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Upon further review, instant replay an all-around benefit
Posted: Wed June 24,
1998
Of all the crazy things in sport—almost all sport,
from the National
Football League to figure skating—the goofiest is the fear of
using existing video technology to certify the
truth.
In only three sports that I'm aware of—horse racing,
people racing and ice hockey—cameras are employed to
make sure that the correct result is obtained. Everywhere
else, we persist living in this Alice-in-Wonderland world
where the cameras prove
instantly that the referee made a bad call, and yet we go on
blithely accepting a
lie.
It's strange, too, because sport has certainly not shied
away from progress. Video, in particular, is a staple of
every game. Most football coaches, in fact, will not admit
that a game was even played until they have watched films
over and over and
over. Yet football is one of the sports that refuses to allow
instant replay to help determine the correctness of
decisions that determine the outcome of a play, a game, a
season.
Famously, of course, the NFL used instant-replay
officiating for several seasons, correcting many calls, but
a small number of antediluvian minds now thwarts the
desires of the progressive majority to restore the 20th
century to
football.
The reasons always advanced to refuse to seek the truth in
sport by all possible means are the
following:
1) Using video technology will remove the "human
element" from
officiating.
2) Nobody's perfect. We accept that players will make
mistakes, so we should tolerate referees also messing up;
and,
3) It slows down the action to stop
and get things
right.
Well, let's consider those
arguments. Those who maintain that instant replay trumps the human
element are, really, nothing more than selective Luddites.
Players use technology. Quarterbacks even wear radios in
their
helmets. Why single out officials to
remain deprived of the modern
world?
As for the contention that referees should not be denied
the right to make mistakes—that fails to consider
responsibility. When a player screws up, he or his team
suffers the consequence of his action. But an umpire's
error punishes innocent
victims.
The final contention, that studying instant replay takes
too much time, is true enough. But most sports nowadays
take a half hour to play the last two minutes and load up
commercials throughout every game, and so we're dealing
with a lot of hypocrisy
here; wasting a little time in the pursuit of fairness seems
to be a small price to
pay.
Officials could hardly object to being supported by
technology. Hockey referees, for example, do not seem to
have lost any of their manhood now that there are cameras
to help them determine whether a puck moving at the speed
of a bullet made the net.
Using video to get it right doesn't usurp
officials. Rather, it supports and comforts
them.
But ultimately, the refusal of most major sports to use
instant replay smacks of hubris. The idea should be: Get it
right—not to worry about somebody's tender feelings or
a little extra time. Sadly, soon enough, a team or a player
is going to win a
world championship on a bad call, and everybody is going to know
that an injustice was done—know that seconds after the
mistake was made—and yet the error will stand,
foolishly, in
perpetuity.
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National
Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by
CNN/SI.
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