I believe that most of us can agree that having a replay system in the MLB was one of the greatest ideas ever in the history of the league, and why not? Having the ability to challenge a call on the field and having it go your way is great. Suddenly the umpires aren’t being put on blast by managers for making a bad call, so it even benefited them by making their job a little bit more comfortable.
Just imagine if the MLB would have had the replay system back on June 2nd, 2010 when Armando Galarraga was an out away from a perfect game and umpire Jim Joyce missed the call at first base ending Galarraga’s perfect game. It would have been a different story if a replay could have been used then, but with great benefits come great drawbacks, replay’s have also affected the game in another way.
Yesterday afternoon, I found myself watching the Braves vs. Giants game when center fielder B.J. Upton got upset over a called third strike. He then went on to argue with the home plate umpire and eventually Upton got ejected from the game. Here’s the thing that shocked me though, that ejection was the first ejection for the Braves this season, coaching staff included. Hall of fame manager Bobby Cox certainly wouldn’t be impressed as he owns a record that probably won’t ever be broken. Cox got ejected from a game 132 times as a manger, the most ever from any manager.
Before the replay system when an umpire missed a call we would see the managers race out of the dugout as soon as possible and start screaming to the umpire responsible for the call. Kicking dirt, spiking hats, and spitting while screaming was an extra that some fans enjoyed seeing. The purpose of this was for the manager to light a spark on his team and get them pumped and motivated to get a rally going offensively.
Now, with the replay system, if the managers don’t agree with a call they go out very slowly onto the field and approach the umpires as if they were having a friendly conversation until one of the coaches on the bench gives him the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” sign that means whether they should use their challenge on the field or not.
Very different scenarios don’t you think?
In other sport leagues like the NBA and the NFL instant replay is used and seems to work well, but in the MLB it takes away some passion and fury from the players and the managers. The one and almost only thing that can get argued about is the strike zone, we saw it happen with B.J. Upton and we’ve also seen other cases this year like when the Mets weren’t agreeing with the strike zone earlier in the season in a game against the Angels.
There is no replay allowed on strike or ball calls making it one of the few cases where replay can’t be used. That is why we are seeing ejections come via this argument.
There is no question that ejections have decreased from both players and managers because of the replay system, but now even the post game interviews are being altered. Remember when we couldn’t wait to hear what managers like Jim Leyland, Buck Showalter, and Joe Maddon had to say after a game where there was a missed call against them. Now they don’t have much to say about bad calls since the replay’s most of the time clearly show the right call.
Instant replay has achieved its goal to have the correct calls made on the field, but it has taken away those extra arguments between the managers and the umpires that go back ages and are part of the history of the game. Fans and ballplayers everywhere enjoyed when their manager went out, stood up, and protected their players, now it is becoming a lost art.