Think hard. Do you really want to watch baseball this way for the rest of your life?
MLB’s new, expanded replay rules were born last month. But they were conceived on June 3, 2010, the day after first base ump Jim Joyce’s atrocious, two-out safe call cost Detroit’s Armando Galarraga a perfect game.
Never — the public, the media and MLB concurred, determined with a holler — should such a thing be allowed in an age of everything’s-televised, taped and quickly retrieved technology. Egregiously wrong calls — no matter how rare — can, should and must be corrected before the next pitch is thrown.
And so here we are.
And now, one month in, with everyone given dozens of chances to see the new TV replay rules at work, how many times have you seen it used as intended, to correct a terrible call?
Once? Not yet?
The overwhelming application of this replay rule — and the same happened and still does with the NFL’s version — is it quickly and predictably has not met either its need or demand. And that’s not likely to change, not unless common sense suddenly becomes common.
Monday, during the Orioles-Red Sox telecast on MLB Network, a close play at first instigated a replay conversation between two of the best baseball minds ever paired, Bob Costas and Jim Kaat. They discussed “conclusive evidence.”
Of course, as seen for 25-plus years during NFL telecasts and now in MLB telecasts, “conclusive evidence” on close plays often is more a matter of opinion than fact. Like a verdict being vacated on appeal, one judge’s conclusive evidence is another’s reasonable doubt.
But what was disappointing Monday was Costas and Kaat even bothered to have this discussion when the far bigger picture was there to be seized:
Was this the kind of play the outraged populace wanted MLB to inspect? And if not, why have such plays quickly become the new rules’ most frequent — and by far — target?
Even the nothing-to-lose challenge — same as the NFL’s — defies the silly support of MLB’s replay rules as “important to get it right.” These worth-a-shot stoppages are predicated on, “Ya never know what someone else might think is right,” not on “getting it right.”
And even the NFL’s endless work-in-progress replay rules don’t provide the officials’ next guess what would have, might have happened had the original call been different. But MLB’s does. That’s progress? Guesswork is getting it right?
Finally, this question: Are such frequent stoppages for a downtown Manhattan umpiring crew to examine video evidence of could’ve-gone-either-way calls how baseball fans want to watch baseball from here to eternity?
Not I, brother. Call me crazy, but I wanna watch baseball.
Lines of bad taste are blurry
When did wrong become right, but only depending?
First, David Ortiz, following the Boston Marathon bombing, hollers “F—k!” into a microphone in front of tens of thousands, and he’s celebrated as if he said and did something heroic, as if he’s Nathan Hale.
Next, the Mets invite gutter rapper 50 Cent to perform after a Saturday game. But then the Mets encouraged Matt Harvey to remove from Twitter a photo of him giving the finger before his shoulder surgery, as it sends “the wrong message” to kids.
♦ An Internet promo for ESPN’s “E:60” series informed us that “Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith perform a powerful version of their iconic anthem, ‘Dream On,’ paying tribute to the Boston Marathon bombing victims and survivors.”
The promo concludes, “For newly announced tour dates, go to Aerosmith.com.”
♦ Final exams at UConn begin May 5. UConn’s men’s basketball program has had an atrocious, shameful academic history, the last two-plus decades, among the worst of the worst.
Yet, the NCAA championship team, which hadn’t missed enough school since October, last week was at Fenway to throw out the first ball.
♦ Late in the first period of Thursday’s Bruins-Red Wings on NBCSN, Detroit’s Brendan Smith was whistled for interference against his brother, Reilly. Doc Emrick then said that the power play is not sponsored “by cough drops.”
♦ With MLB having every manager, coach and player wear No. 42 on the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first MLB game, reader David Distefano suggests a salute to Secretariat, the 1973 Kentucky Derby winner, during Saturday’s running: “All the horses will wear 1A, as did Secretariat.”
No more excuses for Giants’ Hill after latest incident
Giants defensive back Will Hill, such a chronically bad act at Florida that he went undrafted — the father of four kids by three women before the age of 22, last year arrested for non-support — may be permanently cooked after another failed drug test. If so, what do I do with all these seasonal TV and newspaper clips, those claiming Hill “has turned his life around”?
♦ On YES Thursday, David Cone went Don King on us, coming up with a new word. Of CC Sabathia he mentioned “the mindset that CC has boughten into.”
♦ Wednesday, while giving scores from other games, Suzyn Waldman first told us the Rangers beat the A’s 3-0. That was it. She did not mention the remarkable: Martin Perez pitched his second straight complete game shutout. But to the next score she gave, Arizona 7-5 over the Cubs, she added details.
♦ Saw where Michael Pineda’s cheating suspension brought to mind over-aged NYC 2001 Little League star pitcher Danny Almonte. But he was even easier caught than Pineda. He was the only kid attending Junior High on the G.I. Bill.
♦ Just wondering: If you walked into your friend’s house and he said, “The Yanks [or Mets] just overcame a three-run deficit to knot the score,” would he still be your friend?