Little League World Series and Instant Replay

Baseball purists hold on to your hats, there is a baseball competition that is using Instant Replay. Gasp! And too top it off it is working. Two years ago Little League International put in the use of replay, it was just for the dead balls and boundary calls. This year they expanded to just about everything except strikes and balls. In the first two years of replay, there were exactly 4 challenges and all of them were unsuccessful. Heading into Day 3 of the tournament there were 5 replay requests, and 3 of them were successful. Now does this mean that the umpires are booting more calls? Of course not, it means that the coaches are using the challenge system well. Now the system says that the coach can challenge as many times as they want as long as they are successful, so once they are wrong they cannot challenge anymore. The challenge comes back to them if the game goes to extra innings.

Now I was able to watch a game with a challenge and shockingly it did not delay the game. The process was simple, the coach went out to ask the umpire about the call. There was a brief conference with the other 5 umpires, they decided the ump was right. Then the coach requested the use of replay. On that play, the umpire was correct, but the whole thing took maybe 1 minute.

When a simple google search of "LLWS replay" reveals the top articles "Sending the Wrong Message" is a strong component of the themes of the articles, it just shows how much of the old school people control the thoughts of baseball fans.

ESPNs Karl Ravech discusses replay reasonably and he thinks it is a good idea. He notes the three main arguments are "I love baseball the way it is and that is how it should stay", "Takes too much time" and "Eliminates Human Error and Drama". If you talk to umpires, most want to get the call right, and that takes out the Human Error nonsense. This week has proven that replay does not take that much time, as most challenges take a total of 60 seconds including the manager coming out to ask for the replay challenge. And finally the it has always been this way argument. Seriously that is the argument, since 1990 there have been the following changes in baseball: Expansion to 30 teams, Wild Card playoffs, Steroids, All Star games that count, and players with huge salaries and bigger egos. Part of Baseball lore has been change, the only difference is that now this change threatens to move baseball into the 21st Century, something that they are not use too.

Baseball needs replay, as today the fans at home can see if the umpire is wrong or right, the players, coaches and umps will know as soon as they get to the clubhouse, why not correct the call? So Bud Selig, I am imploring you to watch the Little League World Series, and see the replay and see how it works.

That is all for now, go Canada, who are being represented by Little Mountain, BC, who ripped through the Canadian Regional Tournament going 7-0 en route to Williamsport. Also Ancaster umpire Stephen Meyer is down in Williamsport umpiring in the world series, so watch for him as well.