Ah, Earth Day. (It was Monday in case you missed it). A time to perhaps eschew technology to not only appreciate terra firma a bit more, but to revel in quieter, more temporal endeavors.

It got me thinking about humanity. Not necessarily in the spiritual sense, but more the way technology purports to improve of our lives, but at the same time zaps it of human error. And if my ongoing education hasn't taught anything else, it has reaffirmed that mistakes and discomfort affect the healthiest change.

Technology, too, has a burgeoning place in sports. Instant replays and stat casts are all the rage now. They're supposed to be more informative and improve accuracy. But I guess in that "Earth Day" sort of way, I'm not sure if it's what is best for our games.

Even worse, I fear that's a losing argument, given recent trends. (And thanks here to my friend Elaine Butler for reminding me of this during a recent coffee klatch.) But two seminal sporting events (Rams-Saints and Virginia-Auburn) have been hijacked recently by controversial officiating calls at the end. The non-call in the secondary sent Saints' fans into a tizzy and spawned a new rule in the National Football League, now allowing instant replay for pass interference.

Now this week, baseball will take its swing at computer-aided umpiring. Computers will be used for ball/strike calls beginning Thursday in the (independent) Atlantic League. Per published reports, "plate umpires will wear earpieces and be informed of ball/strike calls by a TrackMan computer system that uses Doppler radar. Umps will have the ability to override the computer, which considers a pitch a strike when the ball bounces and then crosses the zone. TrackMan does not evaluate check swings."

The distance between home and first will be shortened by three inches as well, while the ground between the mound and home plate will lengthen by two feet for the second half of the season. The 60-foot-6-inch distance between the front of the pitching rubber and the back point of home plate has been standard since 1893, but Major League Baseball reached a three-year deal to experiment in the Atlantic League.

So how do we feel about this? From this corner: queasy. I'm not anti-technology. It's just that if the games are played by humans, they ought to be officiated by them, too.

Here is my theory on officiating and technology: Opinions are all over the place. Fans and observers make their evaluations on an entirely subjective, case-by-case basis. If the ump/ref blows the call against your team, we need more technology. If they make a call in your favor, the human element is evenhanded and pure.

I prefer more flow and less interruption, perfectly willing to live with a bad call made by a human. It's probably a generational thing. The older you are, the more willing you'll probably be to accept human error. The younger you are, the more you'll probably believe the technology is there to be used in all its splendor.

I can't believe I'm writing this. I've never been all that earthy. I don't like dirt. My friend Jim O'Neill once said, "Mike, roughing it for you is when there's no mint on the pillow at the Marriott."

But I'm starting to appreciate other things. Heck, I was in my son's class Monday and we learned about composting. I was fascinated. And to think I used to be the guy throwing the trash out the window of the car at 75 miles per hour. I guess we can all change.

The point: Sports (and life) needn't be awash in technology to be entertaining. Technology makes things easier, sure. But there's just something disconcerting about an umpire with an earpiece or pass interference subject to review. I mean, in the last two minutes of a football game, all replays come from the booth. There's pass interference on every play. Hence, the last two minutes of games may last longer than some marriages.

Yuck.

All together now: Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above; don't fence me in.

And let my games get decided by humans. It's the earthy thing to do.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro