Baseball to implement instant replay?

Could someone please play that one back for me??

Did Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig really announce today that they are implementing instant replay into America's Pastime? SERIOUSLY??

I mean, I've seen commentary columns on Websites and in papers, skimmed headlines of players and coaches for and against the idea, and everything else that happens every time this idea is brought up (once every 3-4 years, on average), and I just disregarded them, the same thing I do every 3-4 years that this comes up.

Because it never happens. And it shouldn't ever happen.

Maybe my two cents are coming a little too late, after the decision had already been made and everyone has probably already made their arguments at their respective water coolers, but here goes nothing.

Let me start with the purist angle. Baseball is a classic sport, pridefully dubbed "America's Pastime," and with good reason. Why else do you think the most successful baseball stadiums are either classic themselves(Wrigley, Fenway), or throwbacks. All stadiums being built today are trying to look like they were built in 1915.

No other sport embraces its heritage and antique persona, not basketball, not football or hockey or auto racing or any of them - just baseball. But instant replay, a technology not available in 1915, totally throws that off course and destroys the classic sentiment.

From the realist angle, fans are going to hate it, and soon umpires will hate the fans. I mean even more than before. If there is any problem that people have with baseball, it's that it is too slow moving and boring. I don't agree with that and you may not, either, but we all have heard that argument. Well, here comes something to make it just a bit slower. And while instant replay works well for spectators of the fast-moving sport of football, it won't for the slower-moving sport of baseball. Football is a sport where there is so much action one play after another that if the fans think there was a missed call, they may become upset and yell a bit, but will forget about it after one or two more fast-moving sets of downs. But in baseball, if fans think there was a missed call, they will stew on it during the next pitch, and the following curveball, and ten fastballs later, and in the next inning, and it may just build and build until Wrigley Field is hardly noticeable under all the Old Style cups.

I'm not worried about coaches, I'm worried about fans. Fans will want to take ownership of this, and I expect we will see a lot of angry retaliation.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella said this in an AP story:
"I shouldn't say it's not going to work, but this could turn into a little bit of a fiasco initially."

Yes, it will.

Fan-adoring Detroit pitcher Kenny Rogers said it is "a slap in the face of umpires that have been here for a long time."

I do agree with Kenny on that one, and I also agree with him on this quote:
"That's part of the game. It's the beauty of the game. Mistakes are made."

Very well said.

Also quoting the AP story, "for now, video will be used only on so-called 'boundary calls,' such as determining whether fly balls went over the fence, whether potential home runs were fair or foul and whether there was fan interference on potential home runs."

The key words of that statement are "for now."

Further down in the AP article, Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina was quoted as saying it wouldn't be used nearly as much as in the NFL, but how does he know that? And when will that change? Because things often do.