It’s not often I say this, so I need to prepare myself mentally…ok:  baseball has gotten it right.

The sheer number of failures within baseball (steroids, tie All-Star games, lack of revenue sharing) have overshadowed the fact that instant replay in baseball is actually working out quite well. 

A major reason why it’s working out is because baseball was quite conservative in their goals.  They weren’t going to try and get every ball and strike right.  They aren’t reviewing balks or whether the 2nd baseman actually touched the bag during that double play.  Baseball simply wanted to- in crucial moments only- review if a home run actually went out of the park.  Simple, easy, important. 

In fact, surprisingly enough, baseball also seems to have a gentle touch when it comes to fines and suspensions.  Josh Beckett throws at Bobby Abreu and then instigates a fight—he gets suspended for 6 games.  Appropriate and fair.  But if an outfielder acts like he caught it when actually he trapped it, well they’re not going to go back and change it after the fact.  Again, reasoned and measured. 

So why does every other sport, especially EPL soccer, mess this up so terribly?

Goal-Line Technology

Soccer is stuck in the stone age of officiating.  They, despite the readily-available technology, have refused to use instant replay to see if the ball crossed the goal line.  Again, as baseball has done for home runs, soccer could easily implement a review if there is doubt about a goal.  It wouldn’t happen often and only be used when absolutely necessary.  Unobtrusive yet vital.

Eduardo

But where soccer really screws up is in post-match punishment. 

This debate hit new levels last Wednesday when Arsenal striker Eduardo earned a penalty kick under, shall we say, dubious circumstances.  (Eduardo was chasing the ball, the keeper was trying to bring it in, the two may have touched ever so softly, and Eduardo went down like a sniper took him out.)  From where the ref saw it, it looked like a clear penalty but anyone with a TV knew otherwise.  The penalty was given, Eduardo scored, and then all of Europe lost their minds.  The head of Scottish football (who’s team, Celtic was on the receiving end of the error) called for a 2 match ban.  If a player is caught diving by the ref, he gets a yellow card; and yet somehow this 2 match ban was repeatedly called for.  This isn’t just a $100 punishment for a $5 crime, this is a cop seeing you speed, deciding to not even pull you over, and then the Chief of Police deciding that they should impound your car. 

The over-reacting is bad, but the fact that this is ad-hoc makes it worse.  There is no official procedure for review and retroactive punishment.  Do they need a review procedure to go back and punish divers and fouls that go beyond the line?  Absolutely. 

Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager, immediately put the whole process into perspective: If diving can be punished post-match, what about a foul?  What about pulling a guys shirt?  What about handing a ball?  They are all yellow cards during the game, can they really all become 2 game suspensions after the game?  Imagine a world in which speeding gets you a ticket, but getting away with speeding gets you 6 months in jail. 

Wayne Rooney

The salt in the wounds for Arsenal fans was quick, because this past weekend Arsenal was playing Man U.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a striker was chasing the ball, the keeper was trying to bring it in, the two touched, and the striker went down.  It earned a penalty, and the striker put it in the net.  It wasn’t until replays came on that you noticed the striker was already going down in anticipation of contact before he was ever actually touched.  But this time, it was an English player, Wayne Rooney, and therefore labeled a “smart move” by the media.  There are no punishments coming.  Imagine a world in which speeding gets you a ticket, but someone else speeding gets them credit for getting somewhere on time. 

The Hand of God and the head of Zidane

One of the most famous plays in World Cup history was a Maradona “header” in 1986.  The striker jumped, went forward, and put the ball in the net…using his fist.  The cheating went unnoticed and the goal counted.  Rather than be embarrassed, the Argentinean fans nicknamed the goal “the hand of God” and it is still celebrated.  Were English fans upset?  Of course, but what post-match punishment could possibly fix it?  These mistakes are the thing of lore and they are the price we pay for having human referees. 

Of course the other side of the coin was Zinedine Zidane, who famously headbutted an opponent in the World Cup final in 2006.  The incident was originally missed by the ref and allegedly it was the stadium replays that alerted him to it.  Technically using the stadium jumbrotron is illegal, but if he had missed it and allowed Zidane to continue it would have made a mockery of the game. 

Why not make a full contextual decision?  Why not say Eduardo dove but they were up 2 goals and Celtic couldn’t generate two shots—so it’s a yellow card but nothing worse?  But if it were a tie game, and the penalty really effected the outcome, the punishment would be worse?  In other words, why not institute a reasoned and careful standard that when a ref misses something the punishment will be worse if the outcome of the game was affected?

So where does that leave us?

Frankly, I’m not sure.  Constant movement and jousting for position make it incredibly tough for an official to see it all.  As a result the act of over-reacting, of drawing attention, is a necessity in sports around the world.  So as sports fans, we need to decide if we’d rather have mistakes or have everything subject to review. 

To get a little more perspective, I asked my friend Gabe, who coaches soccer, what he thought of the post-match punishment:
 
“Just like fines in American sports leagues try to discourage the little nuances of players trying to gain an edge, there should be fines or suspensions for diving. Goals change games and when they’re fabricated from nothing it really can change the dynamic of the game.  It has to be taken on a case by case basis. It’s a big grey area because a dive in the box can lead to a penalty, but a dive within 30 yards that can be served up on a set piece can be just as dangerous.  Having put all that down, the post-game decisions in the NBA playoffs the past couple of years have created more of a mess than adding clarity.”

But then again maybe gamesmanship is just the price we pay for physical, competitive games.  And when I think about it that way, I wouldn’t have it any other way.