Technology Isn’t Always a Good Thing in Sports

“Hello,” I introduce myself. “I’m 078-76-8843. I live in 11747--nice place. My job description is 740.3.” Wouldn’t that be precise for a cocktail party?

I couldn’t be mistaken for Sam Jacobson, the former Minnesota basketball player, or the real estate Steve Jacobson. No question about whether I live in Farmingdale or Farmingville. And surely I’m not the photographer Don Jacobsen. That would all be perfectly clear.

And wouldn’t that be a rotten way to live? Don’t we already have too many numbers draining the personality out of life? And wouldn’t electronic eye-in-the-sky refereeing/umpiring be one more curse of technology taking the joy out of our games?

This is the argument that has turned the air blue around NFL Land about lousy officiating over the weekend and demands that an official at a TV monitor be given authority to rule and overrule. But didn’t we have gnashing of teeth about the variable strike zones in the playoffs? Before that--hoo boy--what about the line calls at the U.S. Open? And all those goals in the hockey playoffs ruled no goal because somebody on the far side was taped with a toe in the crease?

First, understand where I’m coming from. Not so long ago, I phoned Bill Hodges, Larry Bird’s coach at Indiana State, and Hodges solved my problem of the blinking 12:00 on my VCR. “Masking tape,” he advised. An hour later, I spoke to Satch Sanders in the NBA office, and he said tape was too technical a solution. He said he stuck his business card in front of the blinking.

Technology has not solved our problems. It won’t make our games more fun, either. We should have better officiating; no question. So then let’s have better officials. Surely, the referee should be able to remember whether the coin toss was called heads or tails. Instead, the NFL has just ruled that a pair of linesmen will lend their four ears as witnesses.

We have to acknowledge that just as expansion has given us all kinds of players who aren’t qualified for the big time, so we have officials not as good as they ought to be.

The lore of the games is deliciously spiced by tales of the umpire’s call. See Babe Pinelli’s right hand jerk up with strike three concluding Don Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees in the 1956 World Series. Think of the 1972 “Immaculate Reception,” Terry Bradshaw to Franco Harris, and tell me whether Jack Tatum of the Oakland Raiders touched the ball after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Frenchy Fuqua and before Harris. We’ll discuss that as long as there’s air in the pigskin.

If tennis had gone through with its electronic lines-persons, to whom would John McEnroe have screamed, “Sir, you are the pits of the world?”

It would be nice if we called safe-or-out as we did as kids, but adults need referees. Times change. In 1934, Cornell beat Dartmouth on what later was determined to be a fifth-down play. Cornell gave the game to Dartmouth in sportsmanship. In 1990, Colorado beat Missouri on a fifth-down play, and Coach Bill McCartney, a pillar of the Promise Keepers movement, said Colorado would darn well keep the football game.

Even the coin-toss fuss from Thanksgiving isn’t new. Back in the USFL, Keith Moody of the New York Generals made a call on the overtime coin toss with Stan White of the Chicago Blitz. Moody called tails, the coin came up heads and Moody said, “We’ll take the ball.” And he got it. White called Moody “a Christian cheater.” The Blitz won, anyhow. Cheatin’ shows!

The bleat that nobody ever called interference on a Hail Mary pass is stupid. When Michigan beat Seton Hall in the 1989 NCAA Final when Rumeal Robinson got two free throws on a last-moment drive, the cry was: How can they make that call at that time? Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo said John Clougherty was a fine official, “and if he makes the call, I’ll go with it.”

The next generation is going to see the replays of young fan Jeffrey Maier catching a fly ball and making it a home run in Yankee Stadium in 1996. Don Denkinger made a bad call at first base in the sixth game of 1985 when the St. Louis Cardinals were about to win the World Series, and the Kansas City Royals won the seventh game.

And Jerry West’s 60-foot buzzer-beater against the Knicks in the 1970 Finals? Instant replay showed that when Wilt Chamberlain put the ball inbounds, he stepped on the end line. So no basket? Baloney!

Tennis found that the metal gromets in sneakers triggered the electronic lines-person. When the device was calibrated in the cool Wimbledon morning, it wasn’t valid in the heat of the afternoon. So it goes.

Officiating ought to be better. The baseball umpires’ union mindlessly assigns big-game officials by rotation, not skill. The umpires themselves ought to reject that mentality. The NFL reviews video after each game to grade officials, so the better ones get the big games and some with bad scores get dropped.

Players make mistakes. Sometimes officials make a mistake. If it takes frame-by-frame replay to find it, then it wasn’t that blatant. Besides, if officiating were perfect, who would players and coaches have to blame?

I’m reminded of a scene in a very good greengrocer’s store when a haughty woman complained about the dirt on the lettuce. Jerry, the clerk, replied, “Madam, as soon as they can grow lettuce without dirt, we’ll carry it.”