Wednesday, July 09, 2003

QuesTec takes the human element out of the game!

I hate the new Questec grading system umpires in Major League Baseball are being graded on. Most finesse pitchers, such as Tom Glavine, agree. Baseball is one of the few games left which relies solely on the human element...at least it did until this year. A couple years ago a MLB umpire got severely reprimanded for consulting instant replay to judge whether a ball was a Home Run or not. If you are going to have an electronic system "scoring" umpires at some MLB parks, why not go all out and just use one umpire watching instant replay for every close call? Have you watched a football game lately? Isn't it agonizing to sit there and watch as an official runs to the sideline to check instant replay on close calls? It completely ruins the flow of the game. In baseball the banter between pitcher, catcher and umpire is half the fun. To take that away because some umpires, in less than half the parks, are worried about their grades is a travesty. Just like I don't want to see Major Leage ball players use aluminum bats, I don't like seeing the human element taken away from the balls & strikes.