On Instant Replay

There are plenty of things wrong with Major League Baseball. The DH, the lack of some sort of salary cap, the lack of a rookie pay scale, the fact that teams can't trade draft picks, the fact that regular season awards are voted on after the playoffs. I could probably go on.

But certainly the easiest of all major problems to fix (except for that awards voting one) would be the issue of instant replay. Replay is currently used on disputable home runs. Why not use it for every close play (excluding balls and strikes)? Well maybe not every close play. Give each manager two challenges. That's enough such that a manager would not be afraid to challenge a call at first base early in the game (after all, how often do multiple bad calls go against you in a game?), but not so much that he would be throwing the red flag all over the place (I wouldn't want to be without any challenges left late in the game). If you are concerned about the time replay would add to the game, consider the time it would save by eliminating manager arguments and tantrums (although now that I think about it, maybe we don't want to get rid of those). Maybe you make it so there is a penalty if a manager challenges and loses. Maybe 2 automatic balls to the next hitter. I don't know. That's just off the top of my head. A replay system would be easy to devise, and easy to implement.

And don't try to tell me about the "human" element that the umpires add to the game. A catcher having an arm just strong enough to throw out a runner trying to steal second--or the runner being just fast enough to beat that throw--that is the human element. The "human" element comes from the players. Not the umpires. When you try and justify bad calls by saying it's the "human" element, what you are really justifying is the "unfair" element.

Also don't try to tell me that adding replay would be embarrassing to the umps. No. What's embarrassing to the umps is a bad call getting replayed over and over, with the umpire's name attached to it forever. Replay will save umpires embarrassment. Loads of it. Because embarrassment stems from bad calls. And replay would basically eliminate bad calls. Think about that.