Major League Baseball America s Pastime - 1824 Words

Major League Baseball is known as â€Å"America’s Pastime†. The human element in the game makes it exciting and unpredictable. Baseball remains, as it should, as an un-digitalized and an untimed sport. In 2014, Major League Baseball expanded the instant replay allowed challenges from solely home-run challenges, to almost everything, excluding only the calls on balls and strikes. Fans’ request was one of the reasons this was done. Another reason was there had been a handful of bad calls by umpires, which prompted the expansion of instant replay allowed challenges. Additionally, some thought it would make the game more interesting to watch by trying to limit the amount of incorrect calls by umpires. However, there are some flaws in the†¦show more content†¦In this article Kobritz states that â€Å"Instant replay is not a magic elixir for umpire incompetence†. He goes on to state There are a number of issues at play here, not the least of which i s that umpires are humans, which guarantees they aren’t perfect. No one should expect umpires to get every call correct†. Umpiring at the Major League level is not easy, despite what people sitting at home watching on television might think. If an umpire blinks, he could easily miss a pitch, and in –turn not be able to make a call. Major League Baseball has many excellent and well-qualified umpires, but they are often overshadowed by a few who might be competent umpires. All this adds up to the point that no matter how much instant replay is used, there is still the human element to the game of baseball. The human element of baseball is what makes the game so exciting. Some would even argue that Baseball is the most thrilling sport. Without the human element, there would not be any real reason to watch, or even play the game. Without the human element, a game would be played based on statistics. And when that happens there is no such thing as an upset. There i s no such thing as a ‘David versus Goliath’ type of game. And there is no such thing as a ‘Cinderella Story’ for any team, across all sports. These are the things that the human element makes possible,