CALLING FOR INSTANT REPLAY!

has a great replay system that’s only used for determining tries (like touchdowns). if the ref doesn’t have a good angle to see the play, he quickly signals up to the booth (by drawing a square in the air with his fingers, which is kind of amusing), and the replay official makes the call and relays it down to the ref through an earpiece. it’s seemless, takes WAY less time than in american football, and would just be giving another set of eyes to the umpiring crew. in the amount of time it takes for the crew to confer, they could have a replay official make the call. then you wouldn’t have lengthy arguments with the manager, cause the replay official isn’t on the field to be argued with.

long in the short, i agree. home runs are probably the only place that it could be quickly implemented without much push-back from the umps. if you start taking away plays at first or safe calls at the bases, that probably takes away too much power, responsibility and accountability from the umps, and probably adds too many stoppages. balls and strikes also would never be practical.

But it wasn’t an overwhelming majority. I also recall that the Astros voted against it. (Maybe that will change, since I see that Cooper says he favors instant replay.) However, the GMs don’t make the decision…the owners do. And the owners didn’t approve it.

they are going to test it in the Arizona fall league… so we may see it next season.

How is it possible to have a homer hit when none of the umps have an angle? If they only had the alertness to react to the play, surely they would have time to move their lazy asses a couple of steps to get the angle they need. Maybe the last thing we need is for them to assume they have the replay to bail them out.