Upon further review...
Instant replay and ABS have been good for the game, but a new generation of Baseball fans is growing up without the thrill of a classic managerial meltdown
Have you heard the one about…
…the fireworks that have been ejected from the game?
You won’t find many people who would deny that instant replay, now in its 13th season in its current form, has been a positive for Major League Baseball.
And thanks to the 2026 introduction of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system, there’s far less griping about balls and strikes.
With very rare exceptions, egregious umpiring mistakes get corrected, and that makes the game better.
Still, I can’t help but wonder how different life would be for spirited managers like Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella and Bobby Cox in the modern game, when the legendary knock-down, drag-out confrontations with umpires for which those 4 hugely successful managers are remembered have been largely eliminated from the sport.
If you’re of a certain age, don’t you miss those encounters?
So as a service to those who didn’t live it, and as a warm reminder for those who did, I spent some time on YouTube remembering the good old days.
