I'm okay with this decision. I can't remember another controversial call being overturned and ending the game. That's baseball.
You wouldn't say that if you were an owner. Selig is great for making these guys money, but he's also great at alienating the core consumers. How about someone create a facebook group to shift the boycotts of BP gas stations (which only hurts the mom & pop shopkeepers) to boycotts of MLB games. Hey, MiLB is a better value and more entertaining anyway.
Again you are caught up in the moment, the spectacle, the charade. There is nothing tangible about this moment if the Perfect Game does not stand. You feel a loss of something important, you feel empathy for the young man who had perfection taken away from him blatantly, and you wish for peace in your own mind. There can be no exceptions made for these kinds of errors. We are good at revising history, but not right after it happens. Jim Joyce made a bad call, he owned it. The pitcher handled it with class, Bud Selig upheld the integrity of not only baseball, but all professional sports by standing by a ball judgement call. All 3 behaved admirably after the fact, I thought. Kudos to baseball.
I agree, for the most part...but I want to see changes. There are crappy calls all the time in baseball and its the same thing year after year after year. Something like last night cannot happen again. Changes need to be made from now, moving forward. Its on Selig to make it happen now.
Reminds me of when the Astros lost a playoff game when Craig Reynolds was safe at first and the ball was clearly still in the air, but he was called out. I can still see that picture from the Chronicle in my mind....and the title on the sports page was something like "We were robbed !" DD
What does "replay" or "video verification" do for any sport? Even with that, the officials can make a bad call. How many times have NFL refs made a bad call even after we see it on the replay and they get a chance to review it? I, for one, hate any type of "review" crap. Depending on technology to save an ump's call is like sitting there and making everything come to a call as close as possible so that they can be saved by a video camera. Down with technology in sports. Keep them clean. Too late for the major sports. Is Major League Soccer next?
It allows for the outcome of games to be based on the play of 2 teams instead of the decision of a referee.
None of the other umps would have had a more clear view than the 1st base ump because it's not their job to be watching the foot and the ball. They could have overturned it, but it would have been based on "we want this guy to have a perfect game", not on "I saw the play clearly". As for balls/strikes, why exempt those? I understand logistically, it's a nightmare. But there is an official strike zone, and the pitch track technology allows us to know exactly whether a ball fits inside the strike zone or not - so while it's a judgment call, there is an absolute right answer, just as is the case for the foot hitting the bag. If the goal is absolute accuracy, why the exemption here? In fact, we could just remove that from the ump's job - just have the pitch tracker installed at every stadium and have it announce balls and strikes. Then you never have any issues with ball/strike calls.
And how many times has a call been overturned in the NFL? How many turnovers - critical, game-changing plays - have been reversed due to replay? I find it bizarre that anyone would prefer to have more opportunities for teams to get screwed over by bad calls.
But technology offers us something we never had before... a completely unbiased opinion, the truth. What really happened. It is almost impossible for us as fallible human entities to resist using such a tool. It improves the game by adding a mediator, it takes some of the pressure off the officials, who are more and more scrutinized as the games became more and more public and popular. What we are dealing with now is the difference between going back and altering a game that has already been played, and being able to make a snap decision on a quick play IN REAL TIME. Now I watch a lot of NFL football, and in the NFL, you have bang-bang plays that are nearly impossible to correctly rule on even after viewing a slow motion replay nonstop for 2-3 minutes. There are always going to be differences of opinion, but more often than not, a team that is on the wrong end of a challenge is going to live with the outcome a lot better knowing they at least were given a chance to state their case and have their case heard. Again, judgment calls are an entirely different matter, you can review a fumble or a downed ball or a homerun or a last second shot to check for accuracy because these are crucial moments in a game, and getting the right call is more important than wasting a few minutes of everyone's time. The fans in general understand this, and this is why instant replay has been widely successful in the NFL since it was brought back in 1999, after Jets QB Vinny Testaverde famously came up a full yard short of a TD, but was given the touchdown signal anyway, screwing the other team out of a playoff berth. Instant replay adds a lot to professional sports.
Now we would not want that!!! sincerely, I wonder. Does Pre-Steriod Clements get that call or Pedro Martinez or Pettit or some BIG NAME pitcher Rocket River
