Harry: Sure money is a consequence of winning. But you really think that’s what fans are thinking about? Plus bad umpiring can also have the impact of prolonging a series.

Ember: I don’t know if it has actively affected what team I root for. But I certainly find myself rooting for players who I have written about to do interesting things, I certainly find myself hoping that the more interesting storyline unfolds. For example, I am working on a piece right now hinging on the Yanks winning. For bloggish reasons, sure, I’d rather they won so I can publish it. But personally, I think I’d still rather see the Angels in the series.

Not sure where else to put this, but does the act of blogging influence which teams you support? I had a post planned for the Twins’ eventual elimination (or winning it all), and similarly have an idea of what I’m going to write when the Angels lose or win. So, at least from a scheduling standpoint, I was hoping that those two results wouldn’t happen within days of each other (and they didn’t, lucky me). Possibly a silly case, but I’d be interested to hear how blogging has changed your rooting patterns.

Look at game 163 this year. Top of the 12th, bases loaded in a tie game and Brandon Inge’s jersey is clearly hit by the ball, umpire misses it and the Tigers don’t end up scoring during the inning. To me, this isn’t a situation where you can just say, “Oh well umps are human and make mistakes, sorry Brandon that you didn’t get that RBI you deserved.” Would you be opposed to the implementation of a system, similar to the one a proposed above, as long as it got the call right and had minimal interruption? I know that Brandon and some Tigers fan would be interested.

Another thing that really grinds my gears. Check out the strikezone for last night’s game:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/szone.php?xml=http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2009/month_10/day_21/gid_2009_10_21_lanmlb_phimlb_1//pbp/pitchers/218894.xml&innings=yyyyyyyyy&s_type=3&sp_type=1&h_size=700&v_size=500&extraStr=|10/21/2009|Los Angeles Dodgers @ Philadelphia Phillies

(sorry I wasn’t able to compress this link for some reason)
I mean holy hell that is a poor job of calling balls and strikes, especially in a playoff game. I’ll use only shapes that are fully inside of the box(since this tracking system is accurate to within an inch) but I count 19 pitches inside of the strike zone that were called balls, that is just embarassing.

I’m not saying that we should push our current system all the way to the extreme with an umpiring crew that would rather beep and flash lights, but I think we should continue to use technological advances as long as they don’t ruin the fan’s experience. Tennis purists were very reluctant to use replay to get their “fair/foul” plays right. But I’d say that their new challenge system not only gets these calls right but doesn’t trip up the flow of the match.

Although maybe the only reason I want more deregulation of umpires is that I’m still bitter about what transpired in Super Bowl XL…