THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, September 04, 2008

The end of phony outrage: instant replays

The most important rule change ever implemented in the history of sports is when baseball allowed instant replay on HR calls.  Now that we’ve had our taste of the first one, perhaps now all our phony outrage over the change will go away.  I hope the phony outrage slippery-slope arguments will go away too.

It was and is no big deal in the NHL, and they review every single goal (6000+), though some are more obvious than the others.  I blame Field of Dreams.  I love that movie, but g-dd-mn it, it has reinforced this romantic notion among some fans that their spouses wish they would heap on them from time to time.  These baseball romanticists will agree to dissolve a contract-for-life made of love and give up half their assets more readily than to accept any intrusions into their virgin baseball game.