The second use of instant replay in MLB occurred last night in the game between the Pirates and the Astros. As in its debut, the instant replay system worked smoothly and confirmed that the umpire crew’s original decision on the field was correct.Â
In this case, Hunter Pence hit a fly ball that landed on the padded yellow line at the top of the outfield fence at Minute Maid Park. The initial reaction of the players, umpires and Astros commentators was that it hadn’t gone for a home run and was a double, but it was a close call and so the crew chief decided to double-check the play.
The actual review took less than two minutes and it was just over two and a half minutes between the initial call on the field and the definitive call following the video footage being consulted. Part of the reason why the review was so quick was that it was obvious from the replay that the ball hadn’t gone for a home run.
I’m still a little undecided on the use of replay because this is a classic example of when the manager (Cecil Cooper in this case) probably would have just accepted the call a couple of weeks ago. With the replay system in place, Cooper went to the umpires and said that he “thought it was a home run”. Only he will know whether he truly thought it was a four-bagger. My gut feeling is that he thought it was a double, but as it was close then it was worth his while to ask the umpires to take a second look. You lose nothing for doing it, so why not give it a shot? That put an element of doubt into the umpires’ minds, prompting crew chief Tim Welke to make use of the technology “to make sure we [the umpires] got it right”.
I haven’t noticed any occasions so far where a manager has asked for the replay system to be used and the umpires have turned the request down (of course, managers don’t have the right to instruct umpires to review a decision). That’s going to be the acid test for how effective this system will be. If umpires always go to the video when a manager contests a home run call, just to “make sure” the decision was correct, then the system could end up being a real source of time wasting. So far, the actual time taken on the reviews has been very encouraging in regards to not delaying the game by too much; however problems could arise if the system is used on a frequent basis. If the umpires are confident enough to back their own decisions when they all believe they’ve got it right, the system should work fine.
The system did work well last night. Hunter Pence accepted his double and was very complimentary about the way the review was handled, but the commentators argued that he could have avoided the situation easily. “One more cheeseburger and it’s outta here”, they said.
Maybe Congress have been missing a trick by focusing all their efforts on steroids? Expect testing for performance-enhancing Big Macs to begin shortly.
