Why Baseball Needs Instant Replay

On Sunday night, another Mets player was robbed of a homerun. On a 2-1 pitch from Chien-Ming Wang, Carlos Delgado laced a line drive down the left field line for a homerun. Third base umpire Mike Reilly signaled the ball was fair and Delgado began his trot around the bases. Then the home plate umpire Bob Davidson ran out and a Legally Blind Society of America convention spontaneously ensued.

Davidson overruled the third base umpire’s call, stating the ball was foul, erasing Delgado’s 3 run jack. Although two pitches later Delgado lined a run-scoring single into right, the Mets bench was livid, and for good reason. ESPN’s replay clearly showed the ball hit the foul pole and then bounced foul. A close up of the pole and the gentleman who caught the ball even showed the white ball mark on the pole and the black scuffing on the baseball.

The Mets eventually went on to trounce the Yankees 11-2 on Sunday night, meaning the 2 runs stolen from Delgado ended up not having an impact on the outcome (except for those fantasy baseball owners who lost by 2 points this week due to Delgado’s 2 fewer RBI’s, but I digress).

Following the game, Davidson admitted he made a mistake. Yet Mets’ bench coach Jerry Manuel got tossed from the game for arguing with him. The Mets reason for being so irate? This was the second time in the first seven weeks of the season that the Mets had a home run taken off the board.

On April 2, Carlos Beltran appeared to hit a 2 run home run in Florida against the Marlins. Yet the third base umpire, closest to the play and who initially signaled for a home run, was also overruled, and the hit was called a ground-rule double, even though replays showed it bounced off a railing and back into the field. Again, the call didn’t impact the game as the Mets went on to win 13-0.

These two missed calls bring into relief an interesting point: given the advanced state of technology today and the use of instant replay in football, basketball and hockey, is it time for baseball to come to terms with the fact that a bit of technology could improve the accuracy of the game? And if so, to what lengths should it be employed?

Clearly, there are some obvious advantages to using instant replay in a game. At the winter meetings last year, baseball general managers voted 25-5 to explore ways to use instant replay in the game. Although the Mets won both games by a large margin, its easy to imagine a situation in which instant replay could determine the outcome of a game.

The difficulty, however, lies in the extent to which it would be used. Should instant replay be used only to double-check fair or foul home runs? What about close plays on the base paths? Could instant replay be an asset in determining whether or not a runner crossed home plate before the tag was applied? Or whether a runner left third base too early while tagging up on a sacrifice fly?

Or what about balls and strikes? If one is willing to employ the technology on close plays on the base paths, why not on pitches as well? It seems entirely within the realm of possibility to mount cameras both perpendicular to and directly above the plate, so as to perfectly be able to determine the location of the pitch in relation to the strike zone.

The issue is one of time. First, many people already complain that baseball is “boring” because of the length of the games. Can you imagine how much time would be added if each play at first base was checked by instant replay? At the very least there are 51 outs in a game. If you hypothesize that 1/3 are checked on replay, that’s 17 instant replays per game. At two minutes a pop (and that’s being extremely generous given the time required in football/basketball), that’s at least 34 additional minutes. Games are already 2.5-3 hours, adding extra time would alienate viewers even more.

What seems reasonable is to follow the lead of rugby (that’s right, rugby), and employ a “video umpire” who has access to instant replay. In this way, whether the umpires on the field, if in disagreement over a particular call, can refer it to the video umpire to check. This would most likely only happen every few games, wouldn’t add extra time, yet would provide the umpires with a “back-up” in case a consensus can not be reached on the field.

In this way, important, potentially game changing calls won’t be missed, yet the game will, for those purists out there (including myself), remain largely unchanged.