Just now as I watch the World Cup Semi-Finals, I witnessed a game-tying goal get taken away from England. Why, you ask? A foul...nope, an offsides call...nope. Hmmm, well what could it have been? It was that classic, forgivable case of THE REFEREE DIDN'T SEE IT...not even a joke, it hit the top crossbar landed in the goal about 2 yards in then bounced up and the goalie grabbed it. Everyone thinks it's a goal, the announcers say its a goal, the England coach pumps his fist after it goes in, but the referee does nothing and let's the game continue like nothing happened. That's just great. So in a 2-1 game where that goal would've been the equalizer, England faced a 1 goal deficit going into the half in a do-or-die World Cup game.
As I turned over to Sportscenter to see the highlights from last nights MLB action, I noticed another great blunder. The Tigers were playing the Braves and Johnny Damon was at the plate for the Tigers in a game which they were losing 3-4 and there were 2 outs and 2 strikes. Damon took a pitch that was way outside and what did the umpire do...Yup you guessed it, he called it a strike. The game ends, everyone is baffled and the Tigers are victims once again of a terrible game-changing call.
Bad calls happen all the time and everyone in sports is aware of this, but is it just me or do the calls this year seem to be more prominent? A perfect game was ruined, the world cup is full of question marks, the NBA is considering changing what the letters stand for to No Bumping Allowed. Ok that last one I made up, but it's ridiculous how much control these refs and umps have over these games and what's even more ridiculous is how many of them abuse their power. For every good referee there's at least 4 Joe Crawfords.
Players, coaches, and owners aren't allowed to make comments or else they get a toy hammer brought down on them (we all know those fines are hilariously low) and commissioners seem to refuse to do anything about it. I feel like a lot of these leagues need to clean house and get new referees and they should also all utilize replay in all facets of the game that could be determinants of a win or loss. What's the point of playing a game hard and doing everything right, if it's going to be stomped on and wasted by some power happy or ignorant referee.
We have Iphones, Itouches, and Ipads that all work quickly and bring technology places we couldn't have even imagined 10 years ago and you're telling me they can't get replay to be quick and accurate. Let's get Steve Jobs to invent Ireplay, or better yet Iwannaknowwhoactuallywouldvewonthisgame and we should be all set.
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