Upon further review
Baseball is going to video replay on a specific few calls this weekend. But you have to read way, way down in this AP story to find the bad news:
“Replays of the boundary calls will not be shown on stadium video boards, MLB executive vice president for baseball operations Jimmie Lee Solomon said.”
So in other words, the people sitting at home on the couch watching the game on television will know more about what’s going on than the people in the ballpark? What else is new? It’s been going on for years in sports and it’s ridiculous. A player leaves the game with an injury — if you’re watching on television, you almost immediately know the problem. If you’re at the ballpark, though, you’re often mystified.
What are they worried about in this case? The only thing I can figure is that they are concerned that replays in baseball are going to be just as difficult to interpret as they are in football and that fans, players and managers are going to be just as steamed AFTER replay rulings are made as they were before they were made. A lot of the video is anything but conclusive.
Or perhaps baseball’s poobahs are hoping that in the five minutes of absolutely dead time while umpires vacate the field to look at a monitor, fans will head to the hotdog stands in droves and increase revenue.
But overall, I don’t side with all those people who want to embrace umpire ineptitude as part of the game. It’s not. If hockey, basketball and football can use replays in an effort to get the calls right, baseball can, too. Every effort should be made to get the calls right. Period.
And fans in the ballpark, if you get a little bored waiting for the umps to return from their man cave/TV room, be patient — I’m sure someone will shoot you a few cheesy T-shirts out of a bazooka.
Baseball | Dwight Jaynes | August 27, 2008
i’ve been scouring the internet looking for a t-shirt gun to give you for a christmas gift this year.
so far no luck.
still working on it.
Ben,
All ya had to do was ask.
http://thestore.gameops.com/Shirt_Launchers_and_Cannons_s/8.htm
Love the blog Dwight.
John
This is one more instance of MLB having no respect for it’s fans. Are they trying to convince us it’s better to stay home and watch on TV?
No, of course they aren’t. To be honest though, I am worried about replays taking upwards of five minutes to review. Baseball games, especially at the major league level, are dragging on too long most of the time as it is. It would be much better to perhaps test this in the winter leagues and ’09 spring training, instead of rushing into, at least at the start, a limited number of stadiums in the final weeks of this season.
I think Ol’ Bud is in a big hurry to try and make it appear as though they are fixing some problem that threatens to bring down the game.
Do they still play baseball? I turned it completely off this year and haven’t missed it a bit…
Bud Selig is completely useless.
t