Instant Replay

A little bit about me before I get into yesterday’s controversial use of instant replay during the Marlins/Phillies game.  I have umpired baseball games since I was thirteen years old, starting out working little league games and eventually making my way to high school and legion levels.  It doubles as both a passion and a summer job for me and, post-graduation, I hope to attend the Jim Evans School in the winter of 2013 to try to break into the Major Leagues and umpire professionally. 

As an aspiring umpire, there are two things in pro-ball that I loathe: instant replay and Joe West.  However, in this particular instance I have to agree both with the decision to invoke replay and the way in which it was utilized by West’s crew.

For anyone who hasn’t seen Hunter Pence’s near homerun, you can watch it here.

There are a couple elements of this play deserve recognition here.  For one, you can hear the commentators acknowledging that there was fan interference in real time so West’s comments this morning that “[home plate umpire] Chad [Fairchild] already had spectator interference” seem genuine, unlike some justifications we have heard from umpires in recent years, particularly that of Jerry Meals who, after reviewing a play at the plate in the Pirates/Braves game earlier this summer admitted that he “was able to see that Lugo’s pant leg moved ever so slightly when the swipe tag was attempted.”  While this was by no means the smart call to have made in the situation, what no one seems to recognize is that there was no replay that definitively showed a tag in this play leaving Meals to undermine his own integrity as a professional by admitting error merely to suppress outcry rather than defending the call he made based on what he saw.  West not only defends the actions of himself and his crew, but also acknowledges that they were “dead in the water. Couldn’t win either way.” 

Let’s assume that Fairchild had not seen the interference in real time.  Even if this was the case, having gone to replay at Charlie Manuel’s request would leave him the option of getting the call correct based only on what is seen in the replay, meaning that he has every right to make a call of interference, or anything else for that matter, after review.

Baseball is not a “dead-ball” game like football, for example.  The ball, aside from time-outs accounted for in the rules, remains “in-play” to some extent throughout the duration of the game.  A football player may make a catch for a first down, but the next play cannot start until the official has re-spotted the ball, but a baseball player might get a base hit and can continue to run and move around the field at will.  As a result of this potential, there is no natural break in the game for challenges and replays.  It causes unnatural pauses to occur which undermines the anatomy of the game play.   However, in the few instances where replay is allowed currently (homeruns, fair foul down the line) the ball is already dead as a result of the reviewable action.  Similarly, to expand review to questions of fan interference would also be an act of questioning this inherent pause and I believe that this would be a worthwhile use of replay.  Fans are external to the game and, as such, are dead territory for the sake of definition.  If a ball touches a fan it is dead at that time and interference rules are invoked immediately.  To not review questionable instances such as this allows for peripheral actions to impact and skew the game. 

Major League Baseball is also considering expanding replay to “trap” balls, where an outfielder may have just trapped a bouncing ball with his glove to appear to have made a legal catch.  The problem with this is that, with runners on base, this again causes an unnatural pause within the game.  A runner could tag on a caught ball, but would be fooled by a trap.  It would be the fielding equivalent of a balk.  While to call catch or no catch would be a worthwhile review, placement of runners could not be equitably and uniformly enforced.  A player like Jacoby Ellsbury, Curtis Granderson, or Ichiro Suzuki might more easily attain two bases on a trapped ball, whereas slower players might not even have the speed to pick up one base.  That considered, yesterday’s elastic use of instant replay no doubt falls into an abundant grey area in this developing rule, but it remains important that any ensuing conversation of expanding replay be cautious not to interfere with the natural game.  Rather, replay should serve only to eliminate external flaws of making calls in real time.