Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 04, 2008
Two Minutes

I made the mistake of writing last night that the review of A-Rod's home run took two minutes. It took two minutes to look at the video:

Rays catcher Dioner Navarro protested, bringing manager Joe Maddon out of the dugout. After convening, the umpires left the field to review the tape. They confirmed the call after 2minutes, 15 seconds.

"We all believed it was a home run," crew chief Charlie Reliford said, "but since the technology is in place we made the decision to use the technology."

So I'm not sure how much time this really saved. In the old case, the four umps would get together, say it was a home run, Maddon would argue for a minute and then walk away. Now, the umps had to decide if they wanted to look at the replay, which seemed to me to take longer than if they just decided it was a home run.

Getting the call right is a laudable reason to want instant replay. I just don't see a huge time savings. If the umps don't overrule a bad call because they can't tell from the video, the wronged manager is going to take the ejection and have his say anyway.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:32 AM | Umpires | TrackBack (0)
Comments

A lot of it depends on how long the opposing manager wants to argue. Is he doing it to fire up his team or to give his reliever more time to warm up? Or maybe he's had a bad day and just needs to unload. Or maybe it was a bullsh!t call.

Posted by: rbj at September 4, 2008 09:47 AM

So in other words, it isn't the replay which takes a long time, it's the whining and moaning of the managers who are doing it too seek an advantage for their team. If you're worried about the 'speed of the game', which not a lot of people in baseball seem to be, then simply limit the amount of time that a mananger can harang an umpire for.

Posted by: Hazey at September 5, 2008 07:13 AM
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