Wal$h $treet: Instant replay is coming, let's embrace it

(WWLP) - Major League Baseball is close to approving a system that would allow replay for disputed home run calls.  A system could be in place in August, allowing a trial run before it would be used in the playoffs and World Series. There have been a few disputed calls this season, one that made a lot of noise was Carlos Delgado's non-home run that should have been against the Yankees on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.  That run didn't matter, since the Mets were crushing the Yankees at the time, but some people still made a big deal of it.

I'm not a baseball purist at all, though I do hate the designated hitter and think National League baseball is a better brand, even if the American League has better players.  I like the All-Star game determining home field advantage in the World Series.  I also enjoy interleague play.  Now I'm a proponent of instant replay.

Umpires get a bad rap, but they do get about 99% of the calls correct.  An error, like the one that was made on Delgado's hit, just gets blown out of proportion.  Overall, Umpires do a fantastic job, except in the strike zone, but that's another story.

The ultimate goal of every umpire is to get the call right.   So why not add the technology we already have in place to make sure the call is correct. 

While I like instant replay, I'm not a huge fan of just adding instant replay for home run calls. That would be similiar to football only using replay for disputed touchdowns.  Home runs aren't the only thing that alters a game.  It could be a play at the plate, a pickoff play at first, or a ball that could be foul or fair. 

While adding some form of instant replay is a step in the right direction, let's go a little further.  With a little help from one of the directors at WWLP, I devised this plan.  Let's give each team's manager a rosin bag to toss out when you want to dispute any call, even balls and strikes.  We have "K-Zone" in place at most stadiums, so why not?  Baseball has always been a strategic game, so why not add a little more strategy into the equation.

I propose that the managers get to throw that rosin bag out once a game, right or wrong, to dispute a call.  It could come in the 1st inning or the 9th.  That's the manager's call and for sports fans to argue about until the sun comes up.

My brother believes that this would only slow the game down, that a manager would use their dispute in every game, just because they have it.  But let's face the facts, baseball isn't Slam Ball.  It's a little slow, so adding this twist wouldn't add hours onto a game, maybe minutes.  Just put an extra umpire in the TV booth.  What's it take, 1 minute, 2 minutes, to figure out if a call was made correctly when you're watching it on TV.  So why couldn't an umpire just watch what we're watching at home and make the call within seconds.  This might even save time, since manager's wouldn't have to spent 5 minutes arguing with an umpire, just throw out the rosin bag.

If the goal is to get the call right, let's get instant replay right and use it for everything.  Instant Replay wouldn't stain the purity of the game, it would let the game be played as it was meant to be.   With the players, not the umpires, deciding who wins or loses.