Phillies protest IR ruling

[Rich]

The Phillies are playing today's game under protest. Crew chief: Joe West. He used replay to call spectator interference on a fair ball that was clearly not a home run / no home run consideration. The Phillies are now losing, too. (Wait, they just took the lead again.)

Joe was the covering umpire and probably got about 4 feet closer to the play from his position. It appears (just looking at the replay guidelines) that spectator interference is in play, but only on potential home run balls.

Charlie Manuel was quickly ejected. When he tried to protest the game, West told him he didn't exist anymore and made the acting manager file the protest.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Charlie Manuel was quickly ejected. When he tried to protest the game, West told him he didn't exist anymore and made the acting manager file the protest.

What was Charlie Manuel ejected for? Did he get a little crazy on Joe, or was he being his "innocent choir boy" self? Joe didn't just dump him for questioning the call did he?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

What was Charlie Manuel ejected for? Did he get a little crazy on Joe, or was he being his "innocent choir boy" self? Joe didn't just dump him for questioning the call did he?

Arguing a replay decision is an automatic ejection. About 3 sentences in, Joe gave the left-handed wave.

The overall delay was almost 15 minutes. The last 10 was the aftermath of the replay decision that included two conferences by the crew (one before and one after the game was protested).

[Larry1953]

So, if they originally ruled HR, IR is allowed to determine if there was fan interference. I assume if they ruled FI after the IR, the IR rule would allow an out to be called. But, once they called the ball in play, the IR rule does not seem to allow for it to be used for a determination of FI. Replays in StL and KC a few weeks ago were wrong. Back to the drawing board with IR.

[Larry1953]

It would be nice if the Phillies lost so MLB would have to rule on the protest. Otherwise, it'll just be thrown out as moot and we will never know what the decision would have been. The spirit of the IR rule seems to be that it covers Fan Interference, at least for balls hit fair at the outfield wall. You would have thought they would have considered this in the wording, it is not something that was hard to anticipate.

[Larry1953]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Arguing a replay decision is an automatic ejection. About 3 sentences in, Joe gave the left-handed wave.

The overall delay was almost 15 minutes. The last 10 was the aftermath of the replay decision that included two conferences by the crew (one before and one after the game was protested).

It could prove interesting to see a protest upheld on the point being made that caused an automatic ejection.

The Phillies just lost. At least we'll get a ruling now.

[Larry1953]

The protest involves a play that had a significant impact on the outcome of the game. In such cases, and there haven't been many at the MLB level, play is resumed from the point of contention. What happens to the stats from innings 6 to 14? Would they all be wiped from the books, or just the winning and losing pitcher stat?

http://www.retrosheet.org/protests.htm

This is about as complete a list of resumed games after protest as you'll find. Most of them had to do with rain or curfew delays that simply had the games start up again. As best I can tell, this might be the first game in MLB history where more than half of the innings played could be negated if it is to be resumed from the point of protest.

[Larry1953]

It looks like Joe West caught on to the deficiency in the IR rule by the time of his postgame statement where he contended Manuel asked for a replay to see if it was a HR. Manuel was adamant that he did not. Nobody in the park thought it was ever a HR, the only question was if there was fan interference. And the rule was not written to cover that. It was meant to overturn the HR call that the Maier kid interfered with by the way it is worded. Nevertheless it was the consensus of the ESPN crew that the protest would not be upheld, mainly because "they got the call right".

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Larry1953

Nevertheless it was the consensus of the ESPN crew that the protest would not be upheld, mainly because "they got the call right".

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.

[kylejt]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Joe was the covering umpire and probably got about 4 feet closer to the play from his position.

Did you just call him fat?

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by kylejt

Did you just call him fat?

No, he called him slow. There are also fast fat people (Bruce Froemming comes to mind) and slow skinny people.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

No, he called him slow. There are also fast fat people (Bruce Froemming comes to mind) and slow skinny people.

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

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

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

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.

[ozzy6900]

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).

[Larry1953]

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.