MLB Admits Blown Call In Game Between Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics

The first step is admitting you were wrong, right? Well, apparently, that’s the only step Major League Baseball cared to make today as they did indeed fault themselves for the blown home run call which occurred during last night’s tilt between the Cleveland Indians and Oakland A’s – but that’s all they cared to do about it.

The play in question happened last night in the top of the 9th inning as the Athletics were down one. With two outs, A’s infielder Adam Rosales hit a deep fly ball into left center that hit well above the yellow line on the left field wall, a clear sign that the ball should be ruled a home run. But it wasn’t.

No worries though – Major League Baseball has instant replay, so they’d get the call correct.

Except they didn’t. The ball, although clearly a home run, was ruled a double and the A’s lost the game moments later. So what did MLB do about it? Apologize, in the most half-assed way they could.

Major League Baseball Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations Joe Torre issued the following statement this morning, stating that while he was sorry, umpires are human and mistakes like this happen:

"“By rule, the decision to reverse a call by use of instant replay is at the sole discretion of the crew chief. In the opinion of Angel Hernandez, who was last night’s crew chief, there was not clear and convincing evidence to overturn the decision on the field. It was a judgment call, and as such, it stands as final.Home and away broadcast feeds are available for all uses of instant replay, and they were available to the crew last night. Given what we saw, we recognize that an improper call was made. Perfection is an impossible standard in any endeavor, but our goal is always to get the calls right. Earlier this morning, we began the process of speaking with the crew to thoroughly review all the circumstances surrounding last night’s decision.”"

While Torre does have a point, the inclusion of instant replay was supposed to halt poor calls like we saw last evening.

What happens if this took place during the MLB Playoffs or a World Series game? Is a simple apology sufficient then?

The answer isn’t easy, but thankfully, a more expanded version of instant replay is expected next season.

Which means I guess they didn’t like my “glowing ball” idea. Bastards.