Back to instant replay. There have been three major controversial plays since that one:

1. The missed catcher’s interference on Steve Finley double-play grounder.
2. The tag on A.J. without the ball in his hand.
3. The hit-by-pitch on Dye where it appeared to only hit his bat.

If they had employed instant replay on these, the results would have been:

1. Overturn. Finley awarded first, and the Angels have first and second with one out instead of inning over.
2. Upheld.
3. Hmmm. Well, it definitely hit the bat. And it seems pretty clear that it didn’t hit any part of Dye. But are we sure? How long would it take the umpire to be sure. He would have to spend a great deal of time to be absolutely certain. I’m not sure he could overturn it. It’s not enough to see that the ball hit the bat. Because if it hit any part of him – even just his sleeve – before hitting the bat, that’s still an HBP. It’s not like instant replay in other sports, where most of the time you’re looking for something positive, ie did such-and-such occur. In this case, you’re looking for something negative, ie, am I sure it didn’t hit him? And that’s much harder to be certain of.

So, what do we have. One sure overturn, one sure status quo, and one probably overturn, but maybe not. And we’ve wasted a heck of a lot of time to obtain this.

And suppose we do implement this. When is it employed? Only on controversial plays? If not, it would be used way too often, without any overturns. Do we give managers challenges, like in the NFL? Well, then what happens if a manager’s challenge is wrong? We can’t penalize the manager a timeout like in the NFL. So do we limit the manager one per game? But then what happens if there are more than one missed cal per game?

And even if we are able to cover all of these controversial plays, they account for less than one per game! And that still leaves the part of the game that’s much more subjective and has a much greater impact on the outcome of a game, which is the calls of balls and strikes. And there’s no way you can institute instant replay for that. You might as well forget about baseball as a watchable sport if you do that.

There’s one more key thing to mention regarding the whole issue. And that’s that none of the controversial plays have directly resulted in a run, or the negation of a run.

In the Eddings play, the Angels still had a chance to get the Sox out and they didn’t. Yes, it’s unfair to have to get four outs as it were, but who’s to say they wouldn’t have lost the game in the tenth inning anyway.

In the catcher’s interference play, even with a replay overturn, the score doesn’t change and maybe the next runner grounds into a double-play anyway.

And on the hit-by-pitch, even with a replay overturn, maybe the next pitch is a ball, and we end up in the same situation as played out.

So, the integrity of the situation may not have been altered at all. The point is, the team still had a chance to get out of the situation without any damage done.

So, any talk of these calls tainting the wins by the Sox is not only unreasonable, but unfair to the Sox players themselves, because it’s not their fault – the possible acting jobs by A.J. and Dye notwithstanding.

But compare these plays to some of the major missed calls in the past. The Jeffrey Maier fan interference, where the umpire called it a home run, that literally gave the Yankees a run that they shouldn’t have had. Yes, you can argue that on the next pitch, he may have hit a home run, anyway, but the difference is, there’s nothing the other team can do now to stop the run from being scored. The run’s already on the board.

So, if ever there would be instant replay, I could maybe accept it only on plays in which it directly results in a run being scored or taken away. So, on a home run ball where it’s uncertain if it stayed fair or foul, or whether it cleared the fence or stayed in play or there was fan interference. This is a situation in which it would be reasonable. And it also wouldn’t slow down the game, since the runner is rounding the bases in anyway, and the next batter is coming up, (and the manager is possibly coming out to argue.) These are also cases where the umpire’s subjectivity doesn’t come into play. It either cleared the pole or not, or cleared the fence or not, and should be definitively discernible upon replay.

Plays at the plate, where it may be disputable whether the tag occurred are, much more subject to the umpire’s subjectivity – as with balls and strikes – and should remain that way for practicality and purposes and to maintain the nature of the game.