He then got overruled.
>>>Actually, the umpire made a judgement on a rule that Billy Martin showed him.
He then got overruled.<<<
Actually the umpire applied the wrong penalty for the excess pine tar. The rule clearly stated that the bat should be taken out of the game. There is no mention whatsoever of invalidating hits made with such a bat. The umpire made up that penalty out of thin air. He was the umpiring equivalent of an activist judge.
As for the blown call last night, I think Selig is getting it completely backwards. This was a very unusual situation, in that a) the call was clearly bad, b) the out would have been the last out of the game c) the game ended when the next batter made out, so correcting the call would have no impact on the outcome of the game d) most importantly, the bad call robbed a pitcher of one of the rarest achievements in sports, a perfect game.
IMO, Selig should have reversed this call, but made it clear it was only because a very special set of circumstances existed, and that it is very unlikely he would ever reverse another call.
In general I don’t like replay being used in officiating, and I especially hate it in baseball. Baseball games are already WAY too long and most of the calls (balls and strikes) are somewhat subjective.
IMO, it is best to let the calls stand as they were called on the field, and hope they more or less even out over the course of a game or over the course of the season.
Replay often gets in the way of the bad calls evening themselves out. How often do you see a bad holding or pass interference call against one team, that cannot be reversed, followed shortly by a bad out of bounds, catch/no catch or other reviewable call going in that team’s favor, only to be reversed by replay.