Baseball General Managers Recommend Instant Replay

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) _ Major League Baseball general managers recommended instant replay be used for the first time to help umpires make difficult decisions. <br/><br/>The recommendation on Tuesday, by

Tuesday, November 6th 2007, 12:51 pm

By: News On 6

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) _ Major League Baseball general managers recommended instant replay be used for the first time to help umpires make difficult decisions.

The recommendation on Tuesday, by a 25-5 vote, was limited to boundary calls _ whether potential home runs are fair or foul, whether balls go over fences or hit the top and bounce back, and whether fans interfere with possible homers.

Jimmie Lee Solomon, a MLB executive vice president, said it was unclear how the proposal will proceed and acknowledged there is ``glacier-like movement in baseball'' when it comes to innovation. Solomon said if MLB commissioner Bud Selig is willing, Selig probably would run the idea by owners. The plan needs approval from the players' association and umpires.

Solomon said GMs favored having a MLB official in a central place with access to all camera angles. If there is a disputed call, that official would be contacted and would view the television replay to make a decision.

``We have a very technologically savvy group of GMs,'' Solomon said. ``I was surprised that we had five teams that said no.''

Selig opposes the use of replays but said last month he was willing to let GMs examine the issue.

``I don't like instant replay because I don't like all the delays. I think it sometimes creates as many problems or more than it solves,'' Selig said then.

Solomon said that to speed up games, MLB was considering limiting the number of times a hitter could step out of the batter's box during an at-bat and the number of times any player could visit the mound.