Change for the Worse

What a week: The LPGA threatens to kick non-English speakers off the tour. Baseball gets ready for instant replay. Barak Obama is the Dem's pick for President.

Is there a connection? Try this: we don't trust ourselves. Or at least the powers-that-be think that we can't tolerate ambiguity or personal frailty. So their answer is to add controls in the form of technology, rules, or governmental oversight. The latter is the most odious. And frankly the most easily dismissed.

But the fact that the LPGA thinks that Americans can't relate to foreigners is ridiculous. What the LPGA is missing is an interesting game. Why copy men's golf? Aren't there variations on the game that might make it more interesting or encourage personalities to emerge? The way women's golf is structured now just begs it to be compared with men's golf - and in any comparison it's always going to come up short. So change the game. Make it a team event. Or just match play. Play all par 3's. Or widen the cup. Or put a clock on it. Believe me, the language of the players is not the problem. Americans understand excellence.

Baseball's instant replay is just wrong. Baseball is a sport that has plenty of rules that encourage arguments, which are inherent to the game. At the same time, it's always amazed me how often umpires are right on faster-than-the-eye can process calls. And when they're wrong, let's talk about it. That's baseball.

I have to believe that instant replay will make umpires second-guess themselves and in that moment, lose their certainty and their accuracy. Paralleling football, in five years fans will say, "See, look how many times the umps are reversed which shows we needed instant replay all along." We don't need it.

Let's re-build trust, not add oversight.