The topic of expanding instant replay in baseball has come up quite a bit recently, but MLB’s general managers didn’t think it was important enough to vote on:

CHICAGO — Baseball general managers meeting here failed to take a vote yesterday on expanding instant replay following a postseason filled with blown calls by umpires.

MLB began video review in August 2008, but only to determine whether potential home runs were fair or foul or cleared fences.

“We talked about the mechanics behind instant replay,” said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner’s office. “We talked about the structure. We talked about where it’s housed, the umpires’ procedure. But it was all confined to the current instant-replay system that we have.”

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I don’t see the need for instant replay in baseball.  Sure, determining if a ball is a home run or not was a great idea, but let’s not go down a slippery slope.  With a home run, the action necessarily stops for the most part, so a replay will just clarify what happens next.  Replay in other situations is going to slow down an already tremendously slow game, and events may unfold after the play in question.

Would expanded replay improve the game?  Maybe.  I can’t stand the 5 minutes it takes to review a play in football (although the system itself is decent), especially when a play is clear but the officials review it 900 times anyway.  And of course, the big worry is that replay eventually expands to balls and strikes.  So there are bad calls?  Baseball’s been fine with bad calls for years.  It happens.  So what, who cares?

[NY Post]