PHILADELPHIA – If Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd has his way, instant replay will help avoid the type of botched home run calls that have gone against his team this season.
One such call nearly cost the Rockies their first playoff berth since 1995 when Garrett Atkins’ seventh-inning shot in Monday’s wild-card tiebreaker was ruled a double. The blast to left hit the top of the wall and, according to fans in the area, hit a metal brace inches beyond the yellow line causing it to carom at a sharp angle back onto the playing field. Ground rules say that a ball off the yellow line remains in play, so the issue was whether it went beyond the line.
“If the fan had caught it, it would have been a home run,” O’Dowd said Tuesday. “We could have lost because of that call.”
O’Dowd believes there is momentum within baseball to add instant replay to determine whether a home run is fair or foul and whether a ball cleared a fence or was subject to fan interference. O’Dowd will serve as the chairman of the technology committee at the annual general managers’ meetings in November.
“I really do think there’s been a change on how people feel about it, and there does seem to be a push even from somewhere in the commissioner’s office,” O’Dowd said. “There have been a number of (controversial) calls this season.”
One came Sept. 10 when the Rockies lost to the Philadelphia Phillies here. Yorvit Torrealba lost a grand slam when umpires ruled it a ground- rule double.
“(If it) is ruled a grand slam then we aren’t even playing this game,” O’Dowd said. “We’d have home-field advantage.”
In the case of Torrealba, he hit a flyball that bounced off a fan’s hands just as it cleared the fence. The ball fell back onto the field. Initially first base umpire Mike DiMuro circled his hand, indicating a home run.
“It just sparks debate to me (about instant replay),” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said after that loss. “The most important thing is that they get the call right.”
The issue of implementing instant replay has been raised in the past and quickly died at the GM meetings. O’Dowd confirmed as much, but offered an explanation: Those discussions were too wide- ranging. This new focus would be narrowed to home run calls.
“We want to use it in a sort of way so it’s less obtrusive,” O’Dowd said. “And we want them to get the call right.”
To become a rule, it would have to be approved by the general managers, owners and finally commissioner Bud Selig. Selig has been vocal in his opposition to replay.
Hurdle has been pining for instant replay since Colorado was robbed of a home run in St. Louis when Troy Tulowitzki’s ball hit the cement beyond the fence and bounced back. It was ruled a double.
Hurdle’s idea, one he declined to rehash before a national audience Tuesday in his first news conference for the NL division series, was in line with O’Dowd’s – with a twist. A manager could signal that he wanted a review on difficult home run calls, but he could not argue the ultimate result, preserving the pace of the game because it would eliminate the lengthy on-field shouting matches.
