One last e-mail, a pro:

Overwhelmingly negative! Who is reading NRO these days? This is supposed to be where reason and enlightened thought rule the day, but this sounds like a bunch of bleeding heart liberals. Charm, lore, fodder for great baseball colloquy? What happened to right and wrong? Winners and losers? Black and white? Absolute truth? These are conservative virtues.
If the ball hits a batter’s bat and rolls foul, guess what? It’s a foul ball. Being satisfied with an umpire’s interpretation of events reeks of moral relativism. That line of thought says: it’s only a foul ball if the umpire says it was a foul ball.
Yes, life is not fair, and for those who derive joy from that notion, there would be plenty of missed balls and strikes calls to relish, but shouldn’t eliminating ineptitude and demanding excellence hold some value in the minds of conservatives and free-marketers? In fact, isn’t the umpire the baseball equivalent of government? Don’t conservatives strive to limit government? Doesn’t instant reply diminish the influence of human arbiters by holding umpires accountable with the unbiased images of instant reply? Shouldn’t the outcome of a baseball game be decided by baseball players just as capitalists in the free market want as little subjective intervention as possible? Instant reply IS conservatism!!
(I would, by the way, be considered a reliable baseball traditionalist by most standard measures – no turf, no DH, more day games, less playoff games, no interleague, and a balanced schedule – just so that I can’t be labeled a baseball radical.)
Now, if somebody prefers lore, history, and tradition over competition, winning, and championships, that’s fine, but don’t try to cloak it in conservatism.