Watching portions of the Detroit Tigers-Minnesota Twins game on Wednesday night, the perfect reason baseball needs unlimited instant replay took place in the sixth inning.
With one out and a runner on first, the Tigers’ Johnny Damon hit a deep drive to left center. The Twins’ Denard Span appeared to make a nice running catch, taking two steps before attempting to throw the ball back to the infield.
But Span lost the ball when he tried to transfer it from his glove. Third base umpire Paul Emmel ruled that Span didn’t make the catch and Twins manager Ron Gardenhire immediately came out to argue the call.
After Gardenhire had a brief discussion with Emmel, the umpiring crew convened.
The umpires ruled Span hadn’t held the ball long enough for an out, and Gardenhire began to argue with home plate umpire Gary Darling, doing so to the point to get himself ejected.
The play proved to be costly for the Twins as the Tigers scored six runs in the inning to take an 11-6 lead, eventually winning the game by the same score.
“The replay showed he caught the ball, took three steps and dropped it when he went to take it out of his glove to throw it. That’s all there is to that,” Gardenhire said following the game.
Whether Span actually made the catch or not isn’t necessarily the point.
The fact that umpires didn’t have an opportunity to review the play under baseball’s limited use of the system prevented them from making an informed decision.
Umpires are going to make mistakes, potentially hundreds of them throughout the course of the season.
The question becomes why baseball appears to be so afraid of getting every call right.
No, replay shouldn’t be used for balls and strikes, but close plays at every base, fair or foul balls and whether players made catches or not should all be reviewable.
One of the arguments against baseball using unlimited replay has been a concern over slowing down the game.
That’s laughable, considering the average baseball game takes over three hours to complete.
A perfect example of the amount of time it would take to review a play occurred during the Twins-Tigers game.
From the moment Emmel ruled that Span hadn’t made the catch until Gardenhire was ejected, nearly five minutes elapsed.
In those five minutes, an umpire could have reviewed the play and made an informed decision.
Fears of slowing down an already slow game is just another excuse MLB has made to cover up the real issue.
Baseball purists like to point out that using instant replay takes the human element out of the game.
But removing humans from the equation is exactly why replay is needed.
Humans don’t always have the ability to make correct decisions on close plays during a game, so why should baseball continue to entrust umpires to do what they’ve proven they can’t do?
The NFL has employed an effective use of replay for years and it hasn’t proven to be a detriment to the game.
Fans may not like a call that goes against their team, but they can take consolation in the fact that at least the play was reviewed and the correct call was made.
If baseball would adopt that mentality, all the fears of slowing down the game will quickly vanish.
Making the right call is good, it makes fans happy and it prevents unfair advantages.
What’s wrong with that?
Nothing.
