Baseball World

I saw my first test of the new instant replay rule in baseball Sunday. We were at Surprise Stadium in what was once a desert but is now Surprise, Ariz. ”“ the town that got its name because the original founder is supposed to have said she would be surprised if any town could live so far out in the desert. It is now a thriving community with more than 120,000 residents, and boasts a fine sports complex that includes a civic center, which was hosting a major tennis tournament this weekend.

Anyway, back to the instant replay. In the third inning of a slugfest, with the home team Texas Rangers behind the San Diego Padres,10-3, the Rangers had runners on first and third with two outs when designated hitter Michael Choice smashed a double to left field. Prince Fielder, who had singled to drive in the Rangers’ third run and was on third, scored easily. Leonys Martin, who had walked and was on first, tried to score, and a great relay from left fielder Carlos Quentin to shortstop Everth Cabrera arrived at home plate at almost the same time.

Martin slid wide, to the right side of the plate, and reached out with his hand to touch the plate as Padre catcher Yasmani Grandal lunged for him. The home plate umpire called Martin out and from my seat, four rows behind the third base dugout at field level, it looked like a good call, and that the runner had been tagged and had missed the plate with his hand.

Texas Manager Ron Washington appealed the call arguing that Martin had touched home before the tag was applied. The play was reviewed fairly quickly ”“ I would estimate five to 10 minutes ”“ and the call was overturned, the run was allowed, Choice was returned to second base and the game resumed.

The process was interesting to watch for the first time. A man with some type of communications system appeared from behind home plate, and Allen Bailey, the plate umpire, and the crew chief put on microphones and spoke with the replay official in New York, and when they were done, the play was reversed. Instead of the inning being over and the score 10-4, there were two outs, a runner on second and the score was 10-5.

Obviously, the majority of the Padres fans do not yet understand the process of instant replay, because as soon as the play was reversed they began to complain to the umpires that they were wrong when, in actuality, they had no control over the call. The new system will take some getting used to by players, fans and umpires.

This call would seem to have been a relatively easy one to make on replay because of the distance between the players and what must have been pretty easy to read in slow motion. It still delayed the game a few minutes, and baseball does not need to build in any more delays to a game that quite often moves too slowly for many fans.

It was still a pleasure to watch Adrian Beltre play third for Texas, though. If there were one player of all that have come and gone in Boston over the past several years that the Sox could choose to bring back, he’s the one. Not only is he productive at the plate, but he plays third base as well as almost anyone in baseball. It’s too bad that Jurickson Profar, the Rangers’ young second baseman, is going to miss the first couple of months of the season, because with Beltre at third, Profar at second, Elvis Andrus at short and a greatly slimmed down Fielder at first, the Rangers have as solid an infield as anybody.

On Saturday, I saw Mike Trout, the young superstar for the Los Angeles Angels, for the first time this year. I had read that he had bulked up over the winter, and he certainly has. He looks like he could play linebacker in the NFL. His first time at the plate, he hit a low fastball from Milwaukee Brewer right-hander Kyle Lohse high over the center field fence for a two-run homer. The second time up, he faked bunts on the second and third pitches before lining a long single to center. He not only has amazing talent, having hit .323 with 27 homers, 97 RBIs and 33 stolen bases last season, he is as confident in his own ability as any 22-year-old ball player I have ever seen.

— Carl Johnson lives in Sanford and writes a weekly baseball column for the Journal Tribune Sunday. Contact him at baseballworldbjt@yahoo.com.