-
Oct 3, 2007 8:13 am US/Mountain
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Why Isn't There Instant Replay In Baseball?
by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ―
There's nothing like playing armchair quarterback ... or in this case, recliner umpire. It is still unclear if Matt Holliday actually touched the plate.
Holliday doesn't know.
"Don't even know. The umpire called me safe, that's all I know," said Holliday after the game.
Garrett Atkins may have been robbed of a home run, when a hit that could have ended the game earlier was ruled a double.
"Yeah, it's happened a few times," said Atkins. "I don't know, maybe they got to get a sensor up there or something that can tell if it's going to be a homer or not. But it ended up not mattering, we won, took a little bit longer."
That is a collective sigh of relief for Rockies fans. But Rockies manager Clint Hurdle has called for instant replay before. Several times this season his team may have been robbed of home runs.
Retired major league umpire Jim Evans, now president of the Academy of Professional Umpiring, is hesitant to take a stand on a call by a fellow umpire about whether Holliday really won the game.
He reasons the ruling has been made and that's that.
"Absolutely. The umpire called him safe."
While instant replay is part of the game now in football, Evans says baseball is a different matter.
"Well, unlike football where you're playing, 15, 16 games a year, playing a 162 games and you're going to have to man these cameras, you're going to have to have replay official," he said.
One fan said, "I just think, when does it stop? I mean are you going to review every strike?"
That's part of the problem. Evans says it could not be used to questions balls or strikes. He even admits the strike zone is, shall we say ... not closely defined.
Mistakes are part of the game.
"Well traditionally, yeah. Traditionally yeah, but the game has changed," Evans says.
Changed he says because a game that swings one way or another can have implications off the field.
"It's business now," Evans said. "This is a big business and every little minute call that happens during the course of the game has a major economic impact on a city."
But in spite of Clint Hurdle's calls for change and predictions from people like Evans that you'll soon see it in the playoffs, Commissioner Bud Selig and the player's association would both have to sign off and so far, that's a stretch.
(© MMVII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)