19th Inning Blown Call: MUST SEE. Pirates vs. Braves

[OrochiEddie]

I was reading an article yesterday in Sports Illustrated about how games are taking almost 40 minutes longer to complete compared to 30 years ago. The writer was saying it was making the game exceptionally boring because of the shrunken strike zone and between every swing the batter takes five years to get ready

 

[Anselm]

The human element of umpiring has been something that the "grand old game" has been hanging on to with Bud Selig's insistence. The umpires are not at fault for being unable to judge the game 100% as there will always be flaws. The commissioner and MLB are at fault for not moving with technology and evolving appropriately by incorporating instant replay.

The game is old and boring. The league is top-heavy and supporting at least six insolvent small market franchises. The Women's World Cup and NFL preseason games are getting better TV ratings than the World Series. Despite being the most affordable professional league to watch, attendance is falling precipitously with several demographics completely ignoring the sport. Unless drastic steps are taken, the game will continue to whittle away and force more cash-strapped franchises to field AAA squads for 10K people crowds.

But why male models?

 

[lithy]

As someone that made the unfortunate mistake of staying up and watching the entire thing, please don't use this as impetus for adding more instant replay.

 

[bloodhokuto]

For this I turn to an old quote from college football, first used by the coach of Navy in the 50s, but more recently by Nebraska's Tom Osbome after he lost the 1984 Orange Bowl in the final minute on a decision to go for the win rather than the tie (when college games were able to tie, that rule changed in '96):

"A tie is like kissing your sister."





I'd love to see relegation, but I don't think the pro programs would do it as the system is very different creating a number of issues:

Legally speaking, the leagues are organized around the owners --they were created by the owners with the President of the leagues serving to the pleasure of the owners --only in rare cases, when the owners are against a single owner, would you find the league taking any negative action against a team. Any rule changes even vaguely like relegation would need to be voted on by team owners who would never put team profits on the line like that. While there are teams that generally do worse than others, even the worst team will sometimes have a surprise turn around. The incentive to make a team better is getting people to go to games and the generation of profits, otherwise a team will be sold or move.

The minor league (lower division) teams in something like baseball are farm teams that are often partially owned by the major league teams in their own "farm system". Also there is a massive difference in facilities between even the best minor league baseball teams and the pro teams.

American football wouldn't work because there just isn't a minor league --there have been attempts, but the closest comparison is College Football, which is university level.

About the only one that could theoretically pull it off would be basketball, but again --there's just too much of a financial gap and vested interest by the pro clubs.

The money difference between American pro sports and even the top of non-American sports, English Premiere League, is stunning. The last I checked, American College football has a bigger financial footprint than all other international leagues other then Premiere League.

Thanks for the outline.

Although the 'bowl' is a final, so in soccer you would need a winner anyway (the dreaded penalty shoot out).

I was going to say that as for league games surely you wouldn't get many ties, but a quick look on wiki indicates that was in fact a commonplace occurrence in the 60's - would never had thought that.

Doesn't happen that much in Rugby, although that might be due to the point variance.

About that guy who mentions kissing his sister, clearly he was speaking from experience - and he doesn't specifically state that it is unpleasant!

 

[abasuto]

Instant replay will ruin baseball.

I wouldn't put it in for most things, but in some situations IR is really the only way certain calls can be made correctly.

ie.....calls made near the outfield wall. If an ump is standing right next to a play, he should get the call correct over 99 out of 100 times. The problem is when someone lines a bullet that results in "did it hit the top of the outfield wall (in play) or right above the wall (home run ?). Did a fan interfere ?"

It's hard to even expect an ump to make those calls correct simply because they're so far away from it. Even with 20/20 vision and attempting to run back when the ball is hit, the ump will still be a good 100+' way from what happens and trying to see in clearity exactly where a ball hit or if the ball really hit a fan's hand is impossible.

If anything, I'd keep cameras along the outfield wall to assist the umps in making those calls.

 

[abasuto]

Since this is the only 2011 MLB thread I could find, lets just say how excited I am as a Braves' fan that Dan Uggla is finaly hitting above .200.

20 game hitting streak has him up to .206 now. Break out the champagne.

Our pitching from the starters all the way to the closer is rock solid, but our offense is lackluster as hell. Uggla batting under .200 for most the season, Hayward hitting .220 with only 11 HR,. Chipper Jones is washed up beyond hope, McCann now hurt. It's a damn miracle the Braves are doing as well as they are. We've been running with half the offensive cylinders not working.

Sucks we didn't get Beltran via trade, we need a big bat; period. Our AAA has two stud level sluggers (one leading the league in HR while batting .288), so I say we either trade them for a player ready now or take the gamble and bring the HR leader's ass up to the pros. Uggla finally hitting above .200 is the best offensive thing we have going, which is pathetic to say.