Give Me Instant Replay Or Give Me Golf...

As sports fans of the Earth, first thing is we all have to agree on one thing: inaccurate calls suck. And as most know, MLB began paving the way to use instant replay last fall when the GM's ok'd a plan to be sent to the commissioner's office for evaluation. In fact, the Commish himself, Bud Selig said just last week, that there's a chance replay may be added for this year's playoffs.

Well, bravo fellas, it's about time. Unfortunately, though, you're still a bunch of dolts because you're only going to use replay for "fair and foul calls and for plays that happen over or near the outfield fence" and not calls at home plate or even for when players slide into the other bases - which if you ask a fan, is where most of the really egregious umpire errors occur (save for the pitching, of course, but hey, might as well leave something for the humans.)

One would think that any sports fan anywhere would always be interested in accuracy. And up to this point in history, we've done alright without any electronic back-up, but these days the electronics exist, so why not use them if they can make your sport better, more accurate, more fair, and more fun for the fan who doesn't have to worry as much about watching his or her team or player lose because of a mistake.

Now no one wants to see R2D2 behind the plate at Yankees Stadium, but if you look at the sports world, almost every sport has benefited in some way by adopting technologies, which may not have been present when that sport began. So what's the problem, boys of summer? Why not let your sport catch up to everyone else? Read more after the jump >>>

Okay, I get that you wanna keep baseball ageless, the same game as it was back in the 1890's - I know about the lights, I got it, but please baseball fans, nostalgia is one thing, but foolishly wrong & unjust is another.

Track & field is a pretty old sport, they used to run naked (heck, they used to do all the Olympics naked, seems we got over that), but even track & field uses electronically paired starting guns & blocks, plus electronic laser technology to figure out how runners finish.

Hockey uses replay. Yup, even those crusty old Canadians got hip & look what happened? Erroneous goals have been kinda eliminated as well as those that should have counted now do.

Football, yup, got hip, too. In fact, they figured it out on their own - all the GM's & players & coaches & what have you, all got into a room and hashed it out. Delay of game? Sure, a little, but what the heck do you call it when all the umps gather to discuss a call for 10 minutes? Might as well have checked the videotape & actually have been right.

What would any discussion about blown baseball calls be without a gratuitous shot of angry Lou P.

Jordan Kobritz of the Daily Courier seems to think MLB needs to think hard about replay because if it's allowed for fouls & home runs, it's only a matter of time until baseball includes things like calls at the plate & other bases, "It's easy to say it will only be used on boundary calls, but once the technology becomes a part of the game, there will almost assuredly be calls to expand its application." Yeah, hey, Jordan, you're right, why should baseball worry about being accurate when it comes to things like guys scoring runs...

And before all you die hards start deluging me with your comments about how baseball needs to stick to the original formula (some of you probably still hate night games), it should be noted that although you all may cry "nostalgia" when it comes to adding tech to your game, you all have run squarely right into the technology tornado to help save your sport from the evils of steroids & performance enhancing drugs - unless they did have blood testing for that back in 1890 - I missed that day in biology class. - Doug Vannoni, Special to Bobby v. the World