| Missed Call Brings Back Replay Debate |
| By Sally Haase October 15, 2012 Human error; it happens all the time, and it occurs in our favorite sports on a regular basis. During the American League Championship series last night, there was a case of human error that has once again brought the use of instant replay in Major League Baseball to the forefront. The call in question was at second base when Detroit Tigers infielder Omar Infante dove back to the base while New York Yankee Robinson Cano applied the tag. Infante did a “stutter step” with his hands to avoid the tag that was successful but Cano was able to apply the tag to Infante’s stomach before his hand reached the bag. The umpire at second base, Jeff Nelson, called Infante safe, prompting Yankees manager Joe Girardi to argue the call with Nelson to the point where Girardi was ejected from the game. The Yankees got out of the inning without allowing a run, so the missed call did not do any damage except for the extra pitches on the pitcher. Now all Yankees fans and the talking heads want instant replay in all baseball games. I think we’re jumping the gun on that. During the playoffs there are six umpires on the field and if another umpire gets a better look at the play he should step in and overrule the umpire making the call. But it should only be if there is an argument by one of the managers, other umpires should not just randomly step into a call to tell his colleague that he got the play wrong. The addition of instant replay is just going to delay an already long game and playoff games are already abnormally long to begin with. VP of baseball operations Joe Torre said that they will look into some form of replay but they also need to look at an efficient form of replay to keep the games from going too long. And if instant replay expands to all calls, there needs to be some restrictions on the use of it. For example with football, the coaches are given two challenges and if they lose the challenge they lose a time out. Since baseball does not have timeouts they would have to work out something like if the team loses the challenge, they lose a mound visit for that inning. The limited number of challenges and the possible loss of a mound visit would at least limit the managers from using the challenge for every close call at first base. If it ever does happen there has to be a lot more limits on it than in the NFL, those limits could keep instant replay from being a total disaster for Major League Baseball, if they choose to keep instant replay the way it is in baseball players, managers, commentators, and fans will just have to accept the fact that human error is just going to be a part of the game. |
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