Argument for Instant Replay gets stronger

1) Watch this video.

2) Tell me what you see.

If you saw the same thing I saw, you saw a) a short hop to Ryan Howard, b) no stepping on first base, and c) a throw wide of second base.

In theory, the Yankees should have bases loaded, one out, with Mark Teixeira at bat.


Instead, the play was ruled a double play--that Howard caught the ball and tagged the runner--and instead of being able to expand their lead and perhaps momentarily avoid using Mariano Rivera, the Yankees had to call on their 39 year-old closer for a 39 pitch save.

I was seated in the right field grandstand last night (check the photos from the post below), and, with Howard's back to me, I knew it was a blown call.

How did I know? If it really was a double play, Howard had utterly no reason to throw to second base.


It seems, that with every round there' yet another botched call, and each one increasing in severity after the last.

It has now gotten to the point where every play, even ones that should be utterly routine, have become the subject of much dissection.

Umpiring along with journalism has one single, cardinal rule: never become the story.

Alas, in the 2009 postseason, the umpires have.

La vie en bleu

If no one says anything, you know the umpires are doing their job.

As with any officiating, the most successful are those that go unnoticed, unheeded and forgotten as though they've never been there in the first place.

Alas, if this is the case, the MLB umpires responsible for officiating this postseason have done a pretty awful job.

It's so bad, received so much notice, that in last Sunday's New York Times, former commissioner Fay Vincent penned a column outlining the biggest problems with the current umpiring system, among them:

• Umpires are not trained by MLB but by a separate union entirely so MLB does not have control over what umpires do and do not call.

• Postseason appointments are not done on the basis of regular season performance as they are in football.

The outrage here isn't just that the umpires are blowing calls--blown calls are going to happen as they are part of the game--but that the blown calls haven't been particularly close. They have been relatively easy calls to make. If we, fans sitting on our couches or bar stools, can make the correct call with our own naked eyes, than shouldn't the umpires be able to do the same?

Replay on the bases would help, sure, but the calls being blown are calls that shouldn't need the aid of replay in the first place.

The teams still playing right now are the four best teams in the league, no question. They've made it this far in the postseason on the basis of solid play (for the most part, anyway); the reality that a season could be prematurely ended by a blown call is, alas, becoming a realistic possibility.

The Case for Instant Replay

The New York Yankess are 13-4 in their last seventeen games. On the surface, that's pretty impressive--but if you ask anyone, the Yankees should be better.

Some fans will tell you that the Yankees should be better than 13-4 because they are insatiable and anything less than a 162-0 season is a complete disaster.

They're loonies.

Other fans, however, will tell you that the Yankees very well could be 15-2 if not for some shoddy umpiring.

Now, while it's certainly a stretch to say that one blown call in the beginning or middle of a game can directly cause one team to win or lose, it is not a stretch to say that blown calls at the wrong time can be devastating.

Take, for example the 2007 one-game playoff for the Wild Card between Colorado and San Diego.

The game, if you remember, was won in extra innings when Matt Holliday slid home. Later replays, however, showed that Holliday never actually touched home plate, and that he should have been called out.

A blown call there cost San Diego the postseason.


There is, of course, a way to limit the damage of blown calls: instant replay.

Every major sport uses it at crucial moments; football is probably where it's most notable, and, in hockey, it was the difference in the 1999 Stanley Cup finals.

Baseball, on the other hand, has only just now begun to use instant replay, and here only for home run calls.

It's a start, but it's not nearly enough.

Any Yankee fan can tell you well enough that games are decided far more often on the base path than via the long ball. If Dave Roberts is called out in 2004...


In a number of recent games, blown calls, not just for the Yankees but for other teams as well, have come to light and with the use of replay by TV broadcasters, it becomes more and more frustrating for fans at the wrong end of the blown calls.


I am not advocating replay for balls and strikes--that would be ridiculous and the human element would be totally lost--but I am advocating a more expanded use of replay.

Close plays on the bases can either kill a rally or keep one going, and, at the very least, it is not fair to a pitcher, who may have, for all intents and purposes pitched himself out of an inning, to have to throw another six or seven pitches. Granted, it is the pitcher's fault if he can't work around a blown call, but the consequences can be quite the same as if a player in the field had made an error.

I keep trying to think of arguments against it, and I can't defend them.


Is not the idea here to keep the game's integrity up to snuff? Isn't this why spitballs and excess pine tar are banned and there are drug tests and gambling is forbidden? So the integrity of the game is not ruined?

Then why risk ruining it when the technology exists to correct calls?

I understand that the umpires don't want to lose their jobs, but isn't that the case normally, where if you don't do your job right, you lose it?

Then there's the question of the games then taking too long, but this is remedied with a situation a la the coach's challenge in football: you're only allowed a certain number of challenges, and if you get it wrong, you're penalized.

How could one be penalized? This is harder to answer. The one that makes the most sense, or seems to be most fitting, is that a manager that gets it wrong gets tossed. Fairly simple, no? At any rate that oughta set apart the managers willing to stand up for their players and those that are not.

At any rate, it's hard to argue against an expanded use of replay when so much is at stake.

Your Old Neighborhood Call

Although conversation on today's Yankees' game should be about Andy Pettitte and Brian Bruney struggling, it instead has managed to stay on the umpires and not just the calls that were made, but what happened after.

If you missed the game, here's what went down.

In the first, Derek Jeter works a lead off walk. He goes to second on a balk and then, perhaps inexplicably, on a 2-1 count attempts to steal 3rd.

He is called out, but a replay shows he slid in and although the throw beat him to the bag, the tag was never applied.

By official MLB rules, a tag must be made for the batter to be ruled out on such a play.

Now, much of the time--I'd say, perhaps 90%--if the throw beats the runner by any length of time before the batter gets to the bag, the batter will be called out even if the tag isn't applied. In baseball parlance, it's your friendly neighborhood call.

The unwritten rule, of course, is that as an umpire you never admit to it being a neighborhood call.

Today, however, when Jeter tried to plead his case, 3B umpire Marty Foster told Jeter (and this is according to Jeter's postgame interview) that "he didn't have to tag you"; that because the throw beat Jeter, that was enough.


It is, in my mind, like when a pitcher hits an opposing batter in retaliation for whatever: the unwritten rule is that you NEVER admit it.

Once you admit it, however, some sort of action must be taken.


Those were serious charges leveled by Jeter; it would be inconceivable if MLB stood pat and did nothing...but then again, stranger things have happened.

It is way too tempting to blame this one on the umps...(Postgame Notes 6 July 2009)

...but you can't.

The umpires today made three hideous calls, but it was the Yankees' job to pitch and hit around them.

Yes, Derek Jeter was safe on the attempted steal of third base, but he should have never attempted the steal with none out in the first place.

Yes, Derek Jeter's jump play should have been an out, but Andy should have still thrown a better pitch to Alex Rios.

On and on.

Ultimately, the Yankees' pitching is the culprit here; Pettitte had another shaky outing at Yankee Stadium and the Yankees have to be very concerned about Brian Bruney.

Mark Teixeira's been slumping something awful (along with Robinson Canó any time a runner is on second base), but these have been masked because on the whole the Yankees are scoring enough to win games.

In fact, despite being down 7-1 at one point, they nearly won again today. Alas, they simply ran out of outs.

Still, the Yankees have won 10 of their last 12.

Yes, there are some issues, but trust me. Things could be a lot worse.

Midnight for the Comeback Kids (Postgame Notes 09 June 2008)

After the dramatic wins on Thursday and Saturday, that today's game should have come down to the ninth inning should not be a surprise.

Alas, despite having the bases loaded with the tying run on third, the Yankees could not even the score, and once again fell back to .500.

The Yankees' loss today can in no way be put on the shoulders of Mike Mussina. Mussina was excellent--beyond, excellent even. Usually, when you pitch eight full innings and surrender only two runs (on one bad pitch), you will win the game.

Like Rasner's performance on Saturday, Moose was excellent, but done in by a lack of run support (which might be more a tribute to Luke Hochevar's pitching than anything else). If it's any consolation (and I'm not sure it is), Moose, at least, was not saddled with the loss.

In what was an uncannily similar performance to Saturday's, Mariano Rivera surrendered the solo home run before getting three quick outs. It is probably only fitting that the hitter of that home run was Jose Guillen, who has been killing the Yankees all weekend. Simply put, the Royals figured out that to win they had to pitch around Jason Giambi and the 'stache in the ninth. The Yankees forgot to do the same with Guillen.

The Yankees did not have a good offensive performance--only four hits--but Alex Rodriguez's home run in the seventh kept them in the game, and they had the bases loaded in the ninth, when Melky Cabrera just missed beating out the relay throw to first.

In the eighth inning, a blown call by first base umpire Ed Montague on a bunt by Melky Cabrera should be noted. Although the Yankees did not lose the game on the call, it may be argued that it took away the best chance the Yankees had at winning the game. Melky threw his helmet off in disgust, and was lucky not to get thrown out.

There's one thing that you can say about the Yankees' recent play--they've begun to show emotion, and life. When Rivera gave up the home run to Jose Guillen, the television replay showed him screaming in disgust (looked like a four letter word, but I don't lipread), before remembering that he was Mariano Rivera, the King of Cool.

When you show emotion like that, and remember to play all twenty-seven outs (as the Yankees have at last seem to be able to do), the wins will not be far off.