay system to the very old-fashioned MLB. For an easier transition for everyone involved, we can begin with introducing it to exhibition games and tournaments, such as the World Baseball Classic. Then, the replay system can be restricted to being used just during the MLB postseason. Replays can be important in these series since they are shorter than a regular season and one miscue can make a winner the loser. A call controversy can also tarnish the winner’s glory. We don’t want that.

If we can introduce a system into the regular season, teams can have an allowance of 10 replays during the regular season. That way, teams will not be so ready to ask for a review of every close play. It would be tedious, time-consuming, and, above all, disruptive to the pace of an already slow-paced sport. No one wants to sit in a stadium for five hours because of twenty disputed calls at first base. Well, anyone who has a life that is.

Yes, the 2006 season is here and the umpire/replay issue won’t solve itself until MLB steps it up and stops ignoring the problem. Until then, let’s keep our cheers loud and our criticisms louder.

A Few Fastballs for this Week…

Many people predict that this year the Atlanta Braves will finally cease to win their division. I don’t know. Braves’ manager Bobby Cox has some kind of magical power that forces their Eastern division rivals to play dead when his team plays them. Just ask the Mets.

Mets’ Minor Leaguer Iriki got suspended for steroid use. Now here’s a guy who’s thirty and more than likely will not ever make it to the majors. Something tells me he just wanted his name in the papers.

It seems as though it is the old guys making more headlines than the younger players as the month of April came to a close. Pujols, at 29 years old, is the youngest, breaking records left and right. But how can we watch Pujols when there’s a 47 year old stealing bases and hitting ones out of the park?

Shaq is getting fined for criticizing the referees’ calls during Game 3 of the first playoff series against the Chicago Bulls. Sometimes it’s just really hard to keep a big mouth shut.

More Shaq? Shaq and Kobe are both fathers to newborn baby girls only six minutes apart from one another. Talk about a coincidence. So since Shaq’s baby is both bigger and was born first, does this mean he is part of the winning team this year? Sorry, Kobe. You just weren’t strong enough.

Former boy band member Jeff Timmons was arrested for driving intoxicated and without a license this week. With all the success of his other 98º band mates, Nick and Drew Lachey, he just could no longer take the pressure. There really should be a boy band reunion show just to see what happened to everyone in that circuit. It could be entitled, “I Used to Get All the Girls.”