It’s a bad call. No doubt about it. Of course, I mean introducing instant replay into baseball as well as the call in the Angels-Yankees game.
Yes, the ump should have called both Yankee players out rather than just one because neither had a foot on the bag when tagged. But to introduce instant replay to fix this or other errors in baseball officiating would make things worse than the problem it is meant to correct.
Officials are human and will make mistakes. In the absence of corruption or bias (and there is no reason to assume that the men in blue are generally corrupt or biased), errors will be distributed randomly. In the long run, they should even themselves out and no team should have a particular advantage.
It’s true that a particular call made at a particular moment will seem to alter the outcome of a game, series, or championship. But the truth is that every call in every game has some minute effect on the outcome of that game and potentially a series or championship. If any call went a different way, players and coaches could make different decisions about pitches to throw, ways to swing, players to substitute, etc… Life is a string of choices; changing any one — no matter how small — might change all subsequent ones — including big ones. In general, the best we can hope for is that errors in officiating are rare and unbiased.
Introducing instant replay might correct some errors, but it certainly wouldn’t be practical to try to use it to review all potential errors in officiating. And since any call — even the one not at what seems like the pivotal moment — can alter the outcome of the game, the outcome can still be altered by errors unless all calls are reviewed. And even if they are reviewed, there can be errors in the review. In short, there is no way to remove errors from officiating.
Even if we tried to reduce error by reviewing certain calls, we couldn’t always know which calls really would influence the outcome of the game. What’s more, instant replay reviews significantly slow down a sporting event and interfere with the play and enjoyment of that sport.
People need some perspective. It’s a game. It’s meant as entertainment. We should no sooner have instant replay reviews of baseball calls than judges’ votes in So You Think You Can Dance. Let’s just assume that officials are acting in good faith and errors are a matter of chance, just as chance can influence whether the ball hits a seam and bounces in a strange direction.
But I suspect that discomfort with chance in life is part of the demand for instant replay. To many people randomness feels like injustice — especially when that randomness goes against their interests. There are no accidents in this view of the world, someone is responsible for everything that happens, and all wrongs must be righted. An unwillingness to accept the reality of chance can lead to a headlong pursuit of justice that causes much more injustice.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
If all we care about is that the wrong calls are distributed randomly, why do we try as hard as we do already to get get the calls right? Why not just two umps — one behind the plate, another roming the field?
What we want is to get as close to the right answer as possible while weighing that against the time utilized to get the right answer. Keeping error in there just for its own sake doesn’t make much sense, particularly in the modern era when there is just so much money at stake both for the teams and for individual players. Nor does the weird “human element” argument that so many people bring up make one lick of sense — the players on the two teams add more than enough of a human element to the game.
I don’t think I’m really for instant reply for all calls because it adds too much time to an already long game. However, the technology certainly exists for computers to make foul calls pretty much instantly — like in tennis. Also, I can’t think of a single good reason why we don’t have the computer call balls and strikes — pitchers would HATE that but (1) until Bob Ryan claimed it the other day I’ve never heard anyone (including ballplayer friends of mine) complain that the computer calls balls and strikes wrong (2) the calls are just as fast as those made by the umps and (3) MLB might actually like it becuase it would increase offensive production when pitchers have to actually throw strikes.
The MLB would also like it because it would reduce employment of unionized umpires.
For the same reason, it will never happen.
But I’m with you on the larger argument. Jay writes, “to many people, randomness feels like injustice.” That’s because it is injustice. It’s just a form of injustice that occurs frequently, is unintentional rather than deliberate, and costs so much to redress that it’s often irrational to try to redress it – but that doesn’t make wrong calls any less wrong.
The umpire union isn’t particularly powerful, as far as I know.
Some reform here is inevitable, just as it was in football. When everyone at home and in the stadium has access to the replay and can know for certain whether a call was horribly wrong you just can’t keep it off the field for too long.
They’ve got four guys on the field, one behind home, one at first one at second and one at third. How come they can’t congregate and say “hey, you made a bad call there”?
I didn’t say that all I cared about was errors being random or oppose the use of technology to determine foul balls and to call balls and strikes. I’m for those things because it would reduce error without slowing down the play of the game.
What I said I opposed was instant replay. My problem with instant replay is that the improvement in justice is almost certain to be outwieghed by the disruption of the game. And I think the improvement in justice is so small because every call has potentially game-changing error.It is as much a matter of self-deception to say that one call determined the outcome as to say that one Senator’s vote determined the outcome. All of the calls and all of the votes contributed to the outcomes.
And on Greg’s point — if randomness is injustice, then life is filled with injustice. To think that it is an injustice for the ball to hit a seam and bounce in a funny way is to think that there was a plan for the ball to go in some other direction and some Will redircted the ball to its path. Unless we know the plan, all things could be argued to be unjust. And to stretch the meaning of the word so far that it could describe everything, makes the term meaningless.
To be meaningful, injustice has to involve human will. It is not an injustice for a hurricane to strike a particular place even though it is largely random. Nor is it an injustice for an official to make a mistake despite best efforts to make the right call.
As others here have said, pointing out that errors are random doesn’t solve the problem. Getting struck by lightning may be random, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invest in lightning rods. The goal is still to reduce injury.
I have to disagree with both Jay and Greg when it comes to randomness and injustice. Randomness is not a sufficient reason to call something just or unjust. Law enforcement, for example, may botch an investigation and imprison an innocent person. This could be a random occurrence, and it could be an honest mistake. It is still an injustice. Getting hit by lightning, while random, is not an injustice. The difference is in what is what is agreed upon and whether one party has failed to meet that agreement. We can make agreements and have expectations of fairness with law enforcement and referees, and when they are negligent in upholding that agreement an injustice occurs. We can’t make agreements with lightning.
Patrick, it’s a playoff game. They actually have six umps – one for each base, one for each foul line. Didn’t stop the foul call in the division series from being botched just as horribly, but they’re there.
As for instant replays, there’s easy ways to make it minimally disruptive. Baseball doesn’t have timeouts to use as a tool to limit replay calls by managers, but you can build the same system artifically – you can appeal calls until the first one you get wrong(i.e., where the umpire’s call stands).
For that matter, there’s already a strong tradition of managers doing exactly that, it’s just that the appeal is never successful, and the ban on further failed appeals is ejection from the game. Appeals may not be as dramatic as arguments, but they’re far healthier.
I don’t want to give you a hard time here, Jay, but I’m curious about the mindset that says “in the absence of corruption or bias errors will be distributed randomly” and that’s OK. I will concede at the outset that I might be one of those people who see randomness leading to injustice.
Let’s imagine for a moment that terrible third base call set in motion a chain of events–or more accurately stopped the following chain of events from occuring: The Angels win the game and stun the Yankees in Game Seven to go to the World Series. Angels ace John Lackey, a free-agent-to-be is the World Series MVP, pitching two shutouts and winning three games in a seven game series against the Phillies. Beccause of his performance, he signs a free agent contract with the Mets and becomes the highest paid pitcher in baseball. That bad third base call is no longer a randomly distributed mistake. It has cost the Angels a World Series, John Lackey a hundred million dollars, and the Mets the 2010 World Series (Thanks a bunch, Jay).
Sure, it’s baseball, but there are real-life consequences. So where do we accept random distributions of mistakes and say “it evens out.” How about in death penalty cases?
How about in teacher evaluations?
I agree with the idea that errors happen and are inevitable. I don’t agree with the idea that it’s a waste of time to reverse correctable errors because it’s inconvenient. In baseball or in any other arena.
Hey, Robert. Costing the Mets a World Series sounds like a good thing to me, but I digress. I agree that there are consequences to every call, but that is not the same as injustice. The problem is that every call — not just the ones on which your mind focuses — could alter the outcome of the game, cost John Lackey his fortune, ruin the Mets, etc…
There’s a trade-off between precision and the time and effort required to obtain that precision. Of course, in death penalty cases we should be willing to spend an enormous amount of time and energy to ensure that we have things right (actually I oppose the death penalty except in very extraordinary cases because I don’t think the government is really capable of sufficient precision in making this call).
But in baseball the delay required for instant replay review disrupts the flow of the game. Since every call has a potentially game-changing effect, there is no logical limit to when you would allow reviews and when you wouldn’t. And since the marginal effect on justice of each call is so small (unlike dealth penalty cases), even a minimal disruption isn’t worth it.
Way to duck the teacher evaluation question, Jay!
I’ll leave it up to Lackey to decide whether his lost fortune is an injutice or not. As a Mets fan, I accept injustice as a fact of life.
Two thoughts: 1) Managers arguing calls disrupts the flow of the game too. Should we forbid it? Or do we enjoy the site of Lou Pinella kicking dirt on the ump’s shoes too much? 2) I’m nothing if not a pragmatist so how about we allow both managers two video appeals during the game? Prudence would dictate that they would exercise caution in using their challenges. In fact, you could even stipulate that if the manager comes out of the dugout to argue, he forfeits a challenge. If you’re concerned about speeding the game up, that’ll do both: increase fairness AND speed up the game.
Jay, you’re ignoring the – likely larger – delay caused by managers having to argue calls with umpires the old-fashioned way. The video clip you linked is a two-minute clip of a ten-second play, and while MLB’s lawyers have taken it down, I don’t recall the whole thing being over when the video was done, either. How long would a replay have taken? The commentators seem to have gotten it right a long time before the manager/umpire argument was over.
You make the mistake of assuming that the argument is between video replay and nothing. It’s not – it’s between an effective system that ensures good calls, and an ineffective patch on a flawed system that expends the same amount of effort to get worse results.
Robert and Alsadius make a good point that arguments from the bench disrupt the game as well. But remember that coaches don’t come out to argue calls every game. I would wager that managers come out to dipute calls in fewer than 1 in 10 games. If you institutionalize 2 video instant replays per game, you will basically assure 2 disruptions per game.
And as to Robert’s need to insert teacher evaluations into a baseball discussion, I’ll indulge him with a quick answer. Yes, we should try to have accurate evaluations of teachers, but there are limits to how much precision we should demand. Increased precision comes at real costs. And schools are primarily about the benefit of students, not the adults who work in them. If we can improve the education of students by having a teacher evaluation system that lacks perfect justice, we have to accept that imprecision because the needs of the students trump demands for perfection from adults.
And to belabor this a bit more — There is also imprecision in the grades that teachers give students. What are you willing to do to improve the precision of class grades? Would you want multiple teachers grading every assignment? Would you want an appeal process? Why is it that the concern for perfect assessment of teachers takes priority over concern for the perfect assessment of students?
The only issue I have with this argument is the argument that potentially, every call made in a baseball game could effect the score of the game. While this is true, I don’t think that anyone would ever suggest that we use instant replay on every play. Also, every play is not weighted differently. Take these two examples…
A) With Coco Crisp on second base, Mark Ellis slaps a double to the opposite field. Coco turns at third and the throw comes in: he’s safe, and clearly slides under the tag, but the umpire calls him out.
B) Coco Crisp hits a drive off the right field wall, and tries to stretch it into a double. He slides in safely under the tag, but is called out by the second base umpire. One out. Then Mark Ellis hits a double.
In (A), the umpire directly affects the score of the game, and there is no room for fault with either the catcher or the baserunner. In (B), while Coco could have scored on Ellis’ double if he had been called safe, he still could have tripped in the basepath trying to go to third on Ellis’ hit, tried to tag up, or stopped at third: in short, the umpire MIGHT have affected the score by calling Coco out at second, but the call didn’t directly affect the score.
Situation A is where I think instant replay should be used, on manager challenge. That way it doesn’t slow down the game as much and the parts of the game directly affected by a missed call can be curtailed.
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