Commissioner Bud Selig recently announced the proposed additions to the sport’s use of instant replay, including the implementation of a challenge system. It was panned almost universally by pundits and fans, and even a majority of managers aren’t looking forward to it. Orioles manager Buck Showalter, however, is not among them.
“I knew the capability they had. They can take it as far as you want to take it. When you have to watch a replay three times to see if it’s right or wrong, it shows you the challenge they have. I can’t imagine a harder sport to umpire or officiate,” Showalter said.
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“I think you’d be surprised at how little delay there actually is. There’ll be some problems. They haven’t sat down and talked to us and shouldn’t because it actually isn’t until next year.”
While the new system portends to get more calls right than ever before, it still has some obvious flaws, in that the nature of the system will still let otherwise-reviewable plays stand without review, either because a manager is stategically reserving his challenges, or because a manager has already used up his allotment. The system has certainly thrived in the NFL, but as George Carlin told us many years ago, the two sports are very, very different.
