I’m a purist of sorts; I love baseball for it’s undeniable human element. At least 51% of that human element is made up of the fallibility of the umpires — they’re going to collectively make one mistake minimum in each game they officiate. Sure, the fact umpires aren’t perfect affects me when a call goes against the Sox or when the course of the game is obviously altered, but it doesn’t mean I love that part of the game any less than the athleticism, atmosphere, and culture. This is where my line in the sand is drawn when it comes to instant reply.

Now there are doubtless benefits to being able to review a play and ensure the most fair decision was made, but is it worth taking away an aspect of the game that’s been in place for more than a century?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t fix a broken system, but is this system actually broken? By now mistakes are a part of the game — a good manager should anticipate the other team getting some sort of trivial advantage by virtue of an ump’s mistaken call. An umpire’s humanity is just as much an element of the sport as infield flys and ground rule doubles, no?

In a report this morning, ESPN says that a memo going around the League is offering instruction on a potential instant replay plan that could be established this season. Under the plan, only umpires could initiate a review of the play. Taking away a manager’s challenge does make the system seem less invasive to the game’s integrity, but will an umpire truly self-initiate?

To me it seems that the umpire would only be calling for a review should a manager challenge the call on the play — that only makes sense as it’s not often umpires reverse decisions without being called to task by a player, coach, or manager. All this memo outlines is added bureaucracy to give the appearance of a tamer review method. It’s not at all tamer, though, and this will only be a gateway to a more automatic governance of the play on the field.

This season’s plan is limited only to home run calls, and honestly, if we were to review anything, home runs seem pretty innocuous enough. You know as well as I do, though, that they won’t stop at whether a ball was in, out, or foul. And when that day comes, we’ll have no choice but to love the umpires — the thought of that sickens me, to be honest.

What do you think? Is baseball ready for instant replay? Hit the comments with your thoughts.

Tags: instant replay, mlb, umpires