Fear forces MLB to move rapidly on replay

by Kevin Hench

Updated: August 17, 2008, 10:34 AM EST 236 comments

Cap Anson was in the Hall of Fame and Josh Gibson was dead before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

Later, baseball would stand idly by — as slack-jawed as its fans — while an entire era became defined by performance-enhancing drugs.

When the 2002 All-Star Game became a travesty, ending in a tie, MLB declared that from then on the winner of the Midsummer Classic would have home-field advantage in the World Series. As to addressing the actual problem of running out of pitchers, the two-player roster expansion implemented in '03 looked dangerously insufficient as the game went 15 innings this year. More pitching additions are being discussed.

But instant replay? Boom. Done.

The stadiums have been wired to allow for video replay of disputed home runs at baseball headquarters in New York. Less than a full season after baseball's general managers voted 25-5 to "explore" the possibility, replay is on its way.

What made baseball take the awkward and extreme step of changing the rules in the middle of a pennant race?

Fear.

After a spate of botched home run calls in May, even the somnambulant Bud Selig could do the math and envision the derision that would be showered on his office if gaffes like the ones committed at Yankee Stadium on May 18 and 21 were repeated in October.

Imagine if Don Denkinger's blown call in the 1985 World Series had come after a series of highly publicized missed calls at first base and months of media debate about introducing replay for bang-bang calls at first. (Of course replay should be expanded to include these easily verifiable calls, but home runs are a start.)

If, after so many missed home run calls this season, the umps gacked one in the World Series, Selig would have been pilloried.

Replay in baseball is long overdue. Football, hockey and basketball have responded decisively in the wake of mistakes that have marred their sports. But baseball lagged behind, embracing its "human element" no matter how big a public embarrassment that element became.

And Selig almost certainly would have kept his head in the sand but for that concentrated collection of high-profile missed home run calls earlier this year.

On May 18, in a nationally televised game between the Mets and Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Carlos Delgado shot a ball down the left-field line. As the ball sailed just inside the fair pole, third base ump Mike Reilly correctly called it a home run. Derek Jeter protested and the umps got together.

And here the trouble began.

While the television viewing audience was watching precise, super slo-mo replays that confirmed the accuracy of Reilly's initial ruling, home plate ump Bob Davidson was convincing the crew he had clearly seen the ball foul from his perch 318 feet from the pole.

Davidson persuaded his colleagues and the correct call was overturned.

You may remember Davidson as the umpire who — after a conference — incorrectly called a Japanese runner out for leaving third base too early in the 2006 World Baseball Classic in a game the U.S. ending up winning by one run. Or perhaps you remember him as the WBC ump who awarded Mexico a double on a ball that not only hit the foul pole but had the yellow paint mark to prove it. Or perhaps you remember him as the ump who mistakenly ruled Deion Sanders safe on what would have been only the second triple play in World Series history in 1992. Or perhaps you remember him as the killjoy who erroneously ruled fan interference in Milwaukee on what should have been Mark McGwire's 66th home run in 1998.

What he should now be forever remembered for — and gratefully — is that Sunday night debacle in Yankee Stadium in May that ushered in the replay era once and for all.

No sequence could have more thoroughly validated the pro-replay position. It was essentially a compelling PowerPoint presentation, convincing enough to penetrate even the sleepiest observer (Bud Selig).

John Henry (the steel driver, not the owner) may have beaten the steam engine, but the eyes of the umps are no match for the advances in replay technology and camera coverage. In that Man vs. Machine matchup, I'll take x-mo every time.

When you can watch a replay that shows the stitches of the baseball slowly tumbling toward home plate, why would you ever want to rely on a squinting Bob Davidson to tell you what happened 100 yards away?

And what if the Delgado overrule happened during a World Series game? What if the entire national viewing audience knew the answer while the umps deliberated only to get it wrong? What if the wrong team won it all as a result?

These proved to be motivating concerns and baseball is acting accordingly. But it took a couple more humiliating mistakes to really get the ball rolling.

The very night after Delgado was robbed, the umps in Houston blew another home run call. Cubs catcher Geovany Soto launched a ball that hit to the right of the yellow line in left-center at Minute Maid Park, meaning it should have been ruled a home run.

But as the ball caromed back onto the field umpire Ed Rapuano ruled that it had hit the yellow line and was therefore in play. Rapuano would later vigorously defend his call. Maybe he doesn't have a DVR.

The umps blew two calls in four days at Yankee Stadium, including robbing A-Rod of a home run. (Nick Laham / Getty Images)

There was no protest from the Cubs because Soto was able to scoot all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.

Two nights later — three days after the Delgado fiasco — the umps missed yet another home run call at Yankee Stadium that was obvious on replay. Alex Rodriguez drove a ball over the wall and off a cement staircase in right-center.

The ball shot back into the field of play — not a normal bounce for a ball bouncing off a padded wall — and umpire Tim Welke blew it.

A-Rod slid into second ahead of the throw but immediately began protesting that the ball had cleared the fence. The guy who hit it knew it had gone out and soon everyone watching on television would know it should have been a dinger. But the four guys without benefit of replay would stand by their mistake. (Welke would later admit he blew it.)

So in the course of 72 hours at Yankee Stadium we had one crew get together to overrule a correct call and another ratify their lying eyes.

Less than two weeks later, first base ump Jeff Kellogg would mistakenly rule a Dustin Pedroia drive that rapped around Pesky's Pole at Fenway a foul ball. It was officially an epidemic.

But for once baseball has taken decisive action to inoculate itself, the game and the fans against the spread of this human pathogen.

And for this we owe a large debt of gratitude to Bob Davidson, who, in his own way, has dedicated his career to making sure replay is used in baseball.

Thanks, Bob.