Op-Ed: Replay isn't the answer for Baseball

Every year it seems there are some commentators and analysts that believe Baseball should join the 21st century by adopting new rules that would bring the sport more in line with its brethren in professional sports

Often times it’s something called “Questec” which would override the home plate umpires when it comes to balls and strikes. This time after a spate of blown home run calls, the chorus of naysayers has decided that it’s time for Major League Baseball to adopt some version of an instant replay, and it appears Buddy Selig and his Keystone Kop collection of henchmen is beginning to fold under the pressure. If baseball adopts instant replay, it will mark a sharp decline in this great sport I have come to know and love. Baseball is great because in the grand scheme of things, the sport has not evolved from it’s humble beginnings. There are still 9 players on a side, there are still 3 strikes and you’re out. Men and women who watched the game 50, 60, 70 years ago may not recognize the players, but they would almost certainly recognize the game. Football, Basketball, and Hockey have all morphed from their humble beginnings into something completely different. In football, the forward pass was almost unheard of when the league began, then decades later, something called the West Coast Offense, a high powered passing game predicated on the short routes run by the receivers was all the rage. Today a new offense, “The Spread” has taken over the game, and there are teams that seem to have forgotten that running the ball, used to be a key element to any offense. Basketball began without a shot clock, it didn’t have anything called a “Three point line”. Both of those adoptions have changed the game forever, and have in fact changed the kind of players who play the game. Centers and Power Forwards now need to have an outside shot to be considered legitimate NBA prospects. Baseball has gone through exactly one large rule change in its last 80 years, that being the Designated Hitter (which should also be abolished, but that’s an argument for a different day) and it is the consistency of the sport that allows it to continue its rise in popularity year in and year out. Human error, and human judgement is as much a part of baseball as the home run, the stolen base, and the no-hitter. Certainly I’m not one to say that an umpire blowing a call is okay, but whenever an umpire makes a mistake, the correct course of action isn’t to try and add some new robotic piece of machinery to help the incompetent do his job, the answer, my friends is to find someone more competent.