Instant Replay in Baseball

With all the bad calls in baseball how can they not take advantage of the technology and use instant replay? I'm writing this on Friday morning so I don't know what happened in Friday's games but so far through the first two days of the playoffs there has been 4 horrible calls, 3 of which impacted the game in a huge way. The Yankees should have ended Game 1 of their series with a catch that was ruled a trap, luckily for them the final out, Jim Thome, was retired but he is an all-time great home run hitter who could have easily tied it up due to that bad call. It looked like Michael Young swung at strike 3 but it was ruled no swing and then he hits a 3-run homer and the Rays go on to lose game 2 6-0. The Twins were throwing Lance Berkman strikes down the middle and it would have stuck him out but they were called balls and he goes on to drive in the go-ahead run and the Twins lose game 2. And the one that infuriates me the most is Buster Posey obviously out trying to steal second base which would have ended the inning but he goes on to score the only run of the game. After the game he said, "I'm glad we don't have instant replay".

Not having instant replay is so stupid. I know there are people who say they don't want to slow up an already slow game, but I've got the perfect solution. I can solve all the problems with bad calls...it's so easy, and the thing is I haven't heard anyone talking about doing it this way.

It goes like this: you have 6 umpires at a game, 1st base, 2nd base, 3rd base, home plate, in the umpires dugout behind the backstop, and in the booth. If you've got HD you've seen how TBS displays where every pitch is located both high and low and side to side. This technology has been there for years just like how tennis uses computers to determine if a ball is in or out. All you have to do is use that computer and if it is a strike the scoreboard states that it's a strike. You put a scoreboard behind the backstop so the pitcher can see it and then the hitter and catcher can look at the ones in the outfield. The home plate umpire can just stand a couple feet behind the catcher so it won't look weird to watch baseball and his only duty is to make out or safe calls at home plate, and hit by pitch or did he foul it off his foot, etc. This is so easy, why have to suffer through bad ball and strike calls, use the computer!!

Then there's the calls like is he out at first or second, did he tag up, or did he catch the ball. For those the human umpires make the call. If there is a dispute about that call then the manager comes out to argue like he always has and while he is arguing the umpire in the booth is reviewing the replay, if it needs to be overturned then he calls the umpire located behind the backstop and he runs out onto the field to tell them to reverse it. This is so simple, you don't hold up the game and you still have arguing which a lot of people like in baseball. If in the umpires judgment the manager is coming out to argue to much with no results then throw him out of the game.

My solution is so simple if the morons running the game of baseball would just listen. There is no need to suffer through bad calls especially when everyone knows its a bad call. If this was the 1960s and no one really knew because there wasn't the right camera angle then who cares but today we've got all the cameras, all the technology, just get it right.

JB