Original Airdate: Wednesday, October 21, 2009. This is a part of the 93-Second Sports Shot series. 93-Second Sports Shots air weekday nights at 6pm.

---

Throughout this MLB playoff season, we have seen participants make some huge mistakes, often season-ending. And I am not talking about players, I am talking about the umpires.

In last night's Yankees-Angels game, we saw three botched calls, two in a single inning, two which should have been correctly called if the umpires had been looking in the right direction. Sure, none of these mistakes would have affected the outcome of the game, but we have no way of knowing that, and in several instances (for example Joe Mauer's overturned double and Chase Utley's foul-ball single) they have been season-ending.

And yet the strongest arguments that exist for not implementing instant-replay are "it would make the game longer" and "we need a human element."

Baseball is not a game decided by time, seconds, minutes. It is a game decided by inches. So, when there are a hundred legal ways to delay a game, visits to the mound, batters calling time-out, pick-off attempts, pitcher/catcher disagreements, pitching changes, and most importantly, all the time wasted when managers run onto the field to argue calls, why not spend less than 3 minutes to review potentially important plays?

There are at least 3 camera angles for every play made, so why rely on only one set of eyes, the human, mistake-prone set? After every controversial game this post-season, the umpires have sat down for interviews and said the exact same thing: "I watched the replay, I realize that I made a mistake, I'm sorry." They admit their mistakes. They make no excuses. And it's too late!

We should at least come to a compromise. Like hi-definition TV, umpires are here to stay, so give managers one or two challenges a game, and let umpires review calls using their own discretion. (And I'm not talking about balls and strikes here). Officials would still have most of the control, but we'd gain some common-sense that should have existed from the start.

~Football Eve: Final Fantasy Draft (Wed 9/8)
~Revis Signs New Contract (Sun 9/5) 1 Comment
~2010 NFL Season Preview (Fri 9/3)
~Rewarding Poor Play (Tue 8/31)
~No Surprise Here for Stephen Strasburg (Mon 8/30) 2 Comments
~Auburn All Star (Mon 8/16)
~World Cup - Lego Reenactment (Sun 8/15)
~Walters Injured (Mon 8/9)
~Amazing Catch (Thu 8/5)
~A-Rod* (Wed 8/4) 1 Comment
~The Quarterback who Cried Wolf (Tue 8/3)
~New York Jets Training Camp: Day 1 (Mon 8/2)
~New York Jets Training Camp Questions and Storylines (Mon 8/2)
~Greatest Baseball Injuries (Fri 7/30)
~Is the Evil Empire not that Evil? (Tue 7/27) 1 Comment
~Another No-Hitter (Mon 7/26)
~New York Jets Training Camp Questions (Thu 7/22)
~Ithacan Wins 25K Swimming World Championship (Thu 7/22)
~Do Sports Tell Us Who's Best? (Wed 7/21) 1 Comment
~Worst Sports Injury? (Wed 7/21)