Important to note, the original call on the field was it hit off the wall and was subsequently a double for A-Rod as that is where he held up his base-running.
This screenshot says it all.
Look at the camera. You see the camera? We have a big problem here and I mentioned this in the live blog: that camera is jutting out over the wall! Now I am certainly not going to say whether or not the ball would have gone over the fence had the camera not been there. I am not a physics major and I could not tell you that (although if you did give a physics major the right info; they can calculate the right answer), but this is not about physics, it's about the umpiring.
Remember, the play was originally ruled a double. The ball hit a camera that juts out over the wall in right field. We cannot and will not know for sure if that was a rightful homer or not. The umpires wasted hardly any time calling it a homerun. They probably did not even notice the one glaring problem that they were dealing with the worst placed camera in World Series history!
It may have been a homer, but the bottom line is is that it was originally ruled a double. You CANNOT overturn the call on the field based a ball hitting a camera that juts out over the wall!!!! Now if it's originally ruled a homer, fine, you can leave it there by using the same argument. But that was not the case, now was it? It was ruled a double. The camera it hit jutted out over the wall. It should not have been overturned and ruled a homer.
The umps don't have time to track down a physics genius to tell them about the flight of the ball and whether or not it would have been a homer. They have to go with a decision like that based on common sense. Common sense most clearly dictates that a ball that hits a poorly placed camera jutting out over the wall and is originally a double should not be overturned as a home run.
Now I know all of you except JC are going to blast me for this, but like I said, it's not the whether or not the ball would have gone out, it's overturning a call on the field based on what had happened, and based on what had happened, that call should not have been overturned.
Credit Big League Stew for the screenshot even though they believe it to be a homer.
JFein, I realize that you don't really care anymore, but the umps got this call right. From the 11/1 New York Times:
ReplyDelete"Gerry Davis, the crew chief, explained how the umpires tour the field and review the ground rules before the first game of a series at a ballpark. Since the umpires do not control how the camera operator moves the camera, Davis said any ball that hits the camera is a homer.
Jeff Nelson, the right-field umpire, had ruled that Rodriguez’s ball was not a homer and said he thought it hit "the top of the fence." After Girardi said the Yankees thought the ball hit a fan, the umpires decided to watch the replays. Once the umpires saw the ball strike the camera, Rodriguez soon had a two-run homer."
That's just a bad rule then because as mentioned, that camera jutted out a half an inch over the fence.
ReplyDeleteBut it all evens out. Despite never touching home, it was the right call and Howard was officially safe by the MLB rule book when CC tossed the ball to 2nd.
ReplyDeleteThe ball was NOT going over the fence. Nobody wants to admit it.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do is see the replay from the side angle and how far the ball drops.
Yankee fans think you take a close up of the pic and assume the ball goes horizontal and over the fence.
This is 100% false. The ball is dropping so much that it does not go horizontal from where you see it close before it hits the camera, it falls downward and hits the fence.
Total joke of a call.