In my view: Instant replay

By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky

Issue of Sept. 19, 2008

Major League Baseball recently decided that it will allow the use of instant replay technology. Despite the fact that football, hockey and tennis utilize instant replay for almost every crucial decision, Major League Baseball will only use it to determine whether a ball hits the “foul pole,” says Jimmie Solomon, vice president of baseball operations.

Close plays on the field will still be decided by the discretion, eyesight or hunches of the officials. Mr. Solomon, in a decision that I believe to be antithetical to his namesake, maintains strongly that the use of instant replay in MLB “will never be expanded.”

Maybe he ought to stick that on his bulletin board with Western Union’s 1876 memo: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

I am not one to meddle in the business of baseball or any sport, for that matter. But I will muse about the sanity of the decision.

Columnist Allen Barra of The Wall Street Journal mourns for the integrity of officials whose hundreds of great calls are forgotten because of one controversial call. Instant replay may have upheld the integrity of a particular decision or would have immediately overturned it, leaving the cat-calls and hisses to be remembered as significantly as the prizes in Cracker Jack boxes.

There are books written about the bloopers of baseball history –– gaffes made and reputations tarnished based on eyes that were the judge and jury of allegedly missed bases, suspected trapped balls, or games blown (let alone millions of dollars lost) because a nearsighted umpire did not see either a ball that beat the runner or an obvious tag.

Dan Gutman, who wrote a book about the big bloopers in baseball, identifies with the pain of a Mr. Merkle, a New York Giants player who lost a series and earned a reputation as a bonehead for having missed touching a base on what would have been a game-winning play. But did he really miss the base? The call was based on an opponent’s rants to an umpire. An instant replay could have verified the truth, claims Gutman.

As I replace my baseball hat with my black one, and put down the scorecard of baseball and begin to reflect on the scorecard of life, I can’t understand how an organization would not grab the opportunity to look back, analyze and see the truth about their past. Our own lives progress and the ramifications of our actions become blurred with time. “I said that?” “I didn’t say that!” I did that?” “I didn’t do that?!” “Did I really snap at my spouse, child, parent or friend in the manner you claimed I did?”

Ah, but what for instant replay!

We stand on Rosh Hashana and reflect upon a year gone by. We fast on Yom Kippur and turn the pages of the “Vidui” section and the “al cheit” supplications, as we watch the videotape of sins past and try to erase, backtrack, modify and mitigate.

The klop on the heart is a lot less ferocious than the thumb-flying “yeeeeer out!” motion when the play is just a memory, blurred by the dust-kicked spikes of our rationalizations. If only we could play the tape of our lives and face the sad truths of our actions, we probably would be better off.

Gutman muses about what he really loves about baseball: “the rip-snorting arguments between managers and umps and managers kicking dirt and throwing bats. What will future managers do? Kick dirt on a replay camera?”

I shake my head and wonder. Believe me, if life would hand me an instant replay machine, I know that I’d kick a lot of dirt after watching the video. But I’d have no one to kick but myself.

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky is Rosh Yeshiva of The Yeshiva of South Shore and author of the Parsha Parables series.