Major League Baseball and instant replay (BTW: Happy Birthday, USA)

I begin by, first, saying, "Happy Birthday, United States of America!" - now that that's out of the way...

I was lucky enough to be able to attend today's Boston Red Sox/ New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium.  July 4th is meaningful in Yankee Stadium history: Lou Gehrig gave his farewell speech in 1939 and Dave Righetti threw a no-hitter against my beloved Red Sox in 1983. Today was like any other game except that this is the last Fourth of July game to be hosted in the "House that Ruth Built."

However, I digress...

For me, I'll remember this game as the last day I opposed instant replay in Major League Baseball.

It's the bottom of the ninth inning with the Yankees trailing the Red Sox 6-3. With two outs, sitting at second base is Brett Gardner and at the plate, Derek Jeter. Jeter hits a drive out to center field where Boston's Coco Crisp came on hard and fast to make a fantastic diving catch to end the game. 

Oh, wait a minute...

Third base umpire Wally Bell ruled that the ball was trapped instead of caught allowing a run to score and Jeter ends up at the recently vacated second base with an RBI* double. It also gave the Yankees an opportunity as the tieing run came to the plate (Abreu flew out to center, Sox win 6-4). 

The game should have ended there.  But it didn't - thanks to a bad call by an umpire. This season alone, home runs have either been awarded or stripped because of errant officiating. The talk to bring instant replay to baseball is far greater this year than at any other time in history and now, I'm on board. 

If instant replay was made available back in 1996, the 'home run' that Derek Jeter hit during the playoffs would have instead been ruled fan interference. Same thing with the Cubs in their post-season appearance back in 2003 - the umpire ruled there was no fan interference. Is it a home run? Was the runner safe? And now Crisp's amazing catch will now be remembered as the catch that wasn't. If instant replay was available, the umpires would know that Crisp indeed made the catch, an amazing catch - game over.

I've always been a big fan of keeping baseball pure even if that meant that a call would go against my team. Some refer to it as the human element. I think of baseball as an allegory for life but the games do matter to the teams playing them. it also means even more during the post-season. We need to make sure the right calls are being made. 

I can no longer in good conscience stand in the way: Bring instant replay to baseball.

'Nuf sed...

 

*For you non-baseball types, Run Batted In...