News that Major League Baseball has decided to expand its replay and review of close (and some not-so-close) calls seems a prudent move in light of recent controversies and technical advances. But, as with any corporate program designed to advance its interests, how customers will react is only one part of a complex equation that too often too heavily weights self-interest.
The official announcement from Major League Baseball is clear on this point. So as to make sure long games are not made longer, it is estimated that “the average video review would take one minute 15 seconds.” And challenges will be limited in number. Sounds good, until you reach the fine print:
“There is no provision to cover the possibility of an obviously blown call late in the game if the manager has used all his challenges. ‘We talked about that, and it may develop into that down the road,’ John Schuerholz, president of the Atlanta Braves said. ‘But we said, ‘No.’ Late-game situations, a manager is out of challenges, there’s a call that appears to be obviously incorrect — what happens then? I think managers will learn to judiciously use their challenges. The stats we have — only one missed call per five games is our data right now. So if you have three challenges, you should be able to cover those events you believe are critical to the outcome of your game.'”
With fans building out high definition, DVR-driven sports caves in their own homes where mistakes are magnified on ever-larger flat panel screens, there is an expectation that a bad call will be fixed.
That is the promise of replay, but not this particular program. Politics (the umpires and the players have to agree, once the owners do, to any program), economics (though baseball is a billion dollar business, owners have historically spent little that wasn’t public money), reputation (baseball owners promote their own version of noblesse oblige) and control (to give the unions a voice on one thing is to give them an opening on others) all play into it.
The hope is that replay 2.0 (following on the initial program allowing the review of home runs and line calls) will lead to replay 3.0 and create a game as free of error as it is free of drug use. Well, maybe replay 4.0
