To hear many fans tell it, they know what they'd want.
Replay!
Fresh from a rookie tryout last year, instant replay is a full-season feature in 2009. Umpires can view a video feed on possible home runs, to check for fair-or-foul and see whether they actually left the park.
But with TV already providing the K-Zone and multiple looks at most every call, there's bound to be a push to try it even more. The NFL and NBA did, after all.
A new Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll of fans, in fact, shows that's exactly what they prefer.
The nationwide survey done in late March found that 80 percent of fans like replay and 63 percent would expand its use. Of those favoring an increase, 93 percent want it for plays on the bases and 59 percent want it for balls and strikes.
"If you're going to do instant replay on all of that, you might as well get robots to do all the games," Seattle designated hitter Mike Sweeney said.
Of the major pro sports, baseball was by far the last to get in tune with the modern technology. Commissioner Bud Selig approved replay only after a spate of blown calls last summer, and it went into effect Aug. 28.
Seven calls went to replay - none in the postseason - and two were overturned. It was tried once at the World Baseball Classic in Miami, but the umpires couldn't see the video and they reversed the original call on their own.
Even at the risk of getting it wrong, many in baseball oppose more replay.
"We're human. That's what makes baseball the best sport in the world. We don't have instant replay. People make mistakes, and that's just how baseball is," Cincinnati second baseman Brandon Phillips said.
"You can go back and be like, 'What if this would have happened? What if that would have happened?' That's the best thing about baseball. Football and basketball, now they've got all the instant replays and you go and check the time and all that stuff. Baseball just goes off human instincts. I'm not really for it," he said.
Former umpire Steve Palermo, now an MLB supervisor, said he hasn't heard any umpires rail against replay. Some even consider it a safety net on tricky plays.
Don Denkinger, who had a long, solid career as an umpire, is most identified with a missed call at first base during the 1985 World Series. Privately, umpires talk about wanting to avoid Denkinger's fate
- then again, that call still wouldn't be reviewable.
There were a couple of muffed calls on the bases during last year's World Series, but a perfect video system for such plays doesn't yet exist.
And more replay would likely stir up at least some umps - and others at MLB, too.
"The commissioner has said he's reluctant to go any further," Palermo said.
Cleveland center fielder Grady Sizemore agreed.
"Where do you draw the line? Do you use it just on foul balls or decide if it over a line for a home run? What about other calls? They can be just as important to the outcome of a game," he said.
Watching an Indians game at spring training in Arizona, fan Rocco Stavole of Bakersfield, Calif., wasn't sure.
"This country is fixated on cameras for everything and cameras don't always show the true story," he said.
Added New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada: "There's certain plays that you want to see, like a bang-bang play at first base. Usually replay is the only way. The naked eye I don't think can see it."
