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Accepting human error

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Unwinding on Thursday night with a bottle of Fat Tire and the Major League Baseball Network, I was reminded of something I have thought about a lot over the last 20 years or so:

I just don’t like the use of instant replay — or “technology” as proponents are fond of calling it — to affirm/overturn calls in sporting events.

The play in question Thursday night was a deep drive down the right-field line that was ruled a home run on the field. However, replays showed the baseball had actually hooked just outside the foul pole, and umpires are now allowed to consult the tape if necessary to determine if a ball is a home run or not.

So this particular home run call was overturned, correctly, and the hitter subsequently struck out. Justice, right?

Maybe, I guess, but even if I were a big fan of the other team, I’d rather just go with what was called on the field on the premise that:

– Over time, such as a 162-game baseball season, the missed calls against you or going to balance out with the missed calls in your favor, and

– Human error is simply a part of the game; the players, managers and coaches aren’t perfect, so why should we insist on perfection from the officials? And

– Especially in the sport of football, as anyone who’s watched many games knows, replay review has served mainly to slow the game down; I really don’t think any greater level of fairness has been achieved, and in fact often the opposite seems to be the case.

To repeat, in any sport, I am totally content letting the guys in the officials’ uniforms make the calls, even knowing that they’re not going to get everything right. In the sports world, the push for technology-driven perfection tends to strip away part of a game’s soul.

In closing, I will paraphrase something I read in Sports Illustrated many years ago, I believe as the NFL was on the verge of instituting replay review.

Responding to the oft-stated claim that review is designed to “correct injustices,” the indignant writer came back with:

An injustice is a baby being born in poverty, or an innocent man going to jail. Little or nothing that happens in a football game can accurately be elevated to the status of injustice.


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