The Pecan Park Eagle

Like Mark Wernick, I cannot recall any “casting foot shadow” rule language that qualifies “close” being good enough for an out call, although we all know the rule-bypass-winks we had to freeze on everyone’s faces to put up with all those phantom tags at second on the double play forever prior to instant replay.

I can only think that instant replay will continue to improve and correct many calls from human error. This will be easier to accept over time as umpires, managers and players alike become more accustomed to the regularity of call reversals by a technology that should be superior to the unrecordable one-perspective decision of a highly trained human being who still cannot overcome the limitations of human frailty under close play circumstances.

Once it stops being a man versus machine challenge to the egos of umpires, it stands to reason that the technology becomes the ally of the umpire under all those previously heated encounters that were a matter of ego – and totally irreversible.

Now even the umpire can come to say, “Well, if you disagree, let’s let the replay people check it out and see what they think.”

Expanded use of instant replay gets my vote as a great aid to the game. As technology and our ability to use it well increases, it can only help the game improve. It doesn’t take much time for a serious review and I do not mind time spent on making the game better, anyway.

If we want to save time, go back to the things are now being tried. Cut down on the wastes that don’t matter – like batters stepping away from the plate to scratch themselves or pick their ears and noses..

Fewer fights. Fewer protests. More accurate calls. And, hopefully, no more going home from a game that your team just lost on a phantom foot contact of second base on a game-ending double play. And those are just some of the bigger rewards from the use of instant replay on the horizon, as I see them.

What do you think?