Certainly not Froemming in his later years. By then, he was virtually stationary.

No, I called him lazy. Big difference. He's forgotten more than I'll ever know about baseball, but I haven't seen him hustle anywhere in a long time.

Here's the video if you haven't seen it yet >>>> Phillies Protest FI Call.

I don't think that the ball had a chance of going out but it may have hit the yellow stripe. I don't know if that would be a HR in that park or not. Also, there is speculation from the announcers that the fielder wouldn't have caught the ball. It is obvious that his glove hit the fan's hand and that caused the glove to close.

• Fan Interference? Absolutely!
• Should it have been reviewed? Going but the rules of replay, I have to say that I would not have reviewed it.
• Was Joe wrong in doing so? That would be up to the commissioner (if there really was one).

MLB tells umpire crew it mistakenly used replay | Bleacher Report

Somewhat related, MLB said that replay could not be used to rule whether FI occurred on a ball bounding over the wall in a ground rule double situation. It probably seemed to the crew that it was a very logical extension, but MLB specified the distinction then.

No, but Bruce routinely whooped up on skinny people who thought he was slow when he was a younger umpire. He would challenge them to a 40 yard dash and pound them mercilessly, surprising them with his speed.

Therefore we all know this cannot be the reason it's not upheld... since we all know that any utterance of an announcer is automatically wrong.

Because the rule does not include this case. That's why not.

Disagree. A ball near the yellow line might be a HR and so reviewable.

I believe that MLB declared that IR was used improperly in this case, but I don't see why.

Because it's their rule and they get to decide when it applies - we don't.

I guess I'm having trouble understanding why you (and only you, apparently) think this could have been a home run. Did you see the video?

If the fan was behind the wall and hit the ball knocking it back in, we'd have a home run, no? So if you were 200 yards away and didn't have a good sense of whether the fielder reached into the stands or the fan reached into the field, you might need replay to determine if it was a home run. (And the replay was clear it was the latter but I gather nobody got that great a look at it live.)

The difference here is that it was not ruled a home run. The ball hit the glove, and was apparently ruled as such. And it was Florida's manager that came out initially. For some reason I'm thinking he's not coming out asking them to check and see if it was a home run. the rule doesn't say, as you state, they can check on any ball that's close to the yellow line.

200 yards? Joe West should've been no more than 200 *feet* from the ball. He was the U1 and it was his ball since there was a runner on first base. I'd love to see how far out he got on it. I already know the answer to that.

Torre denied the Phillies protest. No details whatsoever as to why he denied it. I'd have been surprised if this was settled otherwise.

Guess this means MLB umpires can do whatever the heck they want with replay, and if it turns out they are right, rules be damned...