“I just cost that kid a perfect game. I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay. It was the biggest call of my career.”
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Anyone who knows more about baseball than I do—I keep hearing about how Bud Selig could overturn this call. How real is this possibility?
(via kquizzo)
Technically, as commissioner Selig can do most anything he wants, but he shouldn’t (and most likely won’t) do anything. Making an executive order to overrule an umpire’s on-field decision has never happened in baseball and fixing this call would set a very tough precedent. Once the door is open for commissioner-changed calls, there will be pleas for Selig’s intervention whenever there is a blown call. It makes for a very slippery slope.
For example, what if the reverse was true. What if the runner was safe by a longshot and the umpire called him out? It would be quite the double standard for the commissioner to overrule one call and not the other.
Also, if you give the executive branch of baseball the ability to overrule calls after the fact, then a lot of game-changing scenarios can arise. Say the Cubs are in game 7 of the World Series, in extra innings, and Derrek Lee gets called safe at home when he was clearly out. The Cubs celebrate a World Series victory for the first time in 214 years (this example takes place in 2122, Derrek Lee will be cryogenically frozen), do they have to worry about Selig overturning the call that night? And if argument is “well the outcome of the game was already decided in the Galarraga scenario”, that would mean putting personal accomplishments priority (pitching a perfect game) over team accomplishments.
What this will do, however, is give a lot more credibility and momentum to owners/players/fans who have been calling for instant replay over the past few years. Some form of instant replay has been very successful in basketball and football for both the collegiate and professional levels. Baseball can use it for close homerun calls, but the technology is being underutilized right now, for better or worse… Allowing for instant replay for all close calls also sets a bad precedent, especially since the game has been trying to speed itself up the past few years, but instituting a rule where you get 1 review per game could be successful.
This is an unfortunate situation where the “right” thing to do is not the correct thing to do.
I should have gone to law school.
