Two of my favorite things: systems, and baseball. Since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated to learn how things work; my mom didn't own too many kitchen gadgets that hadn't been taken apart by yours truly a time or two to understand the inner workings. Old rotary phones, TV's, radio's, record players, nothing was off limits for my research. Ah, the excitement and joy found during one particular experiment that involved getting the operator on the other end of a radio speaker that was jerry-rigged into a house hold phone line...good memories. As a foreshadow to the rest of this post, my first year at an engineering college even included a modeling and design class that had a 'high tech' project in modeling the feedback controls for a fictitious futuristic system to tell if a tennis ball was in bounds or not :-) Fun stuff.
Also, since a kid, I've loved the game of baseball. To this day, my favorite thing to listen to on the radio (yes some of us still enjoy listening to games on the radio) is a baseball game. The majority of the time I turn on the 'bube' is to catch part of a game. There is just something about baseball that I find so much more enjoyable then other sports. Some of my favorite memories of 'play time' with my kids involved seeing how many neighborhood kids we could fit in the minivan and going to the local field for a few hours. I'm not talking about parent hyped and sanctioned little league here, just pure unadulterated pick up baseball without enough people to even cover all the positions. The pick up games don't happen so much these days, but the radio and tv still bring the pros playing out my favorte pastime almost every night from spring to fall.
Well today, two of my favorite things combine. You would think I'd be excited. But, I'm not.
At least for me, these two have always been separate things. When I have enough technology for the day, baseball is a great past time. But the idea of mixing the two just feels wrong. To be fair, its already been happening for a while; pitching speed guns, big high tech scoreboards and 'jumbo tron' screens. But nothing to date that actually effects the real time outcome of todays game at the moment. Especially since the big screen to date usually just shows some silly kissing cam instead of replying controversial calls.
Today baseball starts using instant replay to tell if a home run is really a home run. Personally, I like the chubby middle age guy standing in the middle of the field or behind the plate waving his finger in the air.
Yes, even being a Mets fan and knowing what happened in Yankee stadium this year when even umpire Davidson said after the game “I f*cked up”. Yes, even after one of our own called for instant replay help early in the season in Miami. I still think its wrong.
Bad calls are part of baseball. I realize we are not talking strikes and balls here, but whats next? When I go to a ball game I expect bad calls. “You're blind ump, you're blind ump. You must be out of your mind ump”; its part of the fun. We fans have done it for years. Its like hot dogs, peanuts, cotton candy, and bringing your glove to the game for a foul ball, even if your seats are upper deck by the left field four pole.
I know the managers voted 25 to 5. I would guess most professional players would vote with the same percentage. Other fans I've talked to seem to be in similar percentages. But, I'm one fan saddened by today's changes to my favorite pastime.
