Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Should There Be Instant Replay?

In almost every sport, there is instant replay.  The referees can review the play and ensure they made the right decision.  Baseball, however, has decided to remain true to it's roots and have very limited instant replay.  You can use instant replay to determine if a ball was a home run or not, but is that enough?  Or is it too much?
 
Many people say that instant replay would affect the flow of the game, that baseball is already long enough, why do we want to do something else to slow it down?  But there have also been many cases that lean towards instant replay.  The infamous Steve Bartman incident.  The near perfect game for Armando Galarraga, where Jim Joyce admits he blew that call.  And now, in the 2011 World Series, calling Matt Holliday safe in game 3, which could have very easily affected the outcome of the game.
 
So what is too much instant replay, and what is being too hard headed to change with the changing times?  In regular season games, I say don't mess with instant replay too much.  Keep it to determine whether a ball is a home run or not.  Maybe expand it to determine if a ball is fair or foul.  But we don't need it for every little play.  However in the post season, and most importantly the World Series, Major League Baseball might want to do a little more to ensure the right calls are made.  It has been brought up during this series, that it may be beneficial for another umpire to sit in the press box and review the plays that are made.  That would not "slow down the game" too much, as people are worried about.  I don't see an umpire with a specific job of watching the review slowing down the game any more than a manager arguing a call, the umpire on the field reversing that call, and the other manager arguing the reversal.  Yes, that provides entertainment, but wouldn't we rather have the right calls made in the most important games of the season?
 
In my opinion, expanded replay in the regular season is a waste of time.  But in the World Series, it needs to be explored.  As a baseball fan, I would rather the team who truly won the series, to win the series.
 

Friday, October 21, 2011

Who Do These Lockouts Really Affect???

Once again, in the span of less than a year, we are in the middle of another lockout of professional sports.  However, unlike the lockout of the NFL, the NBA lockout does not appear to be ending any time soon.  The players and owners cannot agree on how to split basketball related revenue.  Both want a bigger percentage than the other.  But while they sit in their fancy conference rooms and drive home in their fancy cars to their fancy houses, they are forgetting about the two groups of people who are truly going to be affected by this lockout:  the little people who's income depends on the NBA season and the fans.
 
The NBA is more than the players and owners.  It involves so many more people from the front office of the organization to the ticket takers to the ushers to the parking attendants to so many more people.  If there is no season, these people can't work.  People are depending on there to be a season in order to make a living.  And while the owners and players can support their families even if there isn't a season, a lot of these people can't.  These are the people the lockout should be focused on.
 
The other group of people this lockout is really going to affect is the fans.  While it probably will not affect their ability to make money (it could actually probably save some fans some money), it is going to affect how the fans see the sport.  They are going to lose trust in the NBA.  All they see in the media are a bunch of millionaires arguing about who is going to get a bigger percentage of billions of dollars.  That's not what the fans want to see.  And when a season finally does start, the fans aren't going to want to give their hard earned money to these greedy owners and players.  If it doesn't hurt viewership, it will definitely hurt attendance.
 
In no way is this lockout a good thing for anyone involved.  Games have already been cancelled.  The season is in serious jeopardy.  I agree that things should be fair for everyone involved, but let's clearly think about who everyone involved is.  Settle your differences and let's get this over with.