Sports Today: Cincinnati Reds robbed by instant replay again

Last night the Cincinnati Reds were a victim of both in their 5-3 loss at Colorado.

After Jose Peraza was picked off first base in the eighth inning, he appeared to have made the best of it by beating the throw into second.

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Although the second base umpire, while stumbling into position to see the play, called him out, it looked even live that Peraza slid under the tag.

Surely an appeal to the home office in New York would overturn this obvious error and give the Reds a runner in scoring position with two outs, right?

Nope, after a surprisingly long review, they signaled Peraza was still out and the inning was over.

This is exactly the type of situation replay was installed for: When an obvious call is blown, it should be fixed rather than have everyone with access to video know it was wrong and be able to do nothing about it.

I don’t need to see every bang-bang play analyzed for five minutes to decide if it was right or not. I don’t really want to worry about an out being recorded when a runner accidentally over-slides the base and comes off it by a quarter inch, either, but that type of collateral damage can be tolerated in the name of getting it right when everybody knows it was wrong.

Going back to the return of instant replay in football, one would think the instruction only to overturn calls when there is indisputable video evidence would make the system foolproof.

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Even if that meant sometimes plays reasonable people could agree probably should be reversed stay the same, we should still be happy with replay overall because we're still better off fixing any bad calls than none, right?

Well, in practice that isn’t really how it’s worked out.

It is the worst in football where the rules are often more complicated than they need to be and the replays inevitably last too long, but how often MLB’s official gets it wrong really boggles the mind.

Just in the last four days the Reds have had an obviously wrong call not overturned and another play changed despite appearing to have been correct in the first place.

How this happens is endlessly perplexing, not to mention maddening.

Yes, I know this is a #FirstWorldProblem, but it still seems like something that doesn’t have to be this way.

Figure out how to teach every replay official the definition of “indisputable” or “clear and convincing” evidence and maybe we can move forward.

Rule No. 1: If you think something looks to be a certain way, it is disputable, i.e., not clear. Therefore the call should remain in place.

Rule No. 2: If you have to spend any amount of time talking yourself into it being clear or indisputable, well, see No. 1.

Wasn’t that simple?…

In case you missed it, we had another roundup of local recruiting news yesterday. 

Among the nuggets was mention Lakota West linebacker Xavier Peters deleted a tweet announcing his commitment to Kentucky.

Why that is remains unclear, but Land Of 10 recruiting analyst Jeremy Birmingham says it is not because Ohio State suddenly got involved with the four-star Firebird (because they apparently did not do so)...

On the basketball recruiting front, Dane Goodwin was not a free agent for long.

The 2018 four-star prospect who decommitted from Ohio State last month will not be a Buckeye. Nor will he suit up for his father’s alma mater, Dayton.

The Upper Arlington guard ranked the fourth-best prospect in Ohio announced yesterday he is going to continue his career at Notre Dame.

That's a big early loss for new Buckeyes coach Chris Holtmann, who is trying to keep as many of the members of a talented in-state class home as he can despite not being hired until June.

Meanwhile, Darius Bazley -- the Cincinnati Princeton wing who decommitted from Ohio State before Holtmann was hired -- is leaving the state, too. The state’s No. 1-ranked recruit verbally committed to Syracuse.

No. 2, Pete Nance of Richfield Revere, is going to Northwestern.

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Dwayne Cohill, a combo guard from Cleveland Holy Name and the No. 3 prospect in the state according to 247sports, has offers from Ohio State and Dayton (among many others) while the other two uncommitted four-stars in Ohio (Jerome Hunter of Pickerington North and Justin Ahrens of Versailles) both have the Buckeyes and Flyers in the mix, too.

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Ahrens is another former Ohio State commit. The reigning MAC Player of the Year opened things back up after Thad Matta was forced out.

Might be an interesting summer as Holtmann and new Flyers boss Anthony Grant work to upgrade the talent on their respective rosters.