Starting August 1st, Major League Baseball will most likely begin using instant replay to review so called boundry calls. The decision comes on the heals of several blown home run calls over the course of the still relatively young baseball season. While at first glance the move appears to be a rare quick step in the right direction for baseball, I believe it is a big mistake.
Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of replay in baseball. The more often that the reight call is made the more fair and therefore better the game is. What I do not like is the idea of changing the rules mid-season. One year ago today the Cubs were 6.5 games out of first place in their division. Using that as a guideline as of the start of play today 18 of the 30 MLB teams are still in contention. With replay not entering until after two-thirds of the season has been played you are unfairly punishing teams who were unfortunate enough to have calls go against them early in the year as opposed to down the stretch. A blown call against team X early in the year coupled with a corrected call in favor of the club that team X is chasing creates a two game swing. Five teams finsihed within two games of their division leader last season (two of them did claim wild card births). Six times since the 2000 season there has been at least one team that finished only one game behind their division’s leader. Therefore changing the rules midseason and potentially changing the outcome of one game could have an impact on the playoffs; just ask last year’s Padres.
The baseball season is a marathon, and you cannot change the rules mid-race. If baseball does activate replay on August 1st, not only will the teams that benefit from it have had a fair advantage, but not every team will have played the same number of games. The only fair way to instate instant replay is to wait for next season.
