Perhaps some of the most famous plays in baseball history involve umpires blowing a call. Some names that come to mind are Don Denkinger (blew call in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series), Jim Joyce (blew call at first that prevented a perfect game this year) and Steve Bartman (reached over the fence to interfere with the Cubs' Moises Alou in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS against the Marlins, but the umpire did not rule interference). These are pivotal moments in baseball history that have had a major impact on the sport. What would have happened if the umpire could have reviewed his decision, realize he was obviously wrong, and called Luis Castillo out because of interference? There would have then been 2 outs in the inning, and the Cubs would be 4 outs away from the World Series. Instead, needing to get the extra out, the Cubs went on to lose the game, and the series, and still have not won a World Series since 1908.
Many people argue that human error is a part of sports. To this, I whole-heartedly disagree. Officials for any sport are not to have any impact in the result of the game. Their purpose, originally, was to be an unbiased judge on the field to interpret the rules of the game and decide how the rules applied to certain plays. People were needed to do this because the technology hadn't been developed yet to provide 100% accurate calls. WE NOW HAVE THIS! Today, we have ultra high speed cameras in HD that can pick apart a play into incredible fractions of a second. This is the future of sports. Football, basketball, hockey and tennis, among many others, have adopted the beauty of technology to get the calls right. Baseball is only now starting to warm up to the idea. Last year, MLB decided to use instant replay to judge the validity of home runs. For instance, was the ball fair or did it actually go over the fence? However, after Jim Joyce made arguably the worst call in baseball history this year, preventing the last out of a perfect game, many more people are clamoring to get instant replay used throughout the league.
So what's going to happen in the future? I wholeheartedly believe that instant replay will be eligible for use on all calls except for calling balls and strikes. There are devices called Axis and Ipix that are used in football that provide a 360 degree view of the field, which, in my opinion, can be used for all analysis. There will be other ultra high speed cameras placed elsewhere to assist the Axis and Ipix cameras, to make sure that there are alternate views of the play. These views are necessary to ensure that there is a conclusive view of the play, which is the whole point of instant replay.
This is the future of baseball. Umpires will be used to decided balls and strikes and obvious calls on the field. Anything close will be viewed by unbiased (to umpires, MLB or teams) analysts who will receive real-time feeds for all decisions. These people will not even be in attendance for the game. Instead, they will be in an office, with other analysts, and each person will be responsible for a handful of games. These will be the people who review all close calls and determine the outcome. This is the best decision, I believe, because it will make the game go by quicker. Instead of an umpire leaving the field to view the replay, the analyst will have already seen the play and made a judgment. Plus, this prevents managers from arguing their case for 5 minutes. Hopefully, MLB makes this decision for the benefit of the game and its players. Nobody wants to see a World Series decided on a bad call, unless if the call is in their favor. Thank you Bartman.
Go Marlins!
