There's been some debate amongst baseball fans and purists about MLB following the lead of the NFL, NBA, and NHL before them by implementing instant replay into the sport for the 2009 season. As of now, the plan is to give the process a trial run during the Arizona Fall League, and then if things go well there, they'll be using it during the World Baseball Classic.After that, if nobody dies and the world doesn't come crashing to an end as some fear, they'll be using it in MLB games next season. Of course, if you asked MLB's supervisor of umpires, Rich Rieker, he'd tell you that the the trial runs aren't to see if it could work, they're to see how it will work. There's no stopping the runaway train that is instant replay.
"Replay is coming," Rich Rieker, who serves as a liaison between MLB and its umpires, wrote in a chat with the Houston Chronicle's Web site. "If done properly we have an opportunity to set the gold standard in replay, learning from pros and cons from other sports. But we must do so in a fashion that will not delay the game further."Yes, of course, how could we forget about making sure we don't delay the game. I'm all for instant replay being used in baseball, and I understand why some people are so against it, but I can't stand when people complain that implementing it is going to slow the game down.
