Whew. Considering how quickly the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies disposed of the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies, respectively, I was afraid I might run out of time to blog about the MLB playoffs.
While Cubs manager Lou Pinella's postseason decision making has become the most recent subject of scrutiny, the playoffs started with controversy regarding the use of instant replay in baseball and the time slots MLB chose to air the Divisional Series on TBS.
In case you missed it, the Rockies finished the regular season deadlocked with the San Diego Padres for the lone NL Wild Card spot. As a result, the two teams were forced to play a one-game playoff last Monday to see which one would receive a ticket to the postseason. As one might expect from two teams that played so evenly through 162 games, the Rockies-Padres showdown lasted 13 innings before the Rockies rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 13th for a 9-8, playoff-clinching victory.
Lost in the drama of the Rockies epic late-season surge, where they won 14 of their last 15 games, was the questionable call that gave Colorado the victory over San Diego.
On the last play of the game, Matt Holliday scored the game-winning run for Colorado on a sacrifice fly by Jamey Carroll. The sacrifice resulted in a play at the plate where, from umpire Tim McLellan's point of view, Holliday dove headfirst and got a piece of home plate, despite a top-notch block of the plate by Padres catcher Michael Barrett.
To the naked eye, it's a 50-50 call as to whether Holliday touched the plate or not. According to slow-motion replays from every possible angle, it's a 51-49 call that Barrett probably blocked Holliday from reaching the plate. Nevertheless, the news the next day wasn't so much that the Rockies completed an amazing run to reach the playoffs as it was debates on whether instant replay should invade Major League Baseball.
The consensus analysts seemed to come to was that replay should be used to decide whether home runs were fair or foul, or whether they actually cleared the fence (Oh yeah, that same game, Colorado hit what looked like a home run that barely cleared the fence before bouncing back into play, but it was ruled a double and the runner didn't end up scoring), but replay should not be used on judgment calls around the bases.
As for me, all this talk of instant replay is ludicrous. Baseball has survived for more than a century on split-second judgment calls. The knee-jerk reactions that have resulted from this one game is almost comical. Almost. It will be awfully sad if the fabric of the game is drastically altered because of one play where there's no guarantee instant replay would have even changed anything.
The beauty of baseball, to me anyway, is how each play is completely subjective. Every pitch is scrutinized by umpires with different definitions of the strike zone. Every bang-bang play at a base is up to a single umpire to decide whether the runner was safe or out.
To interrupt the flow of the game with instant replay for such things would be an injustice to fans and players alike.
Instant replay has worked pretty well in football, but in my opinion that's because 1) it's such a taxing sport the players probably welcome an extra timeout here and there and 2) there's so much action during the game, fans can tolerate a stoppage in the action. But in baseball, down time is the last thing players want. Pitchers want to keep their arms hot once they've started throwing, players in the field don't want to fall asleep waiting for the final call, and batters don't want to lose their focus as they await their next at-bat. Plus, an unnecessary stoppage in the action could make fans more likely to switch the station.
Using replay for home runs only is the most reasonable option I've heard, but even that is unsatisfactory to me. It won't change the 1996 playoffs and the thought of using replay at all just doesn't sit right with me. It seems more logical that MLB should focus on hiring umpires capable of making the right call as often as possible and for MLB ballparks to find a way to make it clearer as to when a home run has cleared the fence and is fair or foul.
Now, since I took so long on the first topic, I'll be brief on the topic of last week's TV schedule.
The main complaints about TBS's schedule came out of Philadelphia where poor Phillies fans were forced to choose between going to work/school in the afternoon or watching the Phillies on TV because the Phillies-Rockies games were the first games of the day on Wednesday and Thursday. Even worse for fans in Philly: Those who chose to watch their team saw it lose twice before being eliminated in Colorado on Saturday. The Rockies are just ruining everyone's life lately, it seems.
I don't see what the fuss is about, though. God forbid the East Coast Bias in sports not rear its ugly head just once.
If it were me, and the Royals were in the playoffs - try to stay with me - and they were playing at 2 or 3 p.m., I wouldn't even have to contemplate where I'd be. If not actually at Kauffman Stadium, I'd at least be parked in front of a TV. Just as Dane Cook says, "There's only one October." There's nothing that would keep me from watching my team.
From my perspective, MLB and TBS couldn't have scheduled the games any better. It would have been foolish to push the game times back and have multiple games going on simultaneously. Lord knows there are Boston, New York and Chicago fans displaced all over the country, so there's no fair way to decide which regions get which games unless every region can watch every game. Despite the complaints coming from Philadelphia, a late afternoon game should be more than convenient for any real fan.
So, before I get any more carried away: PLAY BALL!