by J. Mesa 

I gotta tell ya’ I like the idea of having instant replay for homeruns. Replay will help level the playing field and make the game more fair and legitimate. With MLB still feeling the fallout of the steroids scandal, what better way to help baseball and its fans heal than to do something to make the game more honest?

Fans already have the benefit of the jumbo-tron replay and we can all tell when the umps get the call wrong. Every fan in the yard sees it, every fan watching on TV sees in, but unfortunately, the three people on the field that NEED to see the play often get it wrong. It’s a lot of fun to second guess the umpire and with replay in the field we have a chance to call the ump wrong and we’d all be right.

 

I want to make it very clear that I draw the line at replay for homers only. I don’t believe that you can take the human element out of the game completely by having a machine call balls and strikes – baseball ain’t tennis. But having an infallible eagle-eye in the outfield will really add to the experience of watching a live MLB game.

How many times will we have to watch the same play unfold? A hitter nails one off the top of the wall and the umps call it a ground-rule double instead of a homer. That one run that was called a double can make the difference of hundreds or even thousands of dollars when playing MLB picks. We have seen replay help get the calls right for our NFL picks and NBA picks. We in the betting community should be pushing for replay.

The bottom line is that the umpires have been getting the calls wrong and a simple innovation like adding a camera to the outfield and hooking it up to a MLB-trained official somewhere in the stadium will get the calls right. Baseball fans should be pushing for replay.

With the black eye that MLB got from the high-heat delivered by the steroid scandal, this is a proactive means to help re-establish the integrity of the game. This one small change is not going to magically undo the entire steroids stigma, but it is a start. Baseball should be pushing for replay.

The likely obstacle for getting a replay system implemented is a handful of owners (read purists) that think we should keep the status quo - but that’s just not the game anymore. The game has changed.  We have the technology to get more calls correct. When the fans in attendance and at home get clear video proof of the right or wrong call, there is no denying the evidence.

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