(Corrects 19th paragraph to indicate that Orta was called safe when he was out.)

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, is opposed to expanding the use of instant replay to review errant calls by umpires.

The commissioner said he doesn’t want technology to interfere with the pace of the game. Baseball has a lot of things. Pace isn’t one of them.

Selig told USA Today that baseball is a game of flow, and it’s that pace he worries about. Only the opposite is true. The beauty of baseball lies in the absence of a clock. The game ends when it ends. No time limit. There is no scoreboard clock counting down or, in the case of soccer, up. There are no double zeroes. No blaring horns or referee’s whistles. Time runs out when a team exhausts its allotment of outs.

The commissioner, it would seem, cares more about tick and tock than right and wrong. Or fair or foul, which is a pretty important distinction.

“We don’t want constant interruptions,” said Selig, who presides over a game of incessant interruptions. Like batting- glove adjustments. Crotch grabs. Catcher-pitcher confabs. All of them interrupt the game’s flow.

Selig forgets that baseball is played and officiated by people. And people make mistakes.

Baseball owners last season adopted instant replay for use on disputed home run calls. This might be hard to believe, but sometimes it’s difficult to discern whether a little white ball landed above or below a yellow line some 400 feet away.

Unfortunately for baseball, reviewable home runs weren’t the source of fans taking umbrage with umps in recent games.

Merry Men

There was, however, a pitch that appeared to hit a Detroit batter with the bases loaded in the 12th inning of the Tigers- Twins one-game playoff. The umpire didn’t see or hear it.

Ah, yes, the Twins.

Ask the not-so-merry men from Minnesota about the consequences of a muffed fair or foul. Win or lose. Replay or regret. Ask Twins catcher Joe Mauer whether the commissioner of a sport should concern himself more with saving pace or saving face.

In Game 2 of the Twins-Yankees American League Division Series Mauer hit an 11th-inning fly ball down the left-field line that not only nicked Melky Cabrera’s glove in fair territory but landed at least a foot inside the line. Only umpire Phil Cuzzi, who was in the proper position, signaled foul. He simply blew it.

“The bottom line,” says Yankees manager Joe Girardi, “is you want things to be right.”

Mother of Mistakes

Mauer, who should’ve been on second base, eventually singled, as did two subsequent batters, But no runners scored. The Yankees won the game, then the series. Cuzzi, we were told, was disconsolate after seeing his gaffe on replay.

“I know what he’s going through,” former umpire Don Denkinger said via telephone from his Iowa home the other day. “He made a mistake in a game that’s very important to the teams playing.”

Denkinger, to this day, is synonymous with the mother of all mistakes. His name still fuels anger in St. Louis, where Cardinals fans blame his blown call for the Royals winning the 1985 World Series.

It was the bottom of the ninth and the Cardinals, up 1-0 on the scoreboard and 3-2 in games, were three outs away from a parade.

Kansas City’s leadoff hitter, Jorge Orta, hit a soft roller to the right side. First baseman Jack Clark fielded the ball and tossed it the pitcher, Todd Worrell, who was covering the base.

Orta was out. Denkinger said he was safe. He was wrong.

Hate Mail

It didn’t take long for the hate mail to arrive, including a death threat that baseball officials forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Denkinger keeps the correspondence in a box in the basement.

“We should have replay,” Denkinger said, noting the National Football League’s system does a good job of eliminating human error.

Denkinger remains a fan of the game, especially this time of year. He winces when an umpire’s call, particularly one that has a direct tie to the outcome, is proven wrong by a second peek that tens of millions sitting at home can see.

“We’ve been taught from the very first pitch, when the game is over the game is over,” Denkinger said. “Put it behind you and move on.”

In the very next breath, though, Denkinger says he hasn’t forgotten the bum call that almost ruined his reputation. He can’t forget.

Box in the Basement

Selig, meantime, says he’s satisfied with baseball’s policy.

“Once you start opening up Pandora’s Box, there’s no way to stop it,” Selig said. “I believe that would be a disservice to the game.”

What the commissioner fails to recognize is that the most grievous disservice isn’t found in Pandora’s Box but the one in Denkinger’s basement. All that venom is the byproduct of a good umpire who made one really bad call when the world was watching.

Replay can rectify those mistakes, even at the expense of pace. No one should be watching the clock. Baseball doesn’t have one.

(Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

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To contact the writer of this column: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 19, 2009 22:26 EDT