With baseball using instant replay for the first time on Wednesday night to give Alex Rodriguez his latest pointless home run (Alex also homered last night to help the Yankees only lose by two), it's obvious we've entered a new age in the sport. Of course, all the opponents of instant replay were against it because they weren't sure where it would end.Yeah, it only starts with home runs, but soon it will be safe or out, fair or foul, and ultimately, balls and strikes. Well, while it looks like umpires can still judge a pitch's location, we may end up needing robot umpires anyway. The human ones the game utilizes now can't count.
In the fourth inning Thursday, [Sean] Rodriguez struck out on what the scoreboard said was a full-count pitch. But a pitch-by-pitch replay of the at-bat confirmed that Rodriguez actually struck out on a 4-and-2 pitch.See, this is what happens to a sport when they draft players straight out of high school and let them skip college. Their math and counting skills just deteriorate.
Neither plate umpire Tim Welke nor Angels Manager Mike Scioscia noticed the mistake. At 2-2, Rodriguez said Welke asked Tigers catcher Brandon Inge what the count was.
"He said he thought it was 1-2, and I said I thought it was 1-2 also," Rodriguez said. "He thanked me for my honesty."
