The Pirates once again got hurt by a bad calls by an umpire. The 3rd base umpire claimed that Pedro Ciriaco left early when trying to tag up on on Derrek Lee fly out which would have put the Pirates within a run of the Cards. This same umpire made bad calls all game and really hurt the Pirates chances of winning this game. Umpires are have big egos for the most part and try to look smart and it looked like this was the case once again. The video replay clearly showed that he was wrong in his call and it unfairly hurt the Pirates. Instant replay must be expanded to improve the game of baseball and it gets more upsetting every time something like this happens.
This leads to a bigger issue, which is the fact that Major League Baseball is unwilling to change any rules. The people who run Major League Baseball wonder why the NFL has surpassed them in popularity. Some might say that the sport of football is better than baseball. That is entirely false because the beauty of the game of baseball is surpassed by no other sport. The true reason why the NFL is more popular is because they know how to please their fans. The NFL will do anything to please their fans because they realize that it is the fans that keep the game going. Somehow the people that run the MLB fail to realize this and do not care about anything but themselves and the "traditions of the game." Who says that traditions are always good? A tradition of umpires getting calls wrong so frequently and sometimes completely ruining the game, a tradition of big market teams getting a completely unfair advantage over small market teams, a tradition of only allowing 4 teams in each league into the playoffs? Are those advantageous traditions? The MLB favors big market teams so much that it is out of proportion. If they really want to grow the game of baseball, they would realize that the successful big market teams have already reached a certain threshold of how many fans they are going to get and it is markets like Pittsburgh that can be tapped into and a lot of money can be made. The NFL's most popular team may be the Steelers and certainly one of the NHL's most popular teams is the Penguins, so no argument can be made that trying to make baseball succeed in Pittsburgh and other small markets is pointless.
The people that run the MLB are so short-sighted and it is really frustrating because the great game of baseball could be so much more popular than it is if they would just change some of their philosophies. Don't get me wrong, I love the history and some of the traditions of Major League Baseball, but the failure to adapt is what is bringing America's pasttime down, and along with it comes America itself.
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