Poor officiating screams for more instant replay

It’s the way it’s always been done. The human element of umpiring adds to the beauty of the game. It all evens out eventually anyway.

These are some of the arguments you get from the dwindling remaining holdouts who don’t think baseball needs more replay to help the umpires. I can’t decide which is the lamest excuse some of the so-called purists continue to spew to protect the game’s archaic system.

To them, clinging to tradition is more important than getting the calls right.

Great. With that kind of logic we would have never stopped smoking on airplanes.

In my mind, the Mets still don’t have a no-hitter. Carlos Beltran’s hit down the line off Johan Santana in the sixth inning Friday night kicked up chalk, which defines it as a fair ball. And, as far as I’m concerned, two years ago Armando Galarraga DID pitch a game in which he retired all 27 batters he faced — even though the ump blew the call on the last out.

The funny thing about Galarraga is that his name is remembered more than if the call hadn’t been missed. Galarraga’s gem came between perfect games by Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden, all in the space of 24 days. The grace displayed by Galarraga and the umpire, Jim Joyce, made for sort of a happy ending.

A manager’s replay challenge, like they allow coaches in football, could have helped in that case. But on Beltran’s hit would you assume a single? Sure. That would be better than keeping it completely wrong.

Balls and strikes? I’m not sold yet; I wish there were consistency in the strike zone, but that seems impossible or impractical without completely taking the human plate ump out of it.

Maybe that’s not such a bad idea … or are the stupid arguments in which the egomaniacal umps always get the final word over the egomaniacal players and managers an indispensable element of the game’s tradition? Entertainment? Kind of funny, but more dumb than amusing.

NBA officiating has a huge image problem, maybe bigger than baseball’s. Fans continue to question its integrity after referee Tim Donaghy served prison time as a result of an FBI investigation of a betting scandal five years ago.

Boston’s victory over Miami on Tuesday didn’t have any major controversial calls. But consensus is that basketball is by far the worst officiated major pro sport.

It’s also the hardest to call, with the constant motion of the game. The refs make it harder on themselves with inconsistent rule interpretations.

And now NFL officials want a better raise than what the league is offering. The referees association’s lawyer also claims the NFL wants to do away with the zebras’ pension plan.

Normally, I’d be in an uproar over that, but here’s why not: NFL officials are seasonal part-timers, most holding other regular jobs. And the NFL offered (as part of a seven-year deal) raises that would give a first-year ref who made $78,000 in 2011 more than $165,000 per year at the end of the term.

Pretty good pocket change for moonlighting. And these guys have a bit more leverage than your typical part-timer.

They claim they don’t plan to strike. If they do, fans will have reason to complain about NFL officiating as much as they do now about that in MLB and the NBA.