preview

Bring Instant Replay to Major League Baseball Essay

Good Essays

Major League Baseball (MLB) has been losing fans for several years. The average attendance for a MLB game has been decreasing for a number of years. If Major League Baseball would like to compete with popularity of professional sports such as Professional football (NFL) and Professional basketball (NBA), they need to embrace some of technologies that have made those sports so successful in recent years. Right now, MLB has a replay system used for determining home runs that are either fair or foul, whether the ball actually left the playing field or whether the ball was interfered with by a spectator. MLB should have an instant replay system that can be used for all judgment calls excluding ball and strike calls. MLB could adopt a …show more content…

MLB owners are paying too much for players, stadiums, amenities, etc. to put fans in seats and I cannot imagine they appreciate going to that level of effort so that the outcome of a game may get decided on a blown call by an umpire.
If speed of the game is the major sticking point against implementing a fully executable instant replay system, then why can’t other steps be taken to make sure the game doesn’t last too long? Why can’t MLB games last 8 innings, or extra inning rules be tweaked so that games don’t last too long. The NFL has taken steps to improve their product and some of those steps including shortening games and the NFL remain extremely successful.
Admittedly, implementing instant replay for all levels of baseball would be economically challenging. However, at the very least, instant replay should be implemented on the professional level where the athletes are being paid and millions of fans are paying to watch a good game.
A very recent and well known incident that occurred during the 2010 MLB season cost Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, a perfect game. The umpire, Jim Joyce who by all standards was considered a very good umpire, blew a call late in the game that he later admittedly blew. Had instant replay been a tool that would have been at his disposal, he could have gotten the call correct and sacrificed that incredible moment for Armando that has forever been lost.

Get Access