Selig brushes off calls for expanded instant replay

Poor umpiring and high-profile blown calls have been one of the biggest storylines of the playoffs so far, but commissioner Bud Selig made it clear today in an interview with Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com that he has no plans to expand instant replay:

I don’t really have any desire to increase the amount of replay, period. This goes on every time there’s a controversial call. I understand the Phil Cuzzi call and others. But frankly, I’m quite satisfied with the way things are. We need to do a little work, clean up some things. But do I think we need more replay? No. Baseball is not the kind of game that can have interminable delays.

The first round isn’t even over yet and we’ve already had Phil Cuzzi ruling Joe Mauer’s double a foul ball, Jerry Meals ruling Chase Utley’s foul ball fair, and C.B. Bucknor botching multiple calls at first base. And let’s be clear about something: Those are not, as Selig puts it, “controversial calls,” because that trivializes the issue by implying that they were something other than flat-out wrong. We’re not talking about inconsistent strike zones or bang-bang plays being ruled the wrong way, although certainly those are issues that Selig should be looking to address as well. No, we’re talking about blown calls in hugely important situations. In every case instant replay could have corrected them within minutes, but Selig wants us to be satisfied with the idea that “baseball is not the kind of game that can have interminable delays”? So, bad umpiring and incorrect calls are acceptable as long as they’re really quick? And since when is baseball worried about delays? Nearly every playoff game is running well over three hours at this point, with expanded commercial breaks and snail-like pacing, so spending a few extra minutes to review plays that can make or break a team’s season seems reasonable. If the umpires are unable or unwilling to get these calls right, they need help.