Instant Replay

Expansion of instant replay in Major League Baseball has been a hotly debated topic over the past few years. With the start of the 2014 MLB season, new rules regarding replays were introduced to the game, allowing for managers to make challenges concerning the most controversial calls. With these new additions to the rulebook, however, a new controversy has arisen. Although instant replay can perhaps eliminate missed and blown calls, it also brings new topics of debate to the table. Allowing for instant replay is a mistake because of baseballs human nature, the time of each game, and its history. Perhaps the most interesting and appealing component to baseball is the aspect of human nature. Umpires, or impartial arbiters as Harvard graduate Julian Atehortua puts it, are simply human and although their job is to fairly call and score the game, they will make errors. Atehortua continues, declaring that [i]nsant replay, at its heart, undermines the integrity of the sport [a sport] controlled by human nature. Furthermore, baseball will always be a game of inches. Fair or foul, safe or out, there are an infinite number of plays that can be too close to call. Therefore, and by adding instant replay to the game, so too will baseballs honesty and truth be eradicated. Another aspect of baseball that goes against instant replay is time. In his article entitled, Lets Re-Play Ball, Thomas Gaudett recognizes that baseball is already incredibly long, with an average time of almost three hours. Nobody wants games to last longer, and many are justifiably concerned that instant replay may add more time to the length of the game. Adding instant replay will consequently add minutes upon minutes of review. With fans, players, and those watching at home already at odds with the games length, adding more time may contribute to a loss of interest.Finally, by adding instant replay to Americas past time, a shadow will be cast upon baseballs controversial past. Seth Swirsky, writer for the Huffington Post, indicates that [c]ontroversy - without the resolution provided by the latest technology -- helps enshrine the folklore of the game. It engenders the passion of the game decades after the actual play took place. Instant Replay would severely water down that experience. After all, part of the fun of the game is recalling and debating the closest and most controversial moments in baseball history. Did Babe Ruth really call his shot in the 1932 World Series? Should interference have been called on the Jeffrey Maier Play - Derek Jeters controversial Home Run in the 96 playoffs? Instant replay would permanently eliminate folklore and debate from baseballs future.