Astros/Cubs ending - Whose call?

[Larry1953]

@ Mike Strybel

Interesting aspect about a ball settling in foul territory. The ball bounced twice. The first time it hit the line and kicked up chalk. The second time it touched the ground only in foul ground with the conjecture that an edge of the sphere was still over the outer edge of the line.

A baseball is about 3 inches wide (diameter). Let's say that it leaves a 1 inch imprint when it hits the ground. So the point of impact would take up 1/2 inch of the 1 and 1/2 inches of the half of the ball that could have been at risk of being above the edge of the line. That leaves 1 inch of the ball to be over the line - max. It seems impractical to be able to judge that with the naked eye from 30 to 60 feet away or even with ultra slo-mo high definition replay. Any parallax from a camera or eye angle that is not precisely down the line would introduce a margin of error of at least an inch.

So, if replay is ever to be used for a case like this, it is probably best to call it foul if it does not definitely hit the line and show some chalk kicked up.