'The Perfect Game' needs some change

It's called 'the perfect game.' There are no play clocks, no power plays, no timers at all. Two teams show up at the specified time and play until someone wins. That is what makes baseball perfect, it's a beautiful game that attracts fans from every spectrum - but it's that lack of urgency that makes some fans shirk away from baseball and Major League Baseball needs to do something about that.

Detractors from the game say that it takes to long and is "boring." So to fix that baseball needs to find a way to speed up the game without adding timers that would irritate the die-hard fans. It's understandable that everyone except the die-hard's get a little bored after yet another four hour Yankees-Red Sox game. 

This off season ESPN invited fans to write in and make suggestions for changes to the game that they believe would improve it and make it more appealing to more people. Suggestions ranged from adding a play clock to pitchers, forcing them to throw in a set period of time to the usual removing the designated hitter in the American League and the opposite of adding the DH in the National League.

The "pitch clock" idea was intriguing until you think of the ramifications - no longer will a pitcher be able to stall to help his bullpen, playing mind games with the batter would be greatly reduced and it would add stress to an already stressed player. While this idea is plausible, it is not the change that baseball needs.

Like it or not the designated hitter is in the American League to stay and it isn't showing any signs of making the leap to the senior circuit anytime soon. The uniqueness of each league is one of the things that makes baseball so intriguing - there are two different games within the sport. Watch an American League game and it become about power and hitting doubles and home runs. Watch a National League game and the game becomes more mental - managers trying to out duel each other while utilizing pinch-hitters and pinch-runners. Changing the very fabric of the league is not what baseball needs.

What baseball needs is to speed up the game without adding a clock and without changing what millions of fans have grown up enjoying. And how can baseball do that? Instant replay.

The push for instant replay has grown in recent years, but resistance from the Commissioner's Office has stymied that for the most part. Commissioner Bud Selig has relented somewhat on the instant replay front and has allowed its use on fair or foul calls on home runs and with the passage of the new collective bargaining agreement on trapped ball plays. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough.

 There seems to have been a noticeable increase in close plays that have determined games, and in Armando Gallaraga's case, history, that could have easily been cleared up with a simple glance at an instant replay monitor.

Many have said that the institution of further instant replay will only serve to slow the game down more instead of speeding it up as intended. Using the current system, that is true. In the current system, a call is made and a manager disagrees with it and storms out of the dugout - stopping the flow of the game in the process and goes into a tirade on the umpire that he disagrees with. This can go on for some time and if the manager in question happens to be Lou Piniella can end up in kicked hats and, literally, stolen bases. Most often than not the umpire will stand there for several minutes and allow the manager to say his piece before shooing him back to the dugout, but in some cases the umpire will call his colleagues together for a confab, which again, can take some time. Then they either agree on the call that was made or they head down a tunnel to the replay room to check out the video - yet again taking more time. After an ordeal of upwards of ten minutes a call is finally made and play can resume. 

The current system is flawed and is in need of a total overhaul. Umpires are human, they make mistakes but the way baseball is structured now makes them omniscient. Baseball needs to pick these guys up and give them some help. The way to do that is to add instant replay on every objective play made in the field.

Balls and strikes are subjective to the home plate umpire and they way they are called should not be changed. However, calls made on plays at each base, catches in the field, fair or foul calls down the line and on home runs should be brought into the 21st century. The technology exists to do that and speed up the game in the process.

The need to review each play made would require quite a bit of work, but to conduct instant replay in the manner the National Hockey League does and require all reviews come from "The War Room" inside the Air Canada Centre in Toronto wouldn't speed up the game in the least. What baseball needs is a "war room" set up inside each stadium that displays live feeds and allows replays for everything that goes on during that game.

This set-up would require the addition of a fifth umpire to the traditional crew that works each series, but in a tough financial time the World Umpires Association should jump at the opportunity to give its members more work. The way this replay system would work would be similar to the system implemented in college football, with a full-time replay official with the power to reverse any call made on the field.

This new system would serve to speed up the game in that it would eliminate arguments between the managers and umpires, the umpire huddle and the long walk to the current replay rooms. When a play is made the replay umpire would be able to see the feed of each camera in the park and determine whether or not the correct call was made. Should he decide that the call on the field was incorrect he could buzz the home plate umpire and correct the play.

With each play being reviewed and corrected if the wrong call was made, managers would have no grounds to argue with an umpire because each one of their calls has been reviewed and insured to be correct. The umpire confab's would disappear because the home plate umpire would receive a correction to be made within seconds of the end of the play. And with a fifth umpire in the press box sitting behind a panel of monitors the crew on the field would never have to make the long walk to the current replay rooms again.

Baseball is indeed 'the perfect game,' but it is in need of some change and that change is something that can be readily achieved with the technology available.