The Dangers Of Instant Replay In Baseball and The End Of Baseball's Purity

This whole season I have heard people clamor for instant replay. I understand that other sports have instant replay. Football, tennis, and basketball all have instant replay. I can see why baseball would need instant replays on questionable home run calls. However, the use of instant replay for home runs could snowball into the loss of the purity of baseball.

I do agree that instant replay should be used for home runs. That is an independent play. If a home run was over turned, all it would become is a foul ball. There is no other effect on the game. Other than that, instant replay needs to be unacceptable in baseball. Its momentum must be stopped before it ruins the game. My fear is that instant replay will infect more facets of this pure game. Ball and strikes, fair and foul, out and safe will all have instant replay attached to them or completely automated calling. This is something that can't be allowed to happen.

When looking at sports with instant replay, there is a common feature that all these sports have. When all the plays are independent of each other. In football plays don't flow into each other, but they have a definitive ending. In tennis, one point doesn't directly lead into another. When replay is used it can only effect that one point directly.

In baseball that is not the case. In baseball plays don't end when one out is recorded. Plays end when the pitch has the ball in his hand, on the mound, waiting to throw his next pitch. If instant replay was allowed, what would happen in these situations?

Ball and Strike Situation

There is a man on first and one out. The count is 3 balls and 2 strikes (any 3 ball count would work). So the pitcher throws the pitch and the runner goes. The pitch is called a ball and the batter takes his base. However, on instant replay the pitch is called a strike. In that case what happens to the man who was going on the pitch. Is he out, is he safe, or do you redo the pitch?

Fair or Foul Situation

A line drive is hit close to the line that is called foul. However, if instant replay is used the ball is called fair, but how does that help. First of all what kind of hit was it going to be? A single, double, triple, or (in Cecil Fielder's case) and inside the park home run. If there are runners on base, how far do they get to advance?

Caught or Trapped?

A ball is hit to an outfielder and he dives to make the catch. Though it appeared to the umpire he made the catch, instant replay states that he trapped the ball. Now the runners on base would have stayed put (unless there were 2 outs) or tagged. Had they stayed put and then the out was called a hit, what do you do with the runners on base. Do you move them up one to accommodate for the hit? Do you redo the play?

The opposite situation is true as well. If it is called a hit and then overruled, then all the runners will advance one base is they are forced. When the play is overturned do you return reverbody to their base? If they were tagging to begin with, why should they have to go back to their base?

These are just the situations that I can think of that will be problematic if baseball expands instant replay. Along with that the purity of the game will be destroyed.

Baseball is a game based on human behavior. That includes the mistakes. To take away the mistakes in baseball is like taking away all the struggle in life. It is what makes baseball so charming. If you have ever seen Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones describes baseball as it once was.

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

We can't abandon this great games past, just because the times are changing. Baseball stills needs to remain the way it was or we will lose a vital connection to our past, not only as sports fans, but as Americans