Earlier today, Armando Galarraga (RHP) of the Detroit Tigers almost became the 3rd pitcher this season to throw a perfect game as he was a mere one out away from accomplishing the feat. However, Galarraga saw a very controversial finish to his pitching performance as first base umpire Jim Joyce ruled Cleveland Indians shortstop Jason Donald beat Tigers’ first basemen Miguel Cabrera’s throw to Galarraga at first base for the final out. After the play, replays clearly showed that Galarraga did in fact have his foot on the bag before Donald reached the bag and effectively was snubbed of a perfect game. After the game, Joyce was adamant that he missed the call after seeing the replay for the first time and sought out Galarraga to apologize for blowing his chance at history. After seeing an instance such as this occur, the baseball community has to wonder if they should expand the use of instant replay in the game.

In August of 2008, MLB instituted limited instant replay for the very first time to determine disputed home run balls. So far the use of instant replay has been limited to just home run balls, however, every bad call late in a close game or an instance such as Galarraga’s has sparked discussion on whether baseball should expand the use of replay beyond home run balls. Craig Calcattera of NBC Sports is a big believer in expanding instant replay and proposes a simple solution to the process:

“It is absolutely imperative that baseball implement some form of replay now. This season, before the playoffs. The best way, in my view, is to simply station a fifth umpire in the official scorer’s box. Give him the same feed the broadcast guys have. Give him a buzzer and, when an obviously bad call like this one happens, have him call down to the crew chief and overturn the call.”

This off-season baseball general managers passed on expanding instant replay for the 2010 season and were generally satisfied with the current process. Believers in the current use of instant replay feel that the game of baseball should remain pure and allow for human error from umpires as it’s a part of the game. Another obstacle in the expansion of replay is that many feel it will slow the game down even more. Over the past few years, MLB has tried to speed the game up and keep the flow of the game at a reasonable pace and having umpires converge and slow down the game to look at a replay isn’t appealing to many GM’s and MLB officials. However, the more times umpires miss calls that affect big games or even the record books, the talk of expanding instant replay in baseball will grow louder.

What will it take to expand instant replay in baseball? Should we just limit it to home run balls and trust umpires to make the right call and allow for human error? In my opinion, I am a big believer in keeping the game pure and feel that while I may not agree with every call an umpire makes, it’s a part of the game and has been for decades. Certainly calls such as today magnify the issue at hand, but honestly how much would we be talking about this blown call if this were to occur with 2 outs in the 5th inning instead of with 2 outs in the 9th? It will be interesting to see where the use of replay goes in the future as I am sure this will not be the last we hear about the issue.

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