A Plea for Instant Replay All the Time...

Being an umpire or a referee is the most thankless job this side of chairman for the Kucinich Campaign. So what do you say we reduce the stress level and add some video surveillance to their arsenal? It’s time for the Replay to become an everyday reality in the world of sports.

Purists may stamp their feet and claim the founding fathers of sport didn’t want this kind of artificial intrusion on the flow of their games. Yeah, well, back in 1878, you got a ground-rule double if you bounced a foul ball into the opposing team’s spittoon, so I think it’s fair to say the games can change with the times.

Replay resisters blather on about the “human element.” Of course we love the human element in sports—but that’s more about scrappy underdogs slaying the giant, or a prima donna collapsing in the clutch. Feet of clay are one thing, but so help me if the home-plate ump happens to sneeze when Mark Buehrle is going all chiaroscuro on the Questec, I want that bastard’s feet in cement.

Sports fans need certainty. There’s already so much gray area in our daily lives, a crop-duster spraying our psyches with Selsun Blue wouldn’t make a difference.

Do you really want building inspectors who say, ‘Heck of a set of blueprints on that skyscraper, Brownie. I’ve got a good feeling on this one, so what say we go ahead and build it without a stress test!’?

Can you name one other aesthetic endeavor where spectators pay good dosh to witness the most sublime performers in the world get brutally re-contextualized by paunchy middle-aged guys in polyester? Okay, besides “American Idol.”

When Savion Glover’s tootsies tommy-gun the stage into oblivion, does some ascot-wearing wanker from the Village Voice get to preempt the standing O by clearing his throat and pontificating about technical deficiencies in the routine?

Or, to put it in terms the common man can relate to—do you wait for the DJ to let you know whether the nubile and naughty Cinnamon circumnavigated the pole successfully, or do you go ahead and insta-vote with your wallet and other pocket-centric items?

Plain and simple, sports fans pay to see the players do their thing-- may the best side win. I know there are a few freaky Ed Hochuli groupies out there, and I’ll see you at ‘group’ on Thursday, but bottom line, officials should have as much impact on a game as delegates do on an election—they get to hit on divorcees at the Airport Sheraton, and a front seat to history, but they don’t MAKE it. Unless the divorcee has that third cosmo.

All the world hates an ump--- Boy Scouts going for a merit badge in Bile Production, sweet grannies turned psychopathic leather-lung, even the stadium organist, who plays “Three Blind Mice” to disagree with a call. And let me tell you, when your sensory credibility is impugned by a musician who can’t even land a cruise ship gig, your life has unquestionably become a non-stop Maalox moment.

It’s a damn tough job to call a laundry list of increasingly nuanced infractions while tip-toeing in the slipstream of aerodynamic and anti-authoritarian athletes—imagine being an IRS auditor trying to hold an optional sports-gambling-revenue seminar in the dungeon at Mike Vick’s place. That’s why they need help.

Mom and poppa-san liquor stores have the AV ability to timestamp when somebody took a five-fingered discount on a Zagnuts bar, yet the national pastime stubbornly relies on a lonely soul with a shifting POV to peer through a cloud of dust to clarify its big moments. What's the matter, Ouija board not available?

As a paying customer, why is it I must watch countless replays of some thrill-seeking bastard proposing to his girlfriend in the cheap seats and get doused with a beer in response, but heaven forbid I should get to review the pivotal play of a season just one more time in a playoff game?

Some of the darkest chapters in baseball history have been unintentionally authored by guys who don’t even play. Never mind the Black Sox, it’s anarchy in the MLB with the notorious roll call of Don Denkinger… Rich Garcia… Eric Gregg… otherwise solid pros who suffered from massive brain-freeze in the spotlight and will be forever tsk-tsked by the great scorekeeper in the sky.

NFL referee Phil Luckett, by all accounts good at his job, once blew a coin toss! How can you expect somebody to handle Super Bowl pressure when they just flunked the exam to work in a toll booth?

There’s so much pressure to get calls right we’ve got officials squinting at big plays with as much certainty as a hung-over Punxsutawney Phil on a hazy day.

Not to mention—the games today are played at such high speeds that normal humans can’t be expected to keep up, let alone some of the physical specimens we still see out there.

Have you ever watched a morbidly obese ump at third base try to make a call on a tracer hit past him down the line? They rotate like an overflowing Lazy Susan at a Chinese restaurant being spun by my great Aunt Mabel. It’s impossible to tell if that’s chalk-dust kicking up, or MSG.

And hats off to Dick Bavetta, the 93-year old ref, but the NBA features the biggest, fastest, quickest-leaping mofos on the planet, and we’ve got Montgomery Burns out there looking like Kevin Bacon trying to keep the peace in "Animal House."

What we’ve got here, is failure to officiate-- and everyone takes advantage. Superstars get more phantom calls than Scooby Doo’s Snackberry, and defenders have been conditioned to flop like epileptic carp to draw charges instead of playing actual defense.

Some fret that using replays will slow games down. That’s like worrying about giving Robitussin to your pet turtle.

Have you ever witnessed a group of refs, linesmen and field judges congregate on the field to discuss the bang-bang play they’ve all just seen? What with picking up all their assorted flags and sharing their unique perspectives on the situation, the consensus-building process devolves into a knitting circle doing DVD commentary on Rashomon.

You could put an old timey kinetoscope camera on a tripod, dress the refs up in jodhpurs and handle-bar moustaches, and ask the players for a complete do-over-- but you know, in herky-jerky slow-motion-- and the decision would be just as timely and just as accurate.

First-base umpires have long admitted that on close plays, they simply listen for the thump of the ball into the mitt while watching the runner’s foot hit the bag. That’s a pretty good idea, unless of course the first baseman happened to take a University of Phoenix human beat-box class in the off-season!

Of course, football already uses instant replay, but it’s on a limited basis, with an absurd system that punishes teams that make over-ruled appeals. I think the gas company should adapt that same policy—“Sorry, sir, you were wrong about a potential gas leak in ’98, so you’ve exhausted all your challenges.” (hangs up imaginary phone) KA-BOOM!

Just last weekend there was that doink, ricochet use-every-bit-of-the-upright field goal that Phil Dawson of Cleveland kicked against Baltimore. The zebras said they didn’t review it because it was unreviewable, so what took the four minutes fellas—a backlog of vacation slides?

But clearly, you can’t give teams unlimited replay challenges, can you? Here’s a humble suggestion to fix the whole damn mess.

We move all the refs and officials to the side of the playing surface, where they will have two or three monitors at their disposal to review plays as necessary. Now, here’s the best part—we make the players call the games! Every call has to be honored, unless the opponent challenges it.

And that’s where it gets really interesting, because if it’s determined that you called a fraudulent penalty, you will instantaneously be fined a thousand bucks or more. Likewise, if your appeal is rejected. Not only is your team penalized 10 yards for your frippery, but that Kabuki defense could start racking up bigtime mileage on your Discover card.


Golf might be the only sport that is brazenly proud of not having instant replay, and this year Sergio Garcia cost himself thousands of dollars at the PGA by signing an incorrect scorecard. Is that not a fixable error in the age of miracle and wonder? Should his caddy then languish in debtor’s prison, strumming on a lute to mitigate his melancholy? Did that cost Sergio an abacus endorsement deal? We’re in millennium three, fer chrissake.

The next problem is, these multi-billion dollar leagues need to drop by Radio Shack and upgrade their systems. Homeless people watching TV through filth-encrusted electronics store windows have a better view than NFL refs. Those guys on the field look like they’re pirating cable in a voting both.

This is strictly on the QT, but me and a few investors—okay, twist my arm, it’s Trey Cuban (Mark's long-lost cousin) and the lead singer of the Flaming Lips-- are funding a new high-tech Tron-inspired football league. Check it out, the ball is embedded with a GPS system, helmets are made with Tesla coils and the Astroturf has a keypad underneath it with a different note every 36 inches. If you play a scale, you got yourself a first down. So we won’t need no stinkin’ replays, you L7 SOB’s—we’ll do just fine with harmonic empiricism and instant flashbacks!

A quick digression here, while we’re on the case of bringing machines into replace the man. Can somebody please tell David Stern to eradicate the jump ball from the NBA? The possession arrow is fine. You’re relying on refs of different height, arm strength, and underhand tossing ability to perform an archaic duty. Let’s put a dagger in this one. Foosball tables in biker bars have more equitable systems of random ball dispersal.

On top of all the other problems, lately some umps and refs have been getting a little too big for their britches. Mike Winters in baseball and Joey Crawford in hoop were both suspended for antagonizing and baiting players. That kind of grandstanding is not good for the game, and besides, that’s what drunken fans are for.

That being said, I have to admit I wouldn’t mind seeing the Cyclops laser beam in tennis get bundled with a Don Rickles-voice software package, so it could reduce some of these constantly carping backhand artists to a sweatband and a puddle of Eastern European tears.

However, if we take the power out of the refs’ hands, it’s not an entirely clean and seamless transition to the flawless machines. There is potential for a major backlash here, because you would now be empowering the tech geeks in a jock world.

‘Fess up-- has anybody in the history of corporate America ever had one single exchange with the I.T. guy that hasn’t left you rattled to the core and fearing for the safety of you and your colleagues?

One swift stroke of CGI could overcome the actual valid result of a valiant goal-line stand, and all of a sudden Nerd Boy is comforting Brian Urlacher’s suddenly insecure girlfriend.

But when it comes right down to it, if it’s a matter of Big Brother versus Crazy Uncle Joe making the calls, then I’m sorry kids, but give me faceless fascism every time and let’s play two.