They're Ruining Baseball

Instant replay is coming to MLB, and I couldn't be more angry about it. Here are the details.

• A review will be initiated when a manager informs the umpire that he wants to challenge a play. He will be allowed one challenge in the first six innings and two more from the seventh through the end of the game.

• If the manager wins his appeal, he retains the challenge. The challenge from the first six innings does not carry over.

• Not all plays are reviewable.

• If a manager disagrees with a reviewable call, his only recourse would be to use a challenge. Managers would not be able to argue a reviewable call in a bid to get it overturned without the use of replay. A manager could still argue in situations not open to review, such as when defending a player or questioning an improper substitution.

"Reviewable plays will cover 89 percent of those incorrect calls that were made in the past," Schuerholz explained. "The 11 percent remaining are in the non-reviewable [category], which can still be argued by the manager. And the manager can still request that the umpires get together and discuss it to see if anybody else on the crew saw it differently. But it's not reviewable."

As a baseball fan, I know it's a slow game, but this is seriously going to put the breaks on. Two managers with two challenges each from the seventh inning on means the end of a game is going to crawl to a stand-still. It already slows due to late inning pitching changes, mixing and matching righties and lefties, now throw in the potential for four challenges in the last three innings, dear God! What are they thinking!? I know, MORE ADD REVENUE. Yeah, 'cause every time a manager challenges that's an opportunity to cut to commercial while the umpiring crew walks off the field to takes a look at the "Verizon Wireless" Replay.

With Instant Replay in place, you can kiss moments like these goodbye:



Who doesn't enjoy watching a manager go beserk? It's part of the game, as is human error. This is a travesty!

I'm tired of Bud Selig, he needs to go.

GAME???
It hasn't been a game for a hundred years. It is business posing as a game. Where are all the pictures of the happy people playing the GAME? Where are they? Difficult to find. But those who are WINNING???? Plenty of happiness when ya win. Great game where only half of the people playing are happy.
Sorry you are so upset but that slippery slope you see that professonal baseball is on started ages ago.

I attended an MLB game recently and it was awful, the commercialization was unbearable. Nearly every aspect of the game is now sponsored - the stadium, the replays, the camera views, national anthem, 7th inning stretch, pitching changes, even the groundskeepers raking the infield, it was all sponsored. And in between every inning we had to turn our attention to the jumbo tron to watch a sponsored trivia or kiss cam. It's a shame that such a wonderful game with so much history has come to this.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


A hundred years?

I guess you're one of those people who think kids shouldn't play competitive games because the losers get their feelings hurt. Give me a break.

reply to post by cleverhans

It's a shame that such a wonderful game with so much history has come to this.

Wonderful game? We're talking about a bunch of grown men trying to hit a round object with a stick, and getting paid millions of dollars to do it. There couldn't be a more boring and meaningless game.

They ruined baseball a long, long time ago when they started paying the athletes fortunes and spent decades passively ignoring steroid use and abuse.

Before that it was ruined because of segregation.

Before that it was ruined because of the reserve clause.

Fact of the matter - baseball has pretty much been screwed from day one.

Originally posted by Hefficide

They ruined baseball a long, long time ago when they started paying the athletes fortunes and spent decades passively ignoring steroid use and abuse.

Before that it was ruined because of segregation.

Before that it was ruined because of the reserve clause.

Fact of the matter - baseball has pretty much been screwed from day one.

Athletes get paid a fortune when they draw crowds. People pay to see good, exciting players. They put butts in seats, no different than movie stars or rocks stars.

Yes baseball ignored steroid abuse for many years, and it's a black mark on the history of the game for sure. I grew up being a huge fan of Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco, the bash brothers, and it's incredibly sad that my childhood heroes were certifiable frauds. But for every A-Roid and Ryan Braun there's a Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Chipper Jones, the list is endless. There's more greats than cheats and I applaud baseball for disallowing the likes of Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame. This year, no one was inducted into the hall.

The end of segregation only made baseball better.

Don't know what the reserve clause is.

And no baseball hasn't been screwed since day one, that's just called being way too cynical. It's America's game, it is the apex of nostalgia in this country. Little league, playing catch, take me out to the ballgame. For all the ills it's still a binding force. 90 feet between bases, sixty feet six inches from plate to mound, outfield dimensions vary, innumerable variables, can't tell you how many times I've heard an announcer say "I've never seen that before!", and they mean it. It's truly an amazing game. I listen to Vin Scully call games who's been around since the Dodgers were in Brooklyn and it's magical, he tells stories about racing Jackie Robinson on ice skates, and being in the clubhouse with Pee Wee Reese after Bobby Thompson hit the Shot Hear 'Round the Word'.

Baseball is an institution, and instant replay is going to degrade it to the level of football, which due to incessant commercialization is virtually unwatchable, thanks in part to instant replay, brought to you by ...

reply to post by DirtyD


Segregation did not make the game better. It inhibited it for decades. Off hand I cannot remember which player it was, I think Cap Anson - but one of the heavy handed segregation proponents was found, posthumously, to have kept a list of all of the black players that he wished he could have recruited.

As for the reserve clause? Here is a history of it. It was a horrible thing.

As for Chipper? I am an Atlantan. I live about 30 minutes from Turner Field - and that is only because of the heavy traffic here. It'd take me ten minutes to get there if there were no traffic... and Chipper has never been a personal favorite. To me he is this generations Dale Murphy.

reply to post by Hefficide


Whoa, edit to say the 'END" of segregation only made baseball better. Talk about your effed up typos.

reply to post by Hefficide


Are you saying that the reserve clause was bad, or that free agency is?

I know Chipper spent a lot of time on the DL, but he was a good, stand up player, devoid of scandal, and all around likable guy. Which considering this is a kids game, I feel is important. He's a role model, which there's a serious lack of nowadays. Like it or not, kids play sports and they look up to the professionals. It's better kids look up to the Chipper Jones' and Derek Jeters of the world, than the cheats like A-Roid and Ryan Braun.

Meanwhile, the Braves are on a tear, but my money's on the Dodgers.

reply to post by DirtyD


The rese4rve clause was an abomination that amounted to indentured servitude. When combined with the "Gentlemans agreement" between the owners - it meant that once a player was signed to a team, he no longer had any say in his career. He could only leave that team if the owner traded him... something the player had NO say in at all. This helped to keep the players salaries woefully low. Embarrassingly low.

The culmination of this low pay was the Black Sox scandal - as players were so desperate for money that they were driven to violate moral propriety in a myriad of ways.

Sadly abolishing the reserve clause then gave rise to todays problems... Once salaries could be negotiated and players could jump ship? The pendulum swung way too far the other way. Where players, once, had to play - even with broken bones - or literally not eat? Now a slightly swollen muscle can take them out of the game, on full salary for HUGE expanses of time.

This also gave rise to an unfair advantage to those teams that happen to be located in markets with wealthy residents. Thus the Yankees we have now. Teams that can buy Titles and Pennants through their salary pool. This also changed the tone of baseball from a game that was largely rural, in the early days, into a very cosmopolitan phenomenon. Long gone are the days when a poor region could field a home grown dream team.

Meanwhile the topic at hand is instant replay in baseball, I think it will drastically change the game to it's detriment. It's a sad day indeed.

And know that the DH in the NL is soon to come to an end with expansion of interleague play. Gone will be the games like we had on opening day when Clayton Kershaw pitched a complete game shut out while also knocking in the games' only run with a solo blast, first of his career. What a game.

Like I said, they're ruining baseball.

Throw out Bud Selig, put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame.

reply to post by Hefficide


If the Yankees have proven one thing, it's that money can't buy championships, they were beaten in 2001 and 2003 by teams with a fraction of the payroll. The Tampa Bay Rays are a great example of how to manage a team with a low payroll, they have such great reserves that they willfully traded Matt Garza and James Shields! Even the Yankees can't even afford that kind of talent due to their farm system being so depleted. What goes around comes around in baseball. For so many years the Yanks feasted off the Rays, then one year they fought back, and haven't stopped since.

Free agency is definitely better than the alternative, though the pendulum is swinging in the other direction with the latest PED scandal. Up next is an end to guaranteed contracts when PED's are involved, organizations will be able to void those contracts. The Yanks should be able to fire A-Roid, the Brew Crew should say sionarra to Braun, and it should be spread across the land that if you get caught cheating your career is over.

But of course, then there will be instant replay to eff everything else up. One step forward, two steps back.

reply to post by DirtyD


I have mixed feelings on instant replays. When they started in football there was a huge backlash. But now some of the most exciting moments in the games come from waiting for the decision on an instant replay.

If baseball is smart they'll use the tool wisely and only when there are horrible calls.

This might actually help some folks because I remember one Braves post season moment when my remote control was irretrievably shattered due to a bad call by an ump.

reply to post by Hefficide


Instant replay leads to more commercial breaks. As of now the only breaks in baseball are at the end of a half inning inning, and calls to the bullpen. Other than that, it's all on air. It there's a bad call and the players or managers come kicking and screaming, it's added entertainment. Long live the likes of Lou Piniella and Earl Weaver, characters like them will be destroyed in the era of instant replay.

How long is it going to take to get through the last three innings of a ball game with pitching changes and four guaranteed challenges? The average Yanks/Sox game is already over three hours, hell they have 9 inning games that routinely last near four hours. Add instant replay and a single game may take all day.

I hear your football argument, but I find the sport damn near unwatchable with all the commercial breaks nowadays.

As for destroying your remote, that's what baseball's all about, and what makes it so special. Bad calls have changed the course of history, for good or ill. That infield fly call in the NLCS last year was beyond reprehensible, but I'd rather have that than instant replay any day.

I'm a bit of a rarity - an Englishman who doesn't mind baseball.

I've liked baseball for a number of years but I've only just started watching it regularly this season and whilst I understand the rudiments of the game it's fair to say that many of the nuances baffle me, and it does seem overly obsessed with stats.

Video reviews of one sort or another are being introduced into almost every professional sport all around the world and have generally improved things.
Even football, not soccer, here the Premier League is introducing goal line technology despite resistance from leading administrators in UEFA and FIFA.

I can understand why there would be some suspicion over it's introduction to baseball but surely anything that helps reduce blatant errors is an improvement?
Perhaps an additional two reviews in the closing stages of a game is too much.
I'm sure it's benefits will be reviewed after it's implementation which will enable any 'fine tuning' that may be required to reach a happy medium that satisfies both the traditionalists and the 'progressives'.

On a more general note I find the constant interruptions in US sports in general quite annoying.
When covering US sports UK broadcasters do stop for advertisements but nowhere near as often as the US broadcaster who supplies the pictures. As a result we get treat to studio 'experts' analysing highlights / action etc, something that eventually just bores the tits off me.

reply to post by Freeborn


If it's any conciliation, I try to watch cricket and end up totally lost within about ten seconds.

baseball is such a dumb sport. They grab they're dicks, they chew tar, they get balls thrown at there bodies, and other than that they rarely ever score and not much ever happens in a game.

reply to post by Freeborn


Baseball = Stats. The game is a statistician's dream.

I'm pretty sure the only reason soccer isn't popular here in the states is that there aren't enough breaks in the game to shoehorn commercials into.

As a new fan, I implore you to watch a Dodgers home broadcast with Vin Scully commentating, it's pure magic stoked with nostalgia.

reply to post by Hefficide


Strange that you say that - it wasn't that long ago that I tried to explain the rules of cricket to someone, it proved pointless.

Cricket is an example of a sport that maybe baseball could learn a thing or two from.
Cricket is steeped in history and tradition, but it was heading towards being nothing more than a minority sport.
But it has moved with the times, new broadcasters have livened up TV coverage and a review system has been introduced, (not without a few teething problems but DRS is here to stay).
They have also introduced day / night one day cricket, coloured clothing and the introduction of Twenty20 cricket has been nothing short of remarkable.
New and innovative practices and approaches both on and off the field has helped popularize every format of cricket again - it helps that both England and my domestic team Durham both have half decent teams at present.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...