To the right is a screen capture of the Francisco Cervelli’s home run from the seventh inning of last night’s this morning’s Orioles-Yankees game clearing the fence. Or not clearing it. Here’s the video.
After watching the video a couple of times and seeing how the fans don’t really bring their arms back toward them before the ball falls down to the warning track, it seems to me that the ball wasn’t going to clear the fence, and was thus interfered with and shouldn’t have been called a homer. But remember: the call on the field was a home run, so to overturn it, the video evidence had to be conclusive. I’m not sure I trust the video angles shown here to be conclusive in that regard, so I can’t get too riled up over the call being upheld. It’s a close call.
Still: if we have replay for home run calls, and if those calls include the question of fan interference and whether the ball clears the fence, why don’t we have cameras shooting down the fence line? Or do we and that angle is just not available for TV?
And speaking of angle, how about left fielder Matt Angle’s positioning “under” that ball? At least there was something to laugh at in this soaking wet, much-delayed game.
