Or you'll end up having to explain a situation like this one. The umpire closest to the ball and whose call it was, got it right. He was indecisive about it, but ultimately he was correct. How the other two umpires, the home plate umpire and maybe the second base umpire, felt they had a better look at it enough to talk him out of his call, I don't know.
Carlos Delgado even asked the home plate umpire how he could see it from that far away. Dude said he had it foul all the way. That sounds like 100% sure, but as we can plainly see, someone done screwed up.
The crew got lucky that the Mets stretched the lead out making the call a bit of a non-factor in the outcome of the game. But not in the post game analysis.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/05/18/2008-05-18_umpire_admits_he_fouled_up_carlos_delgad.html
....with home plate ump Bob Davidson giving a frank assessment of what turned out to be his incorrect ruling.
"I ----ed it up. I'm the one who thought it was a ---- foul ball. I saw it on the replay. I'm the one who ----ed it up so you can put that in your paper," Davidson told reporters. "Bolts and nuts, I ----ed up. You've just got to move on. No one feels worse about it than I do."
Mike Reilly, the third base umpire and crew chief, initially signaled home run as Delgado trotted around the bases.
Then came a Derek Jeter protest. The four umpires conferred on the field as Delgado was being congratulated at the plate by Moises Alou and Ryan Church.
"I called the ball fair. I originally thought the ball was fair. The objection came from the field. I got my crew together. My three partners were adamant that the ball was foul and we went with that decision," said Reilly. "Very, very tough call. You got all the fans down there, standing around the pole, hands up. Actually, sometimes you can almost get blocked out. We want to make sure we try to get it right."
There is no instant replay in baseball, although general managers voted 25-5 over the winter in favor of exploring the idea of instituting it into the game. Carlos Beltran called for instant replay after his April 2 home run in Miami in the team's third game this season was overruled and called foul.
"We get them right as a crew. We get them wrong as a crew," said Reilly. "That's probably the toughest call we have to make on the field. We started doing this in 2000 where we confer on them. In the old days, you would die with it. This one we would have died with and it would have been correct."
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At the lower levels, I'm sure umpires admit that they kicked a call or two here and there all the time, but you don't see it too often at this level. If anything I thought a supervisor or somebody from the MLB office would have issued a post game statement to the effect that the call was wrong.
This should renew the calls for some kind of instant replay on a limited basis. Limited as in only for use on fair/foul, HR/not HR calls like this one or playoff and World Series only but not for use during regular season.
I wouldn't mind seeing it, but have a guy in the booth viewing the replays and only that person has the power to overturn or call for review of a call. Sure, you'll have players and coaches gesturing towards the booth begging for replays, but that would fit in eventually with the usual spasmodic gesturing and posturing that manager and players do now when they argue. So what's the difference?
And if it ensures that the right team wins a playoff or World Series, that's pretty important. During the regular season, it all evens out in the end, don't even bother.
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