Wray Morrison: Eye spy

Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista created a healthy debate earlier this week when he said Cleveland pitchers were able to win battles against Toronto hitters in games one and two of the American League Championship Series because of “circumstances.”

He told reporters if they were to check video, they would find some called strikes that weren’t over the heart of the plate.

After his comments, I began to think about the use of video in “the bigs.” Major League Baseball is one of the sports that is using replay properly. Replays can be used to see if a runner is safe or out, to see if a ball is a foul or fair or to see if a ball cleared the wall or not. Managers can challenge a limited number of calls on the field, the umpires can review.

Let’s hope we never move to a virtual strike zone. There is a great human element to an on field umpire calling balls and strikes in baseball. Let’s keep it that way.