Philadelphia, PA – When the history books are done being written, the blown home run in Cleveland on Wednesday may very well go down as the worst in the history of baseball.
People can point to Don Denkinger's blown World Series call in 1985, or even Jim Joyce's error that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010, but Angel Hernandez not overturning what should have been a game-tying home run from Oakland's Adam Rosales takes the cake.
Like Joyce's miscue, people from all over the world were voicing their opinions on Twitter immediately after it happened, not to mention the millions upon millions of replays that were shown over the next couple of hours.
Basically if you are a borderline sports fan, you saw what happened. That's just the world we live in. Mistakes are highlighted and picked apart even more these days.
But unlike Joyce and Denkinger, Hernandez had a chance to rectify the situation through instant replay, yet he and his crew still got it wrong.
How is that even possible?
In case you are unaware, here's what happened:
With Oakland trailing by a run with two outs in the ninth, the Athletics' Adam Rosales seemingly tied the game with a home run off Tribe closer Chris Perez. But the shot was ruled a double even though replays clearly showed the ball clearing the wall and hitting a railing in left-center before caroming back onto the field.
"Everybody else said it was a home run, including their announcers when I came in here later," Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. "I don't get it. I don't know what the explanation would be when everybody else in the ballpark knew it was a home run.
"Clearly, it hit the railing. I'm at a loss, I'm at a complete loss."
Hernandez offered no apologies after the game. In fact, he seemed kind of miffed his call was even brought into question.
"It wasn't evident on the TV we had (that) it was a home run," Hernandez said. "I don't know what kind of replay you had, but you can't reverse a call unless there is 100 percent evidence, and there wasn't 100 percent evidence."
What kind of TV were these guys looking at? I saw the replay on my phone and could clearly see the ball hitting the railing. No matter what angle you look at, the ball still hits the railing.
Blown calls are a part of the game, but how can four people get it wrong after seeing it again?
I know the purists out there will cry that human error is part of the game, but this is the year 2013. Human error was supposed to be eliminated.
By the way, if you are waiting for an apology from Hernandez similar to the one Joyce handed out immediately after he made his mistake, keep waiting. The umpire's union was livid Joyce went as far as he did with that incident.
The umpires will not let that happen again, regardless if they know they are wrong.
MLB will likely release some sort of statement on Thursday agreeing with the umpires stating the replays they had were inconclusive and the rules state that once a call is made, it stands.
But there is a simple fix here.
Overturn the call and pick it up after Rosales' home run. It's happened before. Anyone remember the Pine Tar Game back in 1983? George Brett's home run was originally ruled an out, but after a review, the game was eventually picked back up from the home run.
That is exactly what should happen here. But it won't. And it's a shame.
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