INSTANT REPLAY…..BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED

INSTANT REPLAY…..BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

Indisputable evidence, those two words have completely changed the way that we watch sports events on television. At the stadium or arena it’s not so bad, extra beer drinking time or a quick trip to the bathroom. But I got to tell you, all this high tech stuff puts a burr in my pants creating a sensation that I’m having a hard time getting used to.

 

Just the other night at the college football World Series between Oregon and Ohio State there was a stoppage of play twice so that officials could check to see whether their calls were right. One was a catch, the other a score, both were obvious (at least to me) yet the zebras had to get conformation from…..wait a minute, I turned the channel before I found out where the referee was checking to, like New York, Washington D.C. or…..maybe even the Vatican in Rome…..who really knows for sure. I hate instant replay.

 

I got to wondering last summer during Major League Baseball how many different stoppages there were to either confirm, or overturn umpires calls, and how long it took extra to get the calls right. The number of times was pretty easy…..however I couldn’t find where anybody kept an accurate record of the added time that the effort took.

 

For me, if I was attending a baseball game, I’d have been pee-od…..in most stadiums beer sales are cut off either in the 7^th or after the 7^th inning. So if they add an extra 5 or 10 minutes that a game takes, and it’s in the 7^th or after when these disputes arise…..I’m beerless, and mad as hell at the same time.

 

Now don’t get me wrong, my life doesn’t revolve around partaking in fermented libation, in fact I hardly drink…..unless I’m alone or with somebody…..and that goes double for a sporting event, hell, its why I never got involved with church league softball, you can’t drink after the games, it’s one of life’s cruel little rules, no alcohol at church sponsored activities.

 

By this time you’ve probably come to understand that I’m not a big proponent of instant anything, hell I don’t even like instant coffee or oatmeal. I like the real thing; in fact I don’t even like instant jell-o. Any kind of athletic contest especially that pits man against man, or women against women, there’s going to be mistakes, it’s the very essence of the game…..any game.

 

Baseball is by far the purest of sports ever devised, and yet it’s full of errors, mistakes, and faulty human judgment. It’s one of the reasons that I so love baseball, it’s how human the game can be. Throwing to the wrong base, walking a hitter, as a hitting striking out, being thrown out stealing, or attempting to advance that extra base, or making an error in fielding, or throwing…..God I love that game.

 

And any of you young guys who would accuse me of not being able to change with the times…..I can only say…..”Damn right, and I’m proud of it.” Change simply for change sake isn’t always the wisest thing to do; some things in life are best left unchanged.

 

I suppose some of you change-bots like the seeming non-stop chatter between the announcer and the color guy when you’re listening to a sports broadcast either on national coverage, or regional coverage of your favorite team. I hate stupid conversation in a broadcast that means less then next to nothing.

 

But I really hate instant replay…..more then I hate nonsensical conversation on my game of the week broadcasts. Babe Ruth is rolling over in his grave right now (he reads my blogs all the time), the Babe was a purest, he’d drink the night before a game and come out the next day with a hangover and stroke a couple of homers, do his bandy-legged trout around the bases and grab a hotdog in the dug-out. Do you think he’d be a proponent of instant replay…..I don’t think so.

 

EARMONN BRENNAN

What in hell is an Earmonn Brennan, is it edible, or is it a tool of some sort…..the answer to both guesses is an emphatic NO! Turns out that Earmonn Brennan is a sports writer for ESPN, and wrote an article a couple of years ago about instant replay. Brennan maintains that there are two schools of thought on instant replay, the traditionalists who romanticizes the human side of sports, those who poetically talk about the freshly cut grass, the smells, sounds, and the thrill of the games.

 

Then there’s the technocrats who marvel at man’s technical advances, and the cybermetrics that seem to overtaking certain aspects of how strategy is interjected into the games. These are the kinds of sports fans who talk about which professional athlete is the most juiced, or the most steroid-enhanced baseball or football player in the game today.

 

Brennan figures that it’s just a matter of time before baseball will do away with umpires and some sort of sensor system will be installed at ball parks that are capable of calling balls, strikes and outs…..on the bases. He also has some wild-eyed hare-brained idea about replacing referees in basketball and football…..but I got a headache reading his crap.

 

Brennan talks about streamlining the use of instant replay in basketball…..and on this point Earmonn and I agree. Earmonn has a really valid point and I applaud his candor. I think that instant replay in college basketball, and professional basketball should be streamlined RIGHT OUT THE FREEKEN DOOR never to be seen again!

 

HISTORY OF INSTANT REPLAY

The beast has been around, actually since 1955 when, during the 1955 season, Hockey Night in Canada used a “wet-film” (kinescope) in replay, which aired several minutes after the play. Videotape was introduced in 1956, with the Ampex Quadruplex system, however it was incapable of displaying slow-motion, instant replay or freeze-frames. I wonder if that 1980’s song Freeze Frame came out of this period.

 

Of course the inventive human mind kept tinkering with the idea throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, and by 1965 had devised an instant replay machine that could do quite a bit of instant replaying, but it was a “mother” to haul around…..it weighed 1,600 pounds.

 

People in the industry of television kept devising different types of operations in an effort to see the games that people play on the profession level until we’ve been given this wonderful crystal clear…..most of the time replay that is 100% concise, with absolutely no doubts.  I wonder how the Detroit Lions, or the Dallas Cowboys feel about instant replay, or how they feel about officials huddling up to debate a call on the field…..I’m just spit-balling here, but I’ll be neither cares much for the innovation.

 

Look it’s really simple why there is instant replay in today’s professional sports games, gambling boys and girls. Gambling on sports…..of almost any kind and on any level is undocumented, however educated guesses place the amount in the trillions each year.

 

So why is there instant replay in sports, easy, the numbers runners, the bars, the criminal element, and the few states that have legal gaming…..and organized crime. That’s right, organized crime…..and that’s according to the FBI.

 

So the next time your settled into that easy chair of yours, you know, that chair with the toilet built in, and the little six pack cooler on the side,(that ACTION CRAPERCHAIR) and you got to take a break because the referees or umpires have to check a call because some stupid coach or manager throws his little hankie on the field…..you’ve got organized crime to thank.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!