Phillies protest IR ruling
 

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.

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).

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.

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.

Phillies protest IR ruling
 

This play probably warrants its own thread. No video replays yet, but this link has a good still shot.
Phillies play game vs. Marlins under protest | 6abc.com

The ball seemed to be near the top of the wall, and any ball that a fan can interfere with might be a home run. Therefore, it's legitimate to use replay to determine whether it was a home run. I predict that the protest of the use of replay on this call will fail.

Moreover, based on the replay, it seems the crew got the call right. The fan reached over the field of play and touched the ball. That's spectator INT, and the crew can award outs and move runners at will. If the protest concerns the details of this call, it will fail on this account as well.

Pirate Protest Is Upheld - NYTimes.com

The last protest that was upheld was 25 years ago.

It seems unlikely McKeon went out to ask for a replay to see if it was a HR. According to the replay rules, IR can only be used for HR to in-play or in-play to HR....or if there was FI on a HR call. The replay was used here to see if there was FI on an in-play call which the IR rule does not seem to allow as written.

The details are unimportant -- judgment calls are never subject to protest.

It's whether West can use replay here or not.

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.

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.

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".

Ball near the top of the wall - why not?

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.