The millennialization of sport
Instant replay has made the worst millennial tendencies a central part of sports
It started with Chase Utley’s slide.
2015 National League Championship Series, Game 2. Mets-Dodgers. Dodgers down 1 run in the bottom of the 7th with 1st and 3rd, 1 out.
Ground ball to second.
Mets can end the inning and preserve a 1 run lead if they turn the double play. Otherwise, Dodgers tie the game.
Tense situations like this should embody everything that’s good about playoff baseball, and sports in general. And for a moment, it did.
Knowing a double play was needed to preserve his team’s 1-run lead, Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada did everything he could to complete the double play with an acrobatic throw to first base.
Knowing that a double play had to be avoided for his team to tie the game, runner Chase Utley made damn sure there would be no double play, sliding in so high and hard that he collided head first with Tejada’s knee. The force of the collision broke Tejada’s leg and may have given Utley a concussion. Both players were doing their job.
There was no throw to first. The run scored. Man on first, 2 outs, tied game, bottom of the 7th.
Now that’s what it’s all about.
And then the moment was ruined.
“Getting the call right”
Utley was initially called out at second. He never touched, nor even made an attempt to touch, second base. His singular focus was on breaking up the double play, as was his job. In the spirit of the game, he was out.
But not in this new millennial version of the game.
The delay caused by Tejada’s broken leg gave the Dodgers plenty of time to study instant replay video showing that Tejada’s foot never touched second base.
Under baseball tradition, when a bad call goes against a team, that team’s manager storms the field and enacts a ritual that would be considered embarrassing anywhere except on a baseball field. But even in this childish (and magnificent) tradition, there were standards. Seeing that Tejada missed the base on this particular play would have garnered no such tantrum. Not from Sparky Anderson. Not from Bobby Cox. Not even from Lou Piniella. Utley was out, plain and simple.
Not so in its modern bastardization. Dodgers manager didn’t need to kick dirt, throw his cap, or spit his gum. He didn’t even need to say a word. All he had to do was throw a red handkerchief on the field to challenge the call at second base. As passive aggressive, and millennial, as it gets.
And he got his way. The call was overturned. Utley returned to second base. 1st and 2nd, 1 out.
They “got the call right”. But it was all so wrong.
The call on the field stands
Sports are an extension of culture and a microcosm for life.
That red handkerchief has codified the worst millennial tendencies — whining, passive aggressiveness, asking for a do-over (and getting it) — into the rules of sports.
In life, there are no coaches challenges or instant replay. There are good calls and bad calls, but the call on the field stands.
Sports used to be this way. Game 6 of the 1985 World Series was decided by a horrible call at first base:
It’s a worthwhile lesson: you can do everything right and still lose because of someone else’s mistake.
Before instant replay, overcoming bad calls — or capitalizing on bad calls made in your favor — was as much a part of sports as it is in life. That’s no longer the case.
Now we have VAR instant replay, 3 challenges per game, automatic review in the final minutes of the game, and an ever-increasing number of rules to make sure no coach, player, or fan ever has to deal with the heartbreak of having a call go against them.
At some point in life, someone less qualified gets the promotion at work, someone not as smart gets into a better college, someone whose dad donated $25 million takes our spot on the team. And that’s too bad. But we don’t get a red handkerchief to throw in silent protest, and we don’t one in sports either.