Thursday

The topic for today is instant replay in Major League Baseball. And thoughts on other types of regulatory control.

The boys in blue (the umps) have had a tough time of it in the play-offs this month. Replays have shown numerous blown calls on not just bang-bang plays at first base, but on fair/foul calls on balls hit down the lines, force outs, tag outs, and one bizarre play the other night at third base in the Yankees-Angels game. With the blanket coverage on the live TV broadcast, endless replays on Sportscenter, and the chorus of calls for justice on sports talk radio, baseball has a problem.

I haven't followed the games close enough to know if any of these blown calls have decided a game or not. (I did see where a blown ball-strike call by the home plate ump in tonight's game cost the Angel's starter his place in the game.) But the use of instant replay in virtually all of the other pro sports (and for home run calls in MLB), almost demands that baseball look at ways to improve this area of the game.

Old School baseball people (me included) are reluctant to change the game. Of all the major sports, baseball, much more so than the others, has resisted change. (For example, traditionalists continue to maintain that the Designated Hitter cheapens the game.) Although the game's stewards have followed the Sirens' enchanted song to a longer season and TV money, they still use the wooden bats and the heater is still king. And if the ball easily beats the runner to the bag, I am not terribly troubled if he's called out, even if the fielder's swipe misses the tag. That's part of the game.

But just as basketball can go to the replay to see if a shot beats the buzzer, and football can review many of the calls, baseball needs to do something. There's no reason why replay shouldn't be used on fair/foul issues. Maybe tag outs. Maybe tag up disputes on sacrifice flies. Not balls and strikes. I don't think first base outs. And I don't want a darn computer telling me if the shortstop stayed on the bag long enough on a double play. It's a slippery slope.

(The cynic in me wonders whether the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson might implore the President to intervene here for what must surely be discrimination. I mean the umps are calling people out. You don't call these good people out. If they want to stay in the closet, that's their choice.)

Moving on...

I had planned to comment on the recent news about government limiting executive pay, but it has gotten a little late on me. Suffice it to say, this is a political issue. (If you put the math to the Cash for Clunkers program, you're talking about billions spent gratuitously with little to show for it. But great press reviews. And the proposed $250 per retiree Social Security payment is nothing but a bribe to AARP.) There has been Infernal (sic) Revenue Code and Treasury regulatory guidance that has limited officer compensation in certain situations forever. I think that the Administration is really now talking about the Wall Street compensation limits in almost a penal sense. Another slippery slope. As the esteemed Charles Barkley said, "I ain't never got a job from a poor guy."

And to bed.

BCOT