http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/ne...news&fext=.jsp
Click on the link to the Randy Marsh interview about a third of the way down the page. Interview goes about 9 minutes.
As for last night, Marsh says Mientkiewicz stepped in front of him and screened him from the slap. Francona comes out and originally tried to go to West. West, who obviously had the information Francona wanted, did not talk to him, but sent him to see Marsh. Marsh then walked to West, West did NOT come volunteer information until asked, did not approach Marsh until asked, did not offer anything to Francona, EVER. Marsh's partners helped him out (both West and Kellog (RFU) both told Marsh they saw the slap), so Marsh overturned his own call. It was not done by anyone other than the umpire that made the original call.
Windy, I certainly never said that umpires should not huddle when asked. I never took the "live with the call no matter what", and I don't even think there were many people on the board who did. But I also said that the huddle should not be held unless the original calling umpire asks, and that ONLY the original calling umpire can make the change. I know others that were advocating umpire huddles and help to partners that were certainly that far over to the "help" side, to the point of volunteering information, and stepping on your partner's calls if need be. I'll look later, but I believe it was HHH who said, "I won't let a little dog f*** up my game", or something to that effect.
As for the change in umpires changing calls, in the interview, Marsh says they always did on the obvious calls, but they have been encouraged to do so even more since Sandy Alderson took over, and specifically, they were asked to do so in 1999. He gives total credit to Alderson for instituting the "change".