After hockey, baseball is definitely my second favorite sport of the ‘big four.’ The World Series is on, so I’m taking a detour from the puck to comment on something I know very little about.
But hey, what’s more American than talking about something stupidly, especially when that something is baseball? Today, I’m going to whine about instant replay on home runs.

Alex Rodriguez hit the first reviewed postseason home run ever. His knock in the top of the fourth went off a FOX camera and was originally ruled off the wall, giving A-Rod a double.

FOX showed replay after replay of the ball coming in, smacking the camera almost directly on the lens, and then bouncing back into the stadium. FOX showed left of the camera, right of the camera, on top of the camera, from Sarah Palin’s house in Alaska. Guess how long it took to show the replay feed of that camera? About five minutes.

What person sitting in the booth tries to get the best angle of the ball to determine if it went out or not and doesn’t think about the camera the ball hit? FINALLY, Joe Buck said to all of us listeners at home, “Here’s that camera’s feed, and the ball should hit somewhere on the left.”

My aneurism subsided when I saw the camera moving, moving, and shaking violently. Seeing as how there hasn’t been an earthquake in the World Series since 1989, I’m guessing that violent shaking thing was something else, perhaps something striking the camera, oh I don’t know, say, a baseball? Absurd is the word I would use for this.

Part two of my argument is the reviewing station inside major league ballparks. FOX showed a camera from the field going down the stairs to the instant replay machine that the umpire staff uses to determine home runs.

With all the high-tech electronic wizardry available to MLB with which to create this modern-day god of oversight, the best it can do is put a tiny monitor and a telephone in what looks like a particle-board box.

Wow. I come from a sport where every controversial call goes directly to the league office in Toronto, which has thousands of wide-screen HD monitors following every action. Maybe I’m just asking for too much, though. Here’s hoping MLB gets a better reviewing system.