GIRARDI PARTY REPLAY PARTY

Why does baseball always have to be this mythical, unchanging cousin of the other major sports? While the NCAA, NFL, NHL, and NBA (and what the hell, even NASCAR) have instituted numerous rule changes over the last decade or so to improve the quality of their respective games and help keep them with the times, baseball's biggest rule changes of the last ten years have been reactionary subtleties aimed to quell the rioting masses: the All-Star Game can't end in a tie, and first- and third-base coaches need to wear helmets. Baseball simply refuses to join the new millennium and implement instant-replay, and the rationale can be summed up in one word...


"TRADITION!"

Traditionalists, such as my friend Marthur, argue that instituting replay in baseball would interrupt the flow of the game, making games drag on too long. I don't know what type of replay these guys are picturing. The idea, in my humble opinion, isn't that every close call be meticulously dissected and reviewed. I agree that doing that won't do wonders to speed up an already somewhat slow-moving game. At the same time, though, a responsible and somewhat minimalist approach to instant replay could keep fans and franchises happy by guaranteeing that the right call has been made while also insuring that the sacred "flow" of baseball is preserved.


Here's how it has to go. I present GIRARDI PARTY REPLAY PARTY.

• As the MLB has proposed for this season, close/questionable home run/foul ball calls will always be reviewed, without provocation or use of a "challenge", from some kind of Batcave war room in MLB's secret fortress in New York. In the event of a tough home run call, a call would be placed from the Batcave to the ballpark in question, where a representative would inform the umpires that the call is being reviewed. The crew chief would simply wait on the phone until the verdict is reached, and the game progresses as normal.
  
  
• If you say this will add significant time to games, you're wrong. These calls really aren't all that common, and when there are close home run calls, the umpires always huddle and take 10 minutes deciding anyway. I think a team of trained professionals - or chimpanzees - studying the tape in HD could get the call right more quickly and efficiently than four umpires scratching their heads and asking each other, "I dunno, did you see it?"
  
  
• The part everyone gets hung up on is, "well, when does it end? What's stopping them from reviewing every close call?" Here's what's stopping them: a rule preventing that. In Girardi Party Replay Party, in addition to home run/foul calls automatically being reviewed, each team is allowed one "challenge" per game, where a call is reviewed by instant replay. To "challenge," a manager would have to immediately leave the dugout and inform an umpire exactly what ruling he's challenging. I don't know if the umpires would look into a TV at the park to make a ruling or what... I like the Batcave idea for all challenges. (A comprehensive list is of what would/wouldn't be reviewable is at the bottom of this post.)
  
  
• Win or lose a challenge, each team gets one and only one. This provision is key because it is what will keep replay from being a major distraction. Think about it: a manager would never blow his challenge on a play at first in a scoreless game with no men on in the third inning because he'll look like an idiot when his team loses on a clearly trapped-and-not-caught line drive at the end of the game. With only one crack at a replay, challenges won't be used except in extreme and crucial circumstances, and entire games would likely pass in which teams would not use their challenges at all.
  
  
• While there would be no penalty for losing a challenge (as in the NFL, where you lose a timeout), losing your only chance at a replay review is punishment enough.
  
  
• The only fishy part about this is determining what would have happened in the event that, say, the challenged call on the field was the third out of the inning but was overturned. The umpires then would have to have final say on which baserunners move up, and where - a decision that would not be reviewable but would probably be pretty obvious, assuming no errors (which you'd have to).
  
  
• As in football, if the replay were inconclusive, the call on the field would stand.
  

Some of the world's snootiest, oldest sports have adopted instant replay - cricket and tennis come to mind. While concerns over the pace of the game are certainly valid, if home runs were automatically reviewed and each team were only allowed one challenge, the pace of the game would not be changed dramatically. In fact, the game's pace would probably be more positively impacted by other rules, such as a tighter regulations on warm-up pitches, mound visits, pitchers' pace of play, and time-outs by batters. Nobody wants a baseball game to resemble a football game, where the replays are long and boring and challenges have become the game's focal point. The idea would be to introduce replay to get big calls right but still keep it a small, subtle part of baseball. I think Girardi Party Replay Party accomplishes this, and to further prove it, a more detailed analysis of what would and wouldn't be reviewable follows:

Things that could be reviewed:

• Balls in play caught/not caught
  
• Baserunners out/safe by way of tag or force (or lack thereof)
  
• Baserunners tagging up (in)correctly
  
• Batters hit by a pitch (or not), or catcher interference (or not)
  
• Ground rule doubles; ie, did the ball bounce and hit the wall, or some other object that is out of play?
  
• Catchers (not) catching third strikes - call this one the AJ Pierzynski Rule
  
• Other oddities (fan interference, baserunners crossing paths, baserunners touching coaches/other players, missed bases, catcher leaving the catcher's box prior to pitch, etc.)

Things that would be left solely to the discretion of the umpires:

• Called balls and strikes, no matter how egregious
  
• Balks
  
• Checked swings; normal checked-swing appeals will suffice, and will not count as challenges, but such decisions are final and cannot be challenged
  
• Out by batting out of order (as these calls are made only by appeal anyway and aren't really debatable)
  
• Home runs/foul balls - these replays can come only "from the booth Batcave" and will every time it's even close, no matter what, quickly and efficiently
  
• Suspension/postponement/ending of a game due to weather

Editor's Note: It's too bad that Marthur has disassociated himself with this blog, because he could provide a passionate counter-argument to my point of view. I know this because he did already, half-drunk in a stifling-hot dorm room in Columbus, Ohio a few weeks ago. Nothing better than seeing two co-bloggers call each other assholes.

May Your First Son Grow to Snort Lots of Yay

Yesterday I happened upon this article in the New York Times about Dutch passion for baseball, which is the equivalent of American passion for soccer, with a few die-hards but largely overlooked by much more popular sports. They have a league there based from the traditional soccer clubs, and Johan Cruyff, considered the best Dutch footballer of all time, actually started at Ajax as a catcher. And Holland produces their share of major leaguers, including Marlins starter Rick Vanden Hurk aka Henricus van Den Hurk, to go along with those from Aruba and the Antilles in the Carribean (Sidney Ponson and Andruw Jones among them). But this quote just made me lose it:

Her husband was a rabid Mets fan, she said, so when the boys were born the older, now 20, was named for Darryl Strawberry and the younger, now 17, for Dwight Gooden.

I could understand this if you just watched the Mets, but now these names are just jokes to me. Any baseball fan hears what their namesake is and will continually reference cocaine and crack for about an hour. This dedication of first born children would be the equivalent of someone in China naming their daughter Lindsay because they liked Mean Girls so much, but I guess that's how globalization works: non-Americans see our celebrities high off their asses, assume its because they are so likable that they see them on TV, and want to pay tribute to them. Just wait for the generation of Germans whose first and middle names are "David Hasselhoff" that will hear their name chanted in Miami by a bunch of old Jews...

Albert Pujols: 6-foot-20 Fucking Killing Machine

Albert Pujols has joined the ranks of Chuck Norris and George Washington as a stone-cold killer. In the third inning last night, Albert, in totally badass fashion, clubbed a line drive right at Padres P Chris Young's face, breaking his nose. Pujols, naturally, reached base safely and was credited with a single. He kicked some dirt into Young's writhing, bloody body on the way by.

But the bloodthirsty Dominican wasn't finished; he stood on first, pondering how to strike next. The opportunity soon came. When he slid into home plate two plays later, he managed to spike C Josh Bard and sprain his left ankle. He scored on the play, as well, and then stomped on Bard's right ankle, too, just because he could. The Cardinals -- showing no mercy whatsoever, thank you very much -- won the game 11-3.

THE SKY IS FALLING! (Hyperbolic Yankees Overreactions)

Tuesday night, during the Yankees-Orioles game, Yankees play-by-play man (and shameless Yankee homer) John Sterling pulled out his best Chicken Little impression and proclaimed, "the sky is falling! The sky is falling!" for nine straight innings on the radio. Tuesday night, the season was declared dead and buried when Derek Jeter took a Daniel Cabrera fastball on the wrist. And on Tuesday night, those claims seemed legitimate as the Yanks looked downright terrible en route to a 12-2 loss to the Orioles.

There was legitimate cause for alarm. Mike Mussina, who had pitched well as of late, lasted only through two outs of the top of the first before getting the old Vaudeville hook in favor of Ross Ohlendorf. The Yankee bats might as well have been those Noodle things you played with in the pool as a kid, because, as with the entire week before, nobody could find a hit and the Yanks mustered only two runs. There was also a report before the game that Chien-Ming Wang had an MRI done on his legs before the game.

So, was it really the end of the world Tuesday night?

You wouldn't think so if you listened to Sterling on Wednesday night, where Darrell Rasner once again pitched a gem, the Yankee offense got hot quickly, and it was morning in America again. Mark Feinsand joined the booth for the "Daily News Fifth" inning, and Sterling's only words were a sighing, almost fawning utterance: "Darrell Rasner."

Two nights, two games, two completely different moods on the Yankees radio broadcast. What gets me fired up here is the fact that nothing has really changed after one night. Even with last night's win, the Yanks are still four games under .500. This is terribly cliched, but it really is a long season. The Yankees are 46 games into a 162-game season. They've started terribly, and it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise. Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy have been pretty disappointing. A-Rod and Jorge Posada have missed significant time. Robinson Cano still probably couldn't hit a beach ball with a 2x4 at this point.

In the end, however, things tend to regress toward the mean and unfold as they should. All told, A-Rod will probably end up hitting 40 HR and OBPing near .400 again. Cano will find his stroke. Hughes or Kennedy, or both, will likely pull a Stella and get his groove back and end up with a respectable year. And if Joba is nearly as effective in the rotation as he has been in the bullpen, the Yanks could make a playoff push after all -- or at least finish over .500.

Realistically speaking, is it a team of aging stars? Yes. Is it the best team in the AL East? No. But, given their lineup, will there likely be a stretch this season where the Yankees play out of their minds and win 18 of 21 or something? If the pitching settles down, sure. Could they make a playoff push? Yeah. The Yankees were in a bigger hole last year and still managed to win the Wild Card. In other words: John Sterling, Sal in Brooklyn on line two on Mike and the Maddog, and Yankee fans in general: relax. There are too many games to declare the season over after one game and then saved after the next. I'm as passionate a Yankee fan as there is, but restraint and order rule the day.

If the Yankees continue to play like garbage, well, people will be frustrated and disappointed, but save the apocalyptic tone for when Hank Steinbrenner, in a drunken stupor, orders that the Yankees trade their entire starting rotation and bullpen to the Cubs for reliever Carlos Marmol and a prospect to be named later. Or, maybe when the Yanks lose a few key games in September to another Wild Card contender. Or something seriously catastrophic. Until then, level a bit. As bad as things look when the score's 12-2, morning will indeed dawn in America again when the Yanks lead 8-0.