Okay, so everyone can agree that there have been some bad calls this postseason. We can agree that this is not the only time that bad calls have impacted game outcomes.
But what many people in baseball can't agree on is what we should do about it. So follow me beyond the jump for some people's opinions, then tell me what you think.
Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports thinks that every manager should have two challenge flags per game. On the other hand, Phil Rogers at the Chicago Tribune thinks that this is a bigger deal in the playoffs, and therefore that MLB should move those two extra umpires into a review booth. No challenges, but those guys review all plays that they think should be reviews. Neil Best at Newsday thinks that replay reviews are a horrible idea because they would take time, and as we all know, the games are too long. Then again, everyone's favorite announcer Joe Buck says that calls on the bases, as well as foul calls and the like, should be up for review--though maybe only in the postseason. And he points out that if you have somebody in the booth, he can review most calls and let you know in, oh, eight seconds or so.
Of course, we've already changed the rules this season to allow for some review--but only for home run calls, and the process takes forever. Then again, even such a half-assed change as that was a Big Deal in this sport--and somehow things stayed more or less the same. The world didn't come crashing down, but we had a few more correct calls.
And I have to note that Bud Selig hates the idea of doing anything for reasons that, as expected, make perfect sense:
"The more baseball people I talk to, there is a lot of trepidation about it and I think their trepidation is fair," Selig told reporters before Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday. "I've spent a lot of time [on this] over the past month and will spend a lot of time in the ensuing months as well. I don't want to overreact. You can make light of that but when you start to think you're going to have more intrusions -- and even if they're good intrusions -- it's something that you have to be very careful about. Affecting the game on the field is not something I really want to do."
Not to mention that the umpires union dislikes the idea, perhaps because it would probably lead to some record of how many times each umpire's rulings are overturned. And that would be horrible.
But, what say you? Should we expand the system we have to more calls? Only think about it in the postseason? Improve the whole review system in some way? Or, stop arguing about something so stupid and accept a few blatantly incorrect calls as part of the game?