Why MLB Doesn't Need Instant Replay

Before everyone gets riled up and calls me prehistoric (I prefer "purist", but whatever), I think MLB needs replay for home-run and foul calls. The A-Rod homer incident of a few nights ago is inexcusable when replay is available. A mistake like where the ball hit in relation to the top of the wall or the foul pole should be quickly reviewed and the right decision made.

However...

Opening the Pandora's Box of replay to MLB could do more damage than it would prevent. Think about how often controversial homer and foul calls are made: infrequently. Now how many times are those calls made incorrectly? Not often. I agree that its unfortunate when they're made, but the volume of incorrect calls is negligible. Though I don't watch a huge number of games, I can't remember a call like this that decided a game.

If replay is allowed for a few instances, it will soon be requested for others. Take, for example, an aggressive slide into home on a walk-off single. These calls are exciting as much for the action as they are for the umpire's call. Baseball, if still "America's past-time", is founded as much on Americana as it is on the assumption that well-trained umpires make the right decision most of the time. To bog the game down with second-guessing of every close call would kill baseball. Imagine a coach, every time its a close call at first or a near-miss catch in center, could request replay analysis. Games would go from 3 hours to 5 in a heartbeat. You thought pitchers tossing the rosin bag or batter waggling and tightening gloves extended game times? This would be much worse.

The fact of the matter is that baseball cannot afford to tinker with their formula. If replay for limited use could assuredly be only used for those purposes and the slippery slope of "progress" be made slipless, replay could serve a quasi-important function in the game. But amid a steroid scandal that has ripped most of the sentimentality from the game, baseball must preserve their last bastion of faith in human judgment, and allow umpires the discretion to make technology-free calls, believing that they will be correct more often than they're wrong.