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Last year, Major League Baseball stepped up to the technology plate and adapted instant replay. However, these implementations were very minor. Instant replay could only be used on home run boundary calls, such as if a ball touched anything in “home run land” and bounced back into play, or if a fan reached over and caused what would be a double appear to be a home run. For the most part, I was very much in agreement with these rules. However, it’s time for change.

This comes after the call made in a near perfect game on June 2nd by Armando Galarraga. Galarraga had retired the first 26 batters of the game when Cleveland’s Jason Donald hit a ground ball to the right of first baseman Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera came up with the ball, and tossed it over to Galarraga, who was covering first base. Veteran umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe at the base. Replays later showed that the ball and Galarraga beat Donald to the bag.

It’s one thing that a call is missed from time to time on regular games. But now we’re messing with history. This could have, and should have been, the 21st perfect game in major league history, and the third in the span of less than 30 days. That’s just too much history to let a judgement call mess up.

I understand that everyone is human. But this is precisely the problem. There is just a bit too much human error in the game. Now I’m not saying that we should do away with umpires completely and just rely on computers to run the game. That would be a terrible idea. But I do think that there is a need to help out umpires on judgement calls in baseball. Here’s what I propose:

Each team is granted 2 “challenges” per game. A challenge can be on any play on any ball put into play. This can be on whether or not a ball was a home run, whether or not it was fair or foul, whether or not a runner was safe or out on a base, or any other issue that could arise on a ball put into play. I do not believe that instant replay should be used for determining whether or not a pitch was a ball or a strike. Also, an official not on the field, maybe even at the MLB headquarters would have a total of 1 minute to review the call. If he/she cannot overturn it within the 1 minute, then the call stays the same. Also, just as in the NFL, to overturn a call, there must be indisputable evidence that the wrong call was made. Also, sort of as in the NFL, if a team loses their first challenge of the game, then they may not use their 2nd.

There is the argument that adding more instant replay to baseball would slow the game down. But on the contrary, it could speed it up a bit. When a manager goes out to argue a call, he sometimes takes more than a few minutes. And ejections often time take longer than that. I propose that the crew chief wears an earpiece that would keep him in contact with the person reviewing the call, so that once a decision is made, the crew chief can make the call and we can get on with the game. Since this process would only take about 2 minutes at the most, players won’t get cold that easily. And really, how many times are we going to have to challenge 4 calls in a single game. I say not too many times.

All in all, instant replay would make Major League Baseball a better sport. We would be able to ensure that the umpires are making the correct calls. It could also reduce ejection rates, which have to be at a huge increase this year. Baseball gets a bad rap with the whole steroid issue, but is finally putting that issue behind itself. I say it’s time for Selig and Co. to step it up, and expand instant replay.

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