The last minute of the Tennessee versus Michigan NCAA Tournament game took 18 minutes in real time to play. In case you were wondering, that accounted for 14% of the total game time.
Regressing has a complete list, in case you’re interested.
Why? Mainly because the availability of technology.
Cameras are so ubiquitous (and good), that any close call late is going to get reviewed by the refs. It’s the lesser of two evils – some bitching about how longs games are taking is far more desirable than blowing a call that could have been righted by replay.
The NFL, NBA and NHL have, in varying degrees, gone through this process of incorporating tech with gameplay. MLB has had very limited replay the past couple of seasons and even you – the pretty hardcore baseball fan – have a hard time remembering when it was actually used outside a handful of times.
That changes in 2014.
MLB will have expanded replay, including manager challenges. It’s a new era. Meaning that an old era has passed.
Until Jayson Stark pointed it out in a piece on ESPN I didn’t realize that it just so happens Allen Craig is period in time when it comes to umps in MLB having the hammer.
We knew that we were watching something historic that late October night. Walk-off interference?! But Mr. Stark puts it into perspective for us.
UPDATE: This article was shared via the NY Times and is pretty interesting about what umpires actually get wrong.
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