Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Play it Again, Bud

Well, this was hardly surprising given Bud Selig's m.o. (ignore a problem until it's a crisis and then overreact accordingly), and now it's official:

Three series are scheduled to start Thursday, with Philadelphia at the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota at Oakland and Texas at the Los Angeles Angels. For other games, replays will be available to umpires starting Friday.

For now, video will be used only on so-called "boundary calls," such as determining whether fly balls went over the fence, whether potential home runs were fair or foul and whether there was fan interference on potential home runs.

Fair enough; I'm all for anything to help get the calls correct. But Bud Selig is concerned about a slippery slope:

Selig, who opposed replay in the past, said he won't allow its use to expand to additional types of calls.

"My opposition to unlimited instant replay is still very much in play," Selig said. "I really think that the game has prospered for well over a century now doing things the way we did it."

All well and good, Bud...except that's just not true. The game today is rather changed from its early days. We have free agency, the DH, the Wild Card, interleague play, curve balls, and so on. Even if that weren't the case, resisting change for the sake of change is ignorant. If more instant replay can make the game better, then why not? If you resist change without consideration because of some bizarre slavery to "tradition," then all that makes you is a Luddite.

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