Bad Call!
Posted On Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at at 7:32 PM by Francis Isberto
What's with the MLB Officiating nowadays? I know they are just human and are prone to commit mistakes but this has to stop at some point.
One of the questionable calls in Game 4 of the ALCS occurred in the fourth inning when the Yankees' Nick Swisher tagged up at third base and tried to score on a fly ball hit by Damon to center field Tori Hunter.
After Swisher crossed home plate, Hunter pointed for his team to appeal at third base on grounds that Swisher left the bag too early. Third-base umpire Tim McClelland agreed and the run was disallowed.
But television replays indicated that Swisher might have properly kept his foot on the bag until the ball landed in Hunter's glove.
According to Tori Hunter, Swisher was gone when he got the ball. In his peripheral vision he saw Swisher move.
But why should 3rd base umpire McClelland base his call on a appeal of an MLB player (and the opposing team at that). McClelland should make his call base on what he saw from his ground.
After the game, McClelland admitted he botches both calls at third. "I'm out there trying to do my job the best I can. Unfortunately, by instant replay, there were two missed calls," he said. But it hasn't just been one game. The Baseball play-offs this year have been riddled with questionable calls, and downright wrong ones by the umps.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL) has implemented instant replay. In fact in the NFL, Team Head Coach can challenge the call of the referee by checking on the replay. If the replay is according to what the Team head coach saw, then the referee stands corrected and he will automatically reversed the call in favor of the arguing team head coach. But if the replay shows that the call of the referee is right, the team head coach's team will be charge with a timeout. Meaning the team will have one less timeout. You see it works both ways. If the Referee makes a wrong call and was stand corrected base on instant replay, the league will take notice of that and will keep an eye on the performance of that referee. And at the same time the Team head coach gets penalized with a timeout for doubting the call of the referee.
It work wonders with the NFL. I don't see why we can't do it in MLB. Some people argue that implementing instant replays will slow down game. Well it might but it's better to see a slow game than a game that has a lot of lousy calls by the umpires. Do you agree?
Currently MLB only allows the use of instant replay to confirm that home runs were fair balls, or that they cleared the outfield wall. But the MLB should strongly consider allowing the umpires to check on their calls. People are losing faith nowadays and sometimes the wrong calls of the umpires causes fights and brawls. It's getting ugly and we need to use modern technology. It's not that the technology will take over the umpires. Technology is just there to help and guide the umpires. It's still the umpires who will make the call.
Hope MLB is hearing me out on this.