Alright, I'm staying up tonight and catching the only late night baseball game happening, and it's the Padres and Mets. I'm pretty sick of watching the Mets at this point, but what am I supposed to do? They're the only game on right now. Anyway, during the broadcast, they brought up the fact that MLB is flirting with the idea of expanding instant replay. Call me old school, which you can freely do, but I can't stand the idea of replay in baseball. I understand it's usefulness on home run calls, because there's no umpire out there to get a good look at that ball traveling at a high rate of speed, weather it's a home run or not. I don't like it, but I understand how it's useful. My problem is that baseball isn't football. It isn't hockey. It isn't basketball. It's not tennis. It's baseball, the game that at it's core, is the best at keeping the game the same for it's entire life. The reason is so you can debate whether Joe DiMaggio was a better player than Mickey Mantle. Or Ted Williams compares to Hank Aaron. Or whatever you want to compare. Because I believe that this game is the closest you can get to transplanting players from generation to generation, because the game is quite similar to the previous generations. You cannot put a hockey player or football player or basketball player from today and put them in the league in the 50's, because they will be far and away superior an athlete. Johnny Unitas would be a furniture salesman in 2013.
(the irony of this post, as I've gone on to a tangent, is that there's a "disputed" home run call that's being reviewed by the umpires.)
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Anyway, there's an aspect of baseball that I believe we all should have to live with, as our fathers and grandfathers had to live with, and that's human error. I prefer an ump to blow a call every now and then. My team, the Braves, lost their season (sort of) last year on a blown call by an umpire. That's just the way it goes, man. Bummer. I love baseball and I want my team to win, but it's not, and should not be, the end of the world if your team doesn't win. It's just a game. I've grown so tired of the NFL, with constant analysis of every single play, every single little thing gets nitpicked to make sure the call is right. Who gives a shit? Just play the damn game. Quit worrying about what the ref called. If you don't want the referee to be a factor, play good enough that it doesn't matter if they blow a call against you.
Tony Gwynn is doing color analysis during this broadcast tonight, and he said he is a convert of the replay issue. He used to be against it, but is for it now because he doesn't want to see teams get screwed by bad calls anymore. Fine, I understand that argument, but he then sited the Armando Galarraga game for the Tigers, the game against the Indians a few years ago, where a blown call cost that kid a perfect game. He said if there wasn't a blown call, he would have a perfect game and we would remember that for the rest of our lives. Let me ask you, don't you remember it anyway? Perhaps, if you're like me, you remember it better because the incident happened? Baseball is a story, and people are around to remember those stories and tell others about it. If you love baseball, you love the human error aspect as much as you love a beautiful curve ball that cripples a batters knees. People make mistakes, and that's what makes baseball special, because it's played by people, not robots. Just because the technology exists, doesn't mean it makes the game better. Leave human error in the game, for the love of the game.
