Weird Instant Replay Call

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I'm in favor of broader instant replay rules in baseball and quite frankly any sport where mistakes are constantly made. The only time where umps can look at instant replay is when it's a borderline home run. Or is it?

In the Phillies-Marlins game in Miami, a questionable instant replay call has been brought to the for front of the game. In the top of the 6th, there was a man on first with no outs and Hunter Pence was up at bat. He hit a deep one to RF where Bryan Petersen was attempting to catch the ball at the wall when some fans dressed in Phillies gear interfered with the ball which lead to a double with two guys in scoring position. Anyway, both managers came out to argue, one for interference and the other for a home run (apparently).

So the umps looked at it the instant replay and determined it was fan interference. Charlie Manuel, manager of the Phillies, was furious that the play was reviewed and was thrown out. He later said he didn't want it reviewed and that a defensive play shouldn't be reviewed. The Crew Chief, Joe West, justified the decision to look at the play because the Phillies argued it was a home run. West also said "Once we look at the replay, we have to use all the evidence that replay gives us." The Phillies wouldn't score in that inning and played the rest of the game in protest. They would lose in the 14th inning thanks to 4 straight walks, 5-4.

Alright, a weird defining moment for MLB. Seeing how this worked out and that there was a 12 minute delay thanks to all the arguing and looking at the play itself, I wonder if it will affect MLB view on instant replay at all. Probably not. They've had a lot of ammo thrown at them on the side of instant replay and haven't flinched that much. The only kind of play that's allowed to be reviewed is a home run and I swear that's just for the "sacredness" of the home runs in baseball. I hope MLB will adjust the rules to allow for better reviews but it's nice to see the current rule being implied to correct some other error.