Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, the Mets’ Carlos Delgado hit a home run off the foul pole. (Shouldn’t it be called a fair pole?) Only, it wasn’t ruled a home run. Umpires huddled and incorrectly decided the ball went off the wall, despite the millions of viewers who witnessed the ball carom off the pole.
The play has sparked a plethora of discussion about implementing instant replay in baseball. It’s about time. But what about other sports? Remember when UCLA basketball benefited from a series of “controversial” calls this past season?
The Bruins were fortunate replay wasn’t around then, because even a brief glance at those plays confirms that Josh Shipp’s game-winning shot against Cal illegally sailed over the backboard, Darren Collison’s shot was cleanly blocked against Stanford, and there was a foul or two on the final play of their great escape against Texas A&M in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Yet Shipp’s shot counted, Collison went to the line and sank two free throws, and no official blew his whistle as the Bruins marched on to Phoenix and then San Antonio. What if it were USC that gained from such officiating blunders?
The simple function of the officials is to enforce the rules. When they can’t do that ““ and they can’t always do that for legitimate reasons ““ there should be a backup system. There is too much on the line ““ legacies, jobs, millions of dollars, the mental health of fans ““ not to call a contest accurately. It is embarrassing that, in the age of DVRs, RSS feeds and GPS systems, we can’t use a simple video replay system to assist officials. Even in sports with instant replay, some of these calls aren’t subject to review.
Non-reviewable? Nonsense.
Not using replay is like hand-making every car and overlooking the fact that the errors could be eliminated through automation. Maybe we shouldn’t use computers to fly planes either.
The NFL has the most prominent replay system in major athletics. Unfortunately, its cumbersome hooded-booth replay model has left a bad taste in every fan’s mouth. That primitive system, which affords viewers enough time to brew their own beer, involves an often-fatigued game official taking a long jog over to watch a tape of the play. This has deterred the implementation of replay in other sports because of concerns over time and the interruption of game flow.
Ironically, we should look to the struggling sport of professional tennis for a fluid and logical model.
To monitor close serves, tennis introduced laser technology that would make Doctor Evil envious. Who knew the human eye could misjudge a small spherical object traveling at 130 miles per hour? Players simply say “challenge,” the line replay is immediately generated on the big screen, and the chair umpire then makes a correct ruling.
The tennis model is the wave of the future. Doesn’t it make more sense to apply technology and equip the officials with earpieces to communicate? A review could then be reduced to a matter of seconds while a replay official watches two or three angles in the same breath it takes to display them in your living room, then utters the call directly into the ear of the on-field official. Done.
Basketball is more complex because the constant game flow makes challenging non-fouls difficult, for example, but all of these issues could be ironed out. It’s time for basketball to join the 21st century and launch a viable replay system. This would help put an end to a disproportionate number of free-throw attempts for home teams and big men being unjustly saddled with foul trouble in NCAA tournament games.
Given the success UCLA had this season from, well, incorrect calls, some might not be so hasty to vote for replay.
But next time the Bruins might not benefit from a bad call, they might be the victims.
E-mail Taylor at btaylor@media.ucla.edu.