Los Angeles Dodgers

It's humanity vs. instant replay, and we're getting our tails kicked, people

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:30 p.m. ET

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Zack Pierce

Instant replay — supposedly our great restorer of sports justice, our friend — is actually embarrassing us on a near-nightly basis. How could we let this happen?

On Thursday, the WNBA championship was decided in an exciting fifth and final game. The Los Angeles Sparks held off the Minnesota Lynx 77-76 in a game that saw 24 lead changes and a fantastic final four minutes. The Sparks led 71-63, let the Lynx back into it thanks to an 8-0 run, then the two went back and forth before Nneka Ogwumike's offensive rebound and putback with 3.1 seconds left ended up clinching it for L.A. Likeable star Candace Parker won her first career title. It was a great night for the sport.

On Friday, an official cloud was plopped right on top of that. There was a play Thursday, right after the Lynx had tied the game at 71 with 74 seconds to go that didn't look right. Ogwumike scored on a shot that came close enough to the shot clock expiring that it should have instantly been reviewed. It wasn't. Once the ESPN broadcast was able to pause to examine the shot, it was clear the ball was still in Ogwumike's hand when the clock hit zero. But the game went on, no review, and the basket stood. Obviously, there's no telling how the final 74 seconds would have unfolded if the basket was overturned, but two points are undoubtedly massive in a one-point victory.

Now, the WNBA is acknowledging the error, releasing this statement Friday: “After reviewing postgame video, we have determined that Nneka Ogwumike’s shot with 1:14 remaining in regulation time should not have counted due to a shot-clock violation, and that the referees improperly failed to review the play under the instant replay rules.”

And that's it. A cold memo. Not even a, "Hey, sorry about that, how you holding up?" The Sparks are champions and the Lynx are not, and an admitted blatant mistake from the officiating crew not to use the review system available to them played a big role.

This would be an outrageous enough thing to happen by itself, but something similar had just happened a few nights earlier in Game 4. This one benefited the Lynx, who were leading 79-77 with 26 seconds to play and failed to get the ball over half court in the required eight seconds. It wasn't called, the Lynx were fouled and went to the free throw line to begin the process of icing the game. The league's statement about that one said:

"After reviewing postgame video, we have determined that with 0:17.7 remaining in regulation time, Minnesota released the ball for a pass from the backcourt and the ball was still in the backcourt when the shot clock turned to 0:16. An 8-second violation should have been called on Minnesota. This play is not a trigger to review via instant replay.”

Both statements begin with the phrase, "After reviewing postgame video," a phrase that is wrapped in delicious irony. They can't review the video during the games to get the calls right when they matter, but they can do it the next morning and release to you a statement of fact that you already knew.

In a weird way, I guess, it balanced out. But that's hardly an excuse. If you can't already appreciate the magnitude of this, imagine a conference championship game and the Super Bowl, or Games 6 and 7 of the World Series, being decided on league-admitted failures by the officials. Imagine how fans of the wronged teams would react. Think of the children.

The Lynx-Sparks examples are only the biggest from a week that has seen replay issues come to the forefront in many sports. In Wednesday's Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, Adrian Gonzalez of the Dodgers slid into home plate and was called out on a close play. Gonzalez was adamant that he was safe, and many people agreed after seeing numerous replay angles, but the umpires upheld the call after review. In the NFL, last Sunday's Falcons-Seahawks game ended on a non-call of a clear pass interference infraction by Seattle's Richard Sherman. Like the Lynx's backcourt violation, pass interference is not reviewable. But you barely need more than this picture to know that this is pass interference:

The curse of having instant replay review is that it makes the calls that still get screwed up so much harder to swallow. You could maybe excuse missing a shot clock violation in the heat of the real-time environment. You can't excuse a failure to even use the system you have in place to review such an incident, especially when it was so plainly evident to the thousands of people watching that, at the very least, Ogwumike's shot was close enough to the buzzer to warrant a review.

And then there are the non-reviewable plays. Saying a backcourt violation or a pass interference call is not reviewable is an increasingly hollow reason to decide a game in this age of HD-camera overload. Why shouldn't we be able to look back at Richard Sherman hanging from Julio Jones' arm and give ourselves a second to consider whether it was, in fact, a game-changing penalty?

Lost in all the doublespeak about what's reviewable and what's not and how many steps, pivots, burpees and other football moves you need to do before a catch is a catch is that the simple reason for replay review's existence is to get close calls right, particularly those that could change the outcome of a game. This cannot happen unless you have A) review as an option on those close calls, B) a clear definition of what "right" means on a close call, and C) the proper system in place to be sure all such calls get a review. The more work we try to do to add layers of complexity to those three things, the more we hamstring the officials' ability to deliver on the promise replay review brings.

No one wants games to be bogged down from start to finish with endless reviews. And yes, even with review, some calls are not conclusive. (You can argue that the Gonzalez slide was one such example.) And yes, a play in the first quarter that seems benign at the time and so wasn't reviewed may end up proving costly at the end. But we can't have everything. You can have review permeate every aspect of your game, you can not have review at all, or you can figure out a responsible means of using it to at least ensure that you don't blow it in the decisive game of your championship series, or the decisive moment of your high-profile game, when all eyes are on you and getting things right should be paramount.

What's the solution? For starters, let's get it right in those critical final minutes. Drop the "not reviewable" stipulation. If it's a close call, if the fate of the game hinges on it, stop the game and look at it. Dedicate an official to this responsibility alone. Will it devolve into an endless string of petty calls getting reviewed and slowing endgame scenarios to a skull-crushing crawl? Maybe! But let's at least try it. Replay review will never be a perfect science — and when it works properly, it's a glorious thing — but why have it at all if we can't stop games from ending in these massive controversies?

That's the sweet spot. That's how we win. Someday, maybe long after the seas rise and we've fled this place to go pollute Mars, we will figure this out. But this week has shown we are so very far from it, and it's mildly humiliating for our species.

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