I had the privilege of hearing former MLB ump Tim Tschida speak two Saturdays ago. Eventually, in a room of high school officials, the speech he gave turned into an incredible Q&A session. One of the first questions to come up was what he thought of replay. Obviously he wasn't for it entirely, but he gave some excellent reasons as to why, which really led me to see the issue from the other side. Last year, his crew kept a tally of what they deemed to be "reviewable plays" during a 4 game series in Boston. After going through the game on tape afterward (something they do regularly) they tallied an average of (the exact number escapes me) somewheres in the low 30s PER GAME. Can you imagine even getting buzzed from a booth how long a game would take it you reviewed everything you could? Especially if Josh Beckett were on the mound like he referenced! He also stated that even with the flag rule as in the NFL, managers may blow the flag early and then at the end we STILL would have an imperfect process where human judgement would come into play later in the game potentially. He also stated that they have to log in to an MLB database that is in every umpire dressing room in every MLB park and they are given ratings based off of their calls. Typically (no surprise) their scores are very high. If they aren't, they do face action. Finally, he said that a lot of times when you see these glaring bad calls (he referenced a phantom tag between the Yanks/Red Sox I believe) it typically comes off of a day where their travel schedules are extremely long and they are going through fatigue. They take care of their own travel schedule and always fly commercial, so if there is a delay they will often ump on about three hours of sleep. That happens all the time he said. You would think with the amount of money MLB has, they could pony up and get them chartered flights by crew. He even said, "I'm not making excuses, it just is what it is. Next time you go to your job, think about what it would be like to do it on three hours. Now add in the 40K fans and the media. It's not always glitz and glamour." Side Note: He DID know that the crew that had the Segura baserunning blunder did a 12 INNING (edit) night game on the East Coast the night before (AZ/NYY)the mess that was Jean Segura and RRR. He was a great guy and had some incredible stories that only the men in that room know. Frankly, it was an opportunity of a lifetime to sit and listen for 2.5 hours. It also really made me think twice about harping on MLB officials.