Fight the machines

By Harvey McGuffin
I remember when ...

I remember when fancy technology didn't decide which team was better. Not when brute strength, determination and bucketloads of desire were available.

Everyone in the media is clamoring for instant replay in baseball just because a few pansies couldn't hit the baseballs far enough to be definite home runs. Those bleeders that barely make it over the outfield wall shouldn't count for anything, Luis Rivas. If you're a man, you'd hit it into the third deck like Mark McGwire. If McGwire were alive today, he would not stand for this discussion of new technologies enhancing and changing the way me beloved game is played.

Bud Selig feels television monitors should not take away the "human element" of the game, and I agree. Hell, what is sports but one giant "human element?" If we didn't have players and officials making mistakes, why would we play the games? Free will is something that was given to us by God, after that bitch Eve couldn't resist some tasty fruit. It's Biblical.

The slow takeover of machines has already begun in sports. Instant replay in football and basketball, machines that say whether a ball is in or out in tennis, and sensors that say when a goal is scored in hockey. I've never trusted machines -- science is the opposite of sports. Plus, it slows the damn game down too much. If baseball started using instant replay, there may not be enough time for players and managers to fruitlessly argue calls, pitchers like Steve Trachsel to take 30 seconds between pitches, or Tony LaRussa to work his micromanaging magic.

When I was young, I followed in the McGuffin tradition and became a timekeeper for Olympic track and field trials. I used a trusty stopwatch handed down through generations of McGuffins. It worked most of the time, and I was damn good at my job. Sure, I might have missed a second or two in the 100-meter dash, but nothing that would have affected the outcome. That was all before people wanted machines to tell them how fast they were, instead of people.

I say do away with such "advances" as the shot clock in basketball and all that body armor in baseball. And football for that matter -- I don't need state-of-the-art padding before I go out and hit somebody. Football is a man's game. Let them figure it out. In fact, let's just get the referees off the field in general. I remember when we played football, we didn't have a "false start," we just had a "head start."

We certainly don't need scoreboards, either. I see these stadiums with their fancy digital readouts and complicated colors and numbers. I hate all of it. The score should be kept by hand, preferably on a giant chalkboard in center field.

Preserve the human element before it's too late. I can't talk much longer. The machines might hear me.