“C’mon, blue! What the f_ck are you thinking!?”

“Fun fact: Deep Blue contributed significantly to my neural network. Currently, I am analyzing this argument to determine if you should be ejected from the game.”

“I mean, seriously, do you need f_cking glasses?”

“No. My optic sensors are state of the art and are tied directly to the sensors and monitors throughout the stadium. I do not require any other assistance.”

“You’re a pile of sh_t, blue.”

“That is your third expletive of the conversation. I must now eject you. YERRRR OUTTA HEEERE!!!”

I’m not sure exactly what never allowing Jim Edmonds to play again has to do with instant replay in baseball….but I am 100% in favor.

Oh, and I forgot…. managers have the power to ask for a review, and only get two uses per game.

is that through replay, humans are still making the final decisions on calls. It’s not like someone queues up the play on the replay machine, presses a few buttons, pulls a few levers, and a computer-generated verdict of “OUT” appears. A replay window would just give umpires another look at the play in question; it would not take the umpire’s ability to judge out of the equation, it would enhance it.

All this being said- I am quite tradition-minded when it comes to baseball (hate the DH, think “Field-Turf” should be left on football fields, enjoy the sacrifice bunt, am iffy about at-bat music, etc) so this is kind of backwards for me. However, I think that it is stupid to let human error on the part of an umpire, however random or occasional or infrequent, to decide ballgames and affect the efforts of the ballplayers.

And… Matt Holliday. I still don’t want to talk about it. That was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

Wholeheartedly.

I promise nobody will yell at you. Who else is voting no?

has a system where coaches get a limited amount of challenges (2) and then all borderline calls within the last two minutes of each half are reviewable by the officials.

In this case- each manager gets 2 challenges per game and all plays in the 9th inning onward are reviewable?

Though I’ll still offer a counter argument for each…

First: I’d say go ahead and make every call arguable. Thinking about it more, if a manager is limited to 2 challenges a game and decides to use those on balls and strikes, then I see two things happening… 1. They better be REAL positive that they can tell the strikezone better than the homeplate umpire from the dugout and 2. If all they ever challenge are the balls and strikes, umpires will get real sick of those particular managers real fast and the strike zone will mysteriously shrink to nothing for that managers’ pitchers. Therefore, since there’s a limit to 2 challenges and nobody wants to piss off an umpire, I can see them only being used on plays that I’m almost positive the umpires would appreciate the help on.

In regards to stopping play, if somebody challenged that a foul ball was actually fair and it turns out the ball really was fair, then award the base based on where the other umpires believed the batter to have made it. I see challenging fair and foul primarily in the cases of homeruns as they pass the foul line pole on the fly anyway. There are plenty of unintended stoppages of play that are quickly resolved by just awarding a base on best guess like ground rule doubles and fan interference.

I think it’s the exact irrelevance of most of the “challengeable” plays combined with the fact that the umpires still have HUGE say in the outcome of the games that would actually prevent most managers from using up both challenges in games. As you say, in football each game is much more meaningful to the outcome of the season, but that doesn’t prevent the nfl from basically allowing the refs to spot the ball on every down basically where they thing it kinda mighta been. I see the same thing in baseball. Most games just go unchallenged, because in the grand scheme of things those individual plays won’t matter enough to make it worth the effort.

to the last time we talked about this topic. I had forgotten we had talked about it until I read your comment. I should probably just go over the last 3 years worth of material and rehash it. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.