Replay

WASHINGTON -- While world leaders gathered at the barbed wire and crematoriums of Auschwitz 60 years after the liberation of that Nazi death camp, Oscar nominee Don Cheadle gathered with members of Congress in Washington who are trying to stop a genocide that goes on today. In a crowded House hearing room, the star of Hotel Rwanda and members of Congress talked about their recent fact-finding mission to the strife-ridden Darfur region of Sudan. More than 70,000 innocent civilians are believed to have died and more than 1.8 million forced from their homes in a deadly ethnic cleansing campaign by the Janjaweed militia backed by the Sudanese government.

With conference play heating up, and April - a month that's all about improvement - on the doorstep, I solicited questions on Twitter (@QKessenich) to see what's on people's minds.   National College Lacrosse League @NCLLax: If QK can change just one rule for 2013, what would he add or delete from the NCAA rulebook? QK: The No. 1 rule change on everybody's mind is the shot clock. Shot-clock advocates are growing, but change is a touchy subject. The rules committee works in a two-year cycle, and this offseason offers it the opportunity to enact reform.

Understand this: It is vital to keep all the issues surrounding the replay fiasco in Eugene, Ore., last weekend separate and in proper perspective. To put it so simply that a rabid, death-threat-sending Oklahoma fanatic might even understand: It's a game. Yes, it's a game worth millions of dollars, at least that many emotions and probably someone's job riding on the outcome, but still just a game. A good, credible game in which players and coaches make mistakes and, on balance, officials make a lot fewer mistakes.

Once you got past the pre-game show and the outrageous attempt by CBS Sports to use the telecast to try to rehabilitate the reputation of Detroit Lions stomper Ndamukong Suh, TV coverage of the Baltimore Ravens 20-13 victory over the Houston Texans wasn't too bad at all Sunday.  More in a minute on the maddening decision by CBS to bring Suh into the studio. But first the game - a happier topic. Just as some players and teams do, the CBS Sports crew covering the Ravens clearly raised its game to a new level for the playoffs.

With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just 23 yards away from the winning touchdown with 47 seconds left in the NFC title game in January, coach Tony Dungy was talking on the sidelines with quarterback Shaun King while waiting for the officials to put the ball in play. "I was thinking this is a long TV timeout," Dungy said. What he didn't realize was that the referee, Bill Carollo, was in the process of reversing Bert Emanuel's diving 12-yard catch that put the Bucs in a third-and-11 situation on the St. Louis Rams' 23. Dungy couldn't believe the catch was overturned and the Bucs were marched back to the Rams' 35 in a third-and-23 situation.

Fox will have 26 cameras trained on each game of the World Series. The way things have gone this postseason, that's not good news if you're an umpire. During a teleconference yesterday with Fox's Series announcers, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, the question of instant replay review naturally came up because of this fall's playoff series with phantom tags and strikeouts that weren't. "I don't want to see it because I'm a traditionalist," McCarver said. " ... But you could make the case based on this postseason."

Kordell Stewart was still playing his Slash role when he was given credit for a 5-yard, second-period touchdown catch in the Pittsburgh Steelers' 20-16 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game two years ago.The only problem was that Stewart's foot touched the back line and the touchdown shouldn't have counted. But the officials missed it.Combined with the final play of that game, when the officials correctly ruled -- but easily could have been screened on the play -- that Aaron Bailey didn't catch a Hail Mary pass in the end zone, that game revived the debate over instant-replay review of officiating calls.

The NFL competition committee has approved a proposal to reinstate instant replay for 1997, ESPN Radio reported yesterday.The committee reportedly will present the replay proposal to NFL owners March 9-13 in Palm Desert, Calif.The proposal, which needs the approval of 23 of 30 owners, includes four types of reviewable plays: all scoring plays, sideline plays in or out of bounds, number of players on the field and fumbles or interceptions. Judgment calls on possible pass interference would not be subject to review.

The nicest surprise in the NFL season so far is the absence of instant replay going virtually unnoticed. There have been no disputes since the New York Jets-Atlanta Falcons season opener on NBC, when two major calls appeared to be in error.At halftime of that game, Joe Namath called for bringing back the replay rule and forecast a season chock full of controversy without it. But a funny thing happened. Not a single obvious bad call has occurred at crunch time in three weeks of play.Ed Goren, CBS coordinating producer for the NFL, says he has observed mistakes on several sideline calls during the 17 games on his network.

If only life were like this.If only in life there was this great Cameraman in the Sky to make instant -- well, not exactly instant, but reasonably quick; well, not that quick actually, but less time than it takes, say, to name a certain stadium -- rulings on the day's activities.For instance, the boss comes in to yell at you and just when you're looking for a hole in the floor big enough to crawl into, suddenly there's this whistle sounding, and some authority greater than you -- greater even than the boss -- says, "Hold up, we're taking another look at the situation."

The NFL Network announced Tuesday that it will re-broadcast the Ravens' 31-24 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals as part of the channel's “NFL Replay” series Wednesday night. The network will condense the game into a 90-minute segment beginning at 8 p.m. The re-airing will include use of bonus NFL Films and NFL Network footage, including never-before-seen camera angles and coaches' commentary, combined with exclusive wired sound from the field, locker rooms and sidelines.

It was deja vu all over again for viewers of WJZ-TV's 11 p.m. news who had watched the "CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley" earlier Tuesday. Instead of seeing the Baltimore faces of Denise Koch and Vic Carter at 11 p.m. after a night of CBS new-season programming Tuesday, viewers found the station running seven minutes of Pelley's network broadcast that had aired at 7 p.m. How does that happen at a network-owned station? Here is the explanation from K.C. Robertson, WJZ spokesperson: “The station's main production switcher experienced a critical failure late Tuesday evening," Robertson said in an email response to the Sun. "The equipment failure prevented the news broadcast from starting on time at 11p.m.  Between 11p.m.

Repair relationships Dave van Dyck Chicago Tribune Anyone who survived and thrived more than a decade working for George Steinbrenner is more than qualified to work any job. And make no doubt about it, Joe Torre's new duties as MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations will include more than those in the public job description. But his top priority is repairing and rebuilding the sometimes-fractured relationship between those who sit in Park Avenue offices in New York and those who sit in dugouts in San Diego and Seattle.

This weekend two vastly different rap duos will perform in Baltimore. The first one, Salt-n-Pepa, formed in New York and are icons of the genre. The second one, AK Slaughter, are homegrown, and barely five years old. Cheryl James and Sandy Denton — Salt and Pepa, respectively — have been performing together since the 80s. They regularly bill themselves as the first ever female rap crew. Though that claim is debatable — South Carolina trio The Sequence came before them, for instance — they achieved mainstream success early on with the risqué classic "Push it. " Later, the cemented their reputation with "Let's Talk about Sex" and in the 90s, "Whatta Man" and "Shoop.

In a span of a year, the Ravens' troubles have shifted from yellow penalty flags to the red ones. The Ravens have the second-worst success rate on replay challenges, only a season after they had been among the best. This season, only one of coach John Harbaugh's nine challenges has been reversed. That one successful challenge came on a pass that was initially ruled incomplete to Derrick Mason at New England (Oct. 17). Only the Cleveland Browns, who failed on all four of their challenges, rank below the Ravens.

SAN FRANCISCO — The refrain is a familiar one. After television replays expose a blown call, Commissioner Bud Selig insists there is no great outcry among players and club officials for increased use of instant replay to review calls. And, on the day after a blown call heavily influenced the National League Division Series opener between the Giants and Braves, there was no great outcry. "You're taking everything that's great out of baseball — the human element," Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff said before Friday night's game.

The NFL can tweak instant replay all it wants. It can throw red flags or beep replay buzzers. It can put the onus for review on officials or throw it back in the coaches' laps. But the league can never remove all the warts from a system that has too many variables. It can never make that system perfect. That much is obvious. The question is, can it prevent major debacles like the one that unfolded in Cleveland last Sunday, when a series of mistakes unleashed a torrent of fan abuse on players and officials alike?

DURBAN, South Africa — The World Cup semifinal Wednesday between Spain and Germany is a rematch of the last European Championship title game. But that's where the similarities end — at least on the German side. "Two years later for us there are many changes while the Spaniards are similar," German coach Joachim Loew said Tuesday. Loew took over the German team after the last World Cup, where Germany finished third. "We have made progress in the style of football we play and the results we get," he said.

It must be limited Peter Schmuck Baltimore Sun If ever there was a convenient argument for expanding baseball's limited instant replay system, the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce that prevented Armando Galarraga's perfect game is it. But you have to look beyond one gross miscarriage of umpiring justice to make a decision of such scope. Making video replay available regardless of the situation would slow down a sport that already is losing young fans because it moves too slowly.