Major League Baseball has made the official announcement: instant replay is coming to baseball. As in, soon. As in "by the end of the week." Come Thursday, umpires will now have the ability to double-check close calls when the field's boundaries are in question (ie, whether or not a ball fair or foul, whether it cleared the outfield wall or stayed in play, etc.)

It's a bold move by MLB to install such a radical new system in the middle of a pennant race, but I completely understand the rationale: if the technology exists to guarantee a correct call, why wait? Things have been moving so quickly, though, that not every manager has been kept in the loop to know how it's all going to work. From Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune:

"Do you throw out a red handkerchief or something?" Piniella said, laughing. "What's the format? What do you do? I'd love to be able to throw a red hanky or a green hanky on the field. Can you imagine being able to throw something on the field and you can't be ejected? Nobody has told us anything. I think we should be schooled on it somehow."

[...] "This certainly is not going to speed up the game, and if it takes too long ... this is not like football," he said. "A pitcher is standing there. I'll tell you what, it'll probably be used as a ploy by some managers just to freeze the pitcher for five or six minutes to cool 'em off if he's going really well.

Well, Lou, I have good news and bad news. First the bad: there will be no hanky throwing -- only the umpires can determine which plays need a second look. The good news? Managers won't be able to abuse the system by using it to "ice" the pitcher. (Although, since replay will mostly be used to determine if balls cleared the outfield wall, why would you want to ice a pitcher who's giving up gopher balls?)

You know what I'm really waiting for? The first manager to get ejected for arguing that a call should be reviewed. My money is on Piniella.