When the second round of the famous Masters golf tournament finished up on Friday night, one bright star, not yet burned out, sat in last place. He had a score of +17, more than 20 shots off of the lead and was going to miss the cut. Still, the applause for him rounding the 18th fairway might have been louder than it was for anyone else.

The man was Gary Player, a 72-year-old legend of the sport, who had just shot a 78 on the world's most famous golf course. Despite his last-place finish, Player participated in his 51st Masters, a tournament he's won three times -- the last in 1978. Still, his second-round score bested that of several players less than half his age. It's stuff like this that makes the Masters indeed "a tradition unlike any other."

And it's one sport that interprets its tradition correctly.

Later in the weekend, the Chicago Cubs bested the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-5, in an extra-innings Major League Baseball thriller. The Cubs scored a run in the eighth inning to tie the game and set themselves up for the win. But they should never have had the opportunity in the first place.

In the sixth inning of the same game, Mark DeRosa hit a long, loud strike to left field in Citizens Bank Park, just foul. Happens all the time. The problem? It was called fair. It was, in the box score, a solo home run. What should have been an uneventful strike turned the entire game around. Somehow, the umpires missed what was obvious to the millions of people watching the game at home or those who saw the replay on SportsCenter. OK, OK. So it's April, with still about 150 games left to play in the season. But as many of last season's National League races prove, one game matters.

One run matters.

Instant replay for officials in sports isn't exactly a new concept. Because of it, Kansas rightfully topped Memphis for the men's basketball national championship. Goals in hockey can be confirmed or waved off. Tide-turning touchdowns can be validated. Even college football fell to the wrath of Joe Paterno when Michigan got 15 calls too many to go its way. But in baseball, there's nothing. Nada.

It's funny when you think about it. In terms of human error, baseball has got to have the most arguable calls, much more over a single game than any other sport. Still, I'm not advocating instant replay for every blown strike or blown bang-bang play at first base. These things happen, and umpires should be commended for even being in place to make the right call in such a tight situation. But for something as obvious and significant as a home run, can't we make an exception?

Seriously, how many home-run balls, over the course of a baseball season, can be disputed in the first place? I'd estimate no more than 20 -- all of those in the thousands and thousands of games played yearly. Instant replay for confirming -- or denying -- homers seems like a no-brainer.

But frankly, baseball is too wrapped up in its own "tradition" to even care. Should we expect any different from a sport that still uses outdated, inaccurate statistics like batting average, saves and a pitcher's win-loss record to determine who is actually any good?

It's the sport that doomed the Baltimore Orioles to the bottom of the American League for more than a decade and started another Yankees dynasty when an outfield umpire -- making basically the only call he is placed there for -- incorrectly ruled a home run on a ball that a fan clearly interfered with in the 1996 AL Championship Series.

Now, I'm not advocating sticking Hank Aaron or Willie Mays out there because they were once good 40 years ago. That's one thing that makes golf alone special.

But baseball has to realize that incorrect calls aren't special, they aren't tradition. They're injustice.