Selig - who once proposed putting Spider-Man 3 movie logos on the bases - claims to honor the grand traditions of baseball, especially when those grand traditions are grandly profitable. So OK - I get the move toward instant replay. It had to happen.
But - and I hate to say this - Selig's been right: We'll lose something here. Any time baseball inches closer to the NFL, we throw overboard a little more of our humanity. Frankly, there is nothing more galling in sports than subjecting 60,000 fans in a stadium - sometimes in rain or freezing temperatures - to a 10-minute wait, while technicians haggle over some call that matters to a guy's personal stats.
It's common on Super YES-Mo for the Yankee announcers to be divided over whether a guy is out or safe. The camera angles just don't allow an easy answer. So in those moments - at times in blowouts, like yesterday - everybody in the bleachers will just stand around and wait. Three calls for each manager to challenge? We know what will happen: They'll wait for the TV replay - order the players to create a delay, while someone watches the video feed, and if it's remotely close, they'll issue a challenge.
Does anyone think Billy Martin would have ever gone a game without using all three challenges? These are like timeouts in the last two minutes of a basketball game. Need to get a pitcher up in the bullpen? Challenge the last play. You bought yourself five minutes, while the matter is considered in New York.
This could add 20 minutes to a game. Thus, the 7:10 p.m. game ends around 11:30 p.m., long after Yours Truly is in bed, dreaming of Slade Heathcott in a geisha dress.
Tonight, we play the Redsocks, which generally adds 10 minutes to a game. You could factor in another 10 to cover the booing of A-Rod. If orange is the new black, five is the new four-hour game.
Just a thought, next time we're all standing around, waiting for something to happen.
This could end up causing more problems than it solves. It will be funny watching them trying to send runners backwards and taking runs off the board (or adding runs) due to blown calls. They better come up some guidance or every manager will get plenty of chances to put on an earl weaver show.
ReplyDeleteNot on topic (instant replay) but germane (because the Yanks are in Boston). Is it my own, self-induced myopia, or is Fenway Park a sleaze magnet? Jerry Remy's son, a former Red Sox employee, is up on murder charges. Who can forget the doting, fatherly child-molesting clubhouse manager? Hard to remember, but wasn't Whitey Bulger GM for a couple of years, or did he just dispose of corpses by burying them in centerfield? Fenway is a lovely ballpark, but the denizens? Might as well be a moral sinkhole. Good luck, Yanks, and a pox on those psychopath Red Sox fans.
ReplyDeletePitching at Fenway made me the man I am today. Hey, have I told you about my foolproof roulette system? If you invest $10,000 in my system, I can GUARANTEE you that I'll triple your money . . . .
ReplyDeleteSo if one manager stalls and calls for a replay, then the head ump or the 'team in New York' makes the call, can the other manager call for a replay of the replay? And then can the first manager call for a replay of the second manager's replay?
ReplyDeleteWe get a couple of jokers managing in the same game and they could shut the game down for a good half hour, maybe more.
Why not have infrared alarms down the baselines, electronic sensors in the bases and infielders' gloves, use that electronic box thingy for strikes and balls, and put touchplates that trigger flashing lights for homers along the outfield walls and foul poles? Then the umps can all sit in the tunnel and drink beer, and every call will be automatic.
THAT will speed up the game. This half-assed measure is horseshit. Plus, unlike a human ump, you won't see Reddy Kilowatt standing in the second baseman's way when he's diving after a hot grounder.
Come on, Bud, it's 2013. Let's get with the program already.
Michael Kay is an asshole. Fire him.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is inexplicable how the ghost of Mickey Mantle incarnated itself into the body of Alfonso Soriano, let us take time to tip the hat to Pay-Rod, who had a solid game tonight. The more they boo you, Pay-Rod, the more we love you. As for Metal Mitt Nunez and Shush Chamberlain, back up the garbage truck.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as a key Yankee game is decided for an opponent by a blown call that goes against the bombers, el duque and all his dittoheads will be caterwauling for exactly the kind of measure that Selig has implemented here.
ReplyDeleteIf the repeals take no more than two minutes, that's far less time wasted than the delays of game caused by futile verbal combat with the umpires.
The ideas is to make the competition as FAIR as possible and to use available technology to accomplish this. Case closed.
Hey William. Can I be an el duque minion? I've always wanted to be a minion.
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