I know this is an ESPN piece I am linking to, but it does really hit on something really really interesting that could be a game changer for the way baseball is watched. 

Apparently, in yesterday’s Chicago Cubs game there was a moment when Casey Blake started getting into an arguement at first base with the umpire after watching Ted Lilly throw a pitch to the next batter.  Very quickly on Twitter a conversation started up implying that Lilly had made an illegal move.  This Rob Neyer piece details the events pretty clearly.

Neyer makes an important point about how the home team missed what was happening either intentionally or unintentionally, but the visitors got it right.  After all, Blake is their guy and they need to follow that story.

But we wouldn’t even know anything about this really, if a former pitcher also hadn’t been watching the game and tweeted something about it.  Neyer certainly wouldn’t have gone the extra mile to find out what the issue was. 

How a game gets covered is about to change. It really already is changing and we don’t even know.  Producers of broadcasts are going to find ways to follow the twitter threads so they can show you replays of the momments you are tweeting about.  The discussions in broadcast booths are going to start to react to this information too.

And the game itself is going to change. Where umpires were just another part of the MLB club, letting things slide if they weren’t egregious, they aren’t going to be able to soon.  Those neighborhood plays are going to go away.  And pitchers are going to get called for everything.  Why?  Because someone might be watching.

Think back to when the Tigers were in the World Series and the FOX team caught Kenny Rogers with some dirt on his hand.  This is going to be like that multiplied by a billion.  That was the World Series after all.  This is just one our of 162.  We are all going to get a say in how a game is shown, and how a game is policed.  We better be ready to take up that role, responsibly and educatedly.

I am not sure if these changes will be for the best.  I am pretty sure this won’t make games go quicker.  All I know is it is all going to be different very very soon.