Pittsburgh Pirates: Call Last Night Shows Why Instant Replay Is Needed

Baseball needs to get with the times. Basketball has action replay, so does football and to a lesser extent, even hockey.

If three of America's big four have instant replay, why doesn't baseball?

Stubbornness, laziness, and not wanting to commit more umpires are some possible reasons. However, whatever the reason is, they need to fix this.

A game that goes to 19 innings should not be decided on a bad call. Sure, umpire Jerry Meals was tired, but so what everyone else involved in the game. 

The managers, the players, the fans, even the players at home were all tired. But that still doesn't excuse the awful ending. It's like watching a movie for three hours then the movie theater loses power. Instead of getting to see the end, you'll get a paragraph about it mailed to your house.

It's just not the same. 

Some people complain that baseball is long enough as is, why add instant replay to the game to slow things down even more?

Because it's needed.

Besides, it wouldn't even take that much longer. It's not that hard, and it doesn't take that long to look at a replay. It would help the game immensely and prevent games from being decided like this in the future. Meals in that spot has a certain angle and a certain view. Given his position, it was hard for him to see the swooping tag.

But that's just more support for why there should be instant replay. Instant replay can help umpires make the right call, and see plays in a way they may not be able to on the field. Even if instant replay is only on home plate, it'll still help the game immensely. 

The world cup was decided by penalty kicks. Everyone thought that was a disappointing end to an amazing match, so why should we allow baseball to end on the same bad note?

Do we really want more perfect games like Armando Galarraga's blown on a bad call? Armando went the whole game, no hits, no walks, no errors. No mistakes at all. 

He should have had a perfect game.

If there was instant replay, he would have had a perfect game. 

A perfect game is a work of art, comparable to watching Picasso paint the Mona Lisa. Having that ripped away from you on a bad call is almost inhuman. 

Baseball is America's pastime, and we all love it for our own reasons. However, baseball needs to wake up and get instant replay.