Thursday, May 14, 2009

Two Homers Lost to Replay in the Same Night!

Well, it finally happened. Since the replay rule was put into place on August 10 of last year, ten home run calls have been reviewed. Twice those reviews overturned the original calls. But those calls overturned both changed the call to a homer. No one had lost a homer to this point and then it happened twice within hours. The victims? Andy LaRoche and Ross Gload.

LaRoche, who is quoted in this linked article as saying he predicted he would be the first to lose a homer to the new rule and so he was. But at least he still got a double and at least his team still won the game.

Gload came in for Florida to pinch hit for Hayden Penn. After his homer was overturned to a long foul ball, he struck out. Now, wouldn't that be a bummer! That would be like one of those fake lottery ticket practical jokes.

Ten replays in four months of action since the replay rule was adopted doesn't seem like very many. There were two questionable homers early in the season. One that comes to mind was the Yankees very first game. A post recap of opening day here in the FanDome did question at the time why the homer wasn't reviewed. Maybe the rule isn't being utilized correctly. Any rule that seems sort of random really isn't much of a rule.

No comments: