Fifth umpire to review plays in one minute.

Most umpire mistakes are on calling balls and strikes, simply because there are hundreds of decisions to be made each game and the task is ridiculous, attempting to determine if a ball traveling over 90 miles per hour released from about 55 feet away has passed through any part of an imaginary three dimensional area that varies in height from batter to batter.

Fortunately, I fixed that problem long ago by eliminating the catcher and placing a fixed size round target, like an archery bull's eye, behind home plate.  Hit the target and the pitch is a strike.  Simple, inexpensive and low tech.  Easy to implement at all levels of play.

Now for all the other umpire mistakes that we are seeing with alarming frequency and which are amazingly REALLY bad mistakes.  It's not that umpires are worse than ever.  It's that replay technology continues to improve and with it our ability to very easily see the mistakes.

If Bud Selig were alive, he might form a commission for the purpose of dealing with this problem and jerking around for a few years in the hope that we would forget about both the problem and the commission.

Here's what the Major Baseball League (MBL) needs to do: hire a fifth umpire for each game.  Umpire five would sit someplace with access to television replays of the game.  TV replays are shown to viewers within about ten seconds.  On a play that might be incorrect, umpire five would signal to the plate umpire and/or the crew chief that the play was under review.  Review would last no more than one minute.  If umpire five could not decide to overrule, then the play stands.  However, if umpire five determines that the play should be changed, umpire five would do so with no protest allowed.  If direction or clarification is needed for implementation, umpire five would verbally instruct the field umpires via phone conversation.

Pretty cool, uh?

This is where traditionalists, aka, baseball fans, whip out their "Hey, what if Martians land on the field?" objection.  In other words whatever lame objection  they can dream up to sound the most ridiculous and be the most annoying all in one.  It's a great idea.  Admit it.  Then do it.