How about that Jim Joyce? I haven’t seen a pooch screwed like that since I stopped working at PetSmart. But to be fair, this is the burden that the umpires of baseball have placed upon themselves by allowing their employers to ignore the benefits of instant replay review in games. Now that Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game due to inevitable human error, it’s time for baseball to step away from the Ford Edsel and expand the use of replay review in its games. How would they do it? I thought you’d never ask…

Add a fifth umpire and use a booth review system. When umpires decide to review questionable home run calls under the current system, they all trot off the field together like drunks shuffling out of a bar. That’s annoying and it’s the biggest part of the delays currently involved with MLB’s replay system. Leave it up to a guy in the booth to make the final decision. The crew on the field had their chance to get it right; they can sit this one out.

It doesn’t even have to be a fifth umpire. Hell, grab that third base ump and stick him up there. He’s not doing anything except sweating through his jowls. Those guys would appreciate spending every fourth night in an air-conditioned suite.

Leave the decision to review with the umpires. We can’t give managers the opportunity to challenge calls. We don’t want them calmly dropping red flags on the field or hot dog wrappers or whatever. We want them running out of the dugout going apesh*t and screaming at whoever booted that called strike. Leave the decision to the umps.

Allow any questionable play to be reviewed, except for balls and strikes. Admit it, umpires screw a lot of stuff up. And don’t give me this line about how their job is harder because they’re some kind of public figure. You know why NFL officials aren’t demonized, Paul Lukas? Because THE TEAMS ACTUALLY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR APPEAL. It’s amazing what can happen in your sport when everyone stops pretending that it’s 1950.

That said, let’s not start reviewing individual pitches. Otherwise, four-hour games will become the norm, and that just won’t do on a school night.

Get rid of the designated hitter. This has nothing to do with replay. I just hate the DH.

So does this have a chance in hell of ratification? Maybe. The umpires’ union would enjoy adding more jobs with a “replay umpire,” and it would restore confidence to the officiating of the game. I’m not the first person to say this, but it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when” baseball enters the 21st century and fully integrates instant replay. Just open up and say, “Ahhhh,” baseball. This won’t hurt a bit.

Major League Baseball decided not to expand the use of instant replay for 2010, despite consideration stemming from a cluster of blown calls by umpires in the playoffs and late regular season in 2009. General managers didn’t even vote on it, in large part due to commissioner Bud Selig’s adamant opposition to it.

Any change for 2010 likely would be likely have to be instigated by commissioner Bud Selig, who repeatedly has said he’s against widening the use of video review. While there was discussion, Solomon said “it was all confined to the current instant replay system that we have.”

“I think commissioner Selig is going to look at the entire umpiring structure and he’s going to seek ways to enhance the entire structure,” Solomon said. –Y! Sports.

Baseball with instant replay is like my grandparents with email: you’ll have to push them into it kicking and screaming. Hang on, here comes an email from Grandpa right now…”Call me when you get this.” Way to join the information age, you old coot.

Yankees relief pitcher Brian Bruney went on the DL six days after throwing in the bullpen during a lengthy delay to review a home run call. Bruney said the eight-and-a-half minute delay led to his overthrowing in the bullpen and a strained flexor muscle in his throwing arm.

“I don’t know what the 8 1/2 minutes was all about,” he said. “I don’t know if like somebody was on lunch break or what.” [...]

“I could have quit throwing, I could have waited and started again,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s coming out in 30 seconds or 3 minutes or 8 1/2 minutes. It turned out to be the latter. I mean, that’s a long time for a reliever to be throwing or any pitcher to be throwing.”

That’s a long time to be doing anything. Hey, either the ball went over the damn wall or it didn’t. And why do they all have to go in the tunnel? Send one guy. What, do they have a breakfast bar back there? Send the one guy into the tunnel and he can bring out coffee and sausage biscuits for everyone else. Mmm, biscuits.

|SI.com|