Joe Torre says MLB will delay expanding replay for a year, but this actually sounds like a good thing:
However, in the wake of last fall’s playoffs, Torre said it became evident that expanded replay should be all-encompassing rather than incremental. He cited one play in particular — a blown call in the American League championship series, in which Omar Infante of the Detroit Tigers was called safe at second base when replays clearly indicated he had been tagged out.
“We’re not going to get caught in the trap of doing something if we don’t feel what we’re doing is enough,” Torre said.
So it appears MLB decided to go for broke and review everything that is reviewable. I can wait a year for that.
Finally a decision by MLB I agree with.
That nonsense of umpires leaving the field to review calls has to end though, hopefully.
Also, I worry about undue influence on whomever reviews the call. It appeared to me that the home announcers would try to influence a decision by giving their opinion on the replays (even if it ran counter to what you saw, and in some cases limited the camera angle views, say hey NESN).
I don’t know if the umps get the audio of the replays or have control over the camera angles they get to see, but these are issues if they do and don’t.
However these calls are made, there has to be more transparency.
pft » In general, the local announcers are pretty good on replays. More often than not, they look at the call, and if it goes against what they originally thought, or goes against their team, they say so. I don’t think that’s the problem.
I do agree that a separate replay umpire would be a good thing, so there is less delay. The delay, however, might give the people back in New York time to cue up all the angles, so it might not save that much time.
pft » By the way, Jerry Remy was one of the few people who thought the A-Rod glove slap was a good play.