"The Slap" that launched 25,000 cellphone calls.

Dialing for Instant Replay

Plus: An iPod Spam of the Week
October 25, 2004; Page B1

Did cellphones prevent an ugly situation at Yankee Stadium from getting uglier?

Flash back to last week and Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. Eighth inning, one out, Boston Red Sox leading 4-2. Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees is on first, with Alex Rodriguez at the plate as the tying run. A-Rod hits a squibber to Boston pitcher Bronson Arroyo and then slaps the ball out of his mitt as Mr. Arroyo tries to apply the tag.

Initially things seemed to have broken the Yankees' way: Mr. Jeter came around to score and A-Rod was left standing on second as the stadium roared. But then the six umpires on the field convened and declared Mr. Rodriguez had interfered with Mr. Arroyo. A-Rod was out and Mr. Jeter was sent back to first. Some Yankee fans littered the field with baseballs, plastic beer bottles and other debris. Later, police in riot gear were sent out to kneel in foul territory to prevent any further hubbub.

Fans in the stands that night say they saw the disputed play as a confusing near-collision, followed by a pantomime of huddled umps, gesticulating managers and hand signals. No announcement explaining what had happened was made, they say. And no replay was shown on the scoreboard -- in fact, Major League Baseball forbids teams from showing close or disputed calls.

Anyone who saw Miller Genuine Draft bottles pinwheeling through the Bronx air can understand the wisdom of that, but the lack of an in-park replay put fans who were actually at the game at a disadvantage to those watching on TV. Stay-at-home (or go-out-to-the-bar) fans saw a replay from several angles and heard an explanation of the interference rule (one of baseball's knottier regulations) from the Fox broadcasting team. Most at the park only knew that Mr. Jeter had scored, A-Rod was safe and the Yankees were in business -- and then, for some reason, Mr. Jeter was back on first, A-Rod was out and the Yankees were in trouble.

Enter the cellphone.

"Immediately everyone began dialing up friends and family to find out what had happened," says Robin Mohapatra.

"After a minute or two, we called friends in Boston who gave us a verbal rundown of the replay," says Tom Thornton.

"Word spread through the crowd after fans called TV-watching friends," says Andrew Howse.

What those friends said was unambiguous: A-Rod was in the wrong and the umpires had made the right call. That might not have made Yankee fans any happier, but it did dispense with the idea that they'd been jobbed. And it suggests that if not for the cellphone, things might have been uglier in the stands.

Nor was that the first time fans had used their cellphones to get a secondhand view of an instant replay they couldn't see. Earlier in the game, some called to check on the umpires' ruling that a drive hit by Boston's Mark Bellhorn had struck a fan, making it a home run, not a double. And Matthew Olsen says the same thing happened at Game 5 in Fenway Park, when Boston's David Ortiz was called out on a close play at second base.

Fans at the park have long had access to more than just their eyes and ears. Many dedicated fans bring radios with them, and the radio commentators routinely look at instant replays and critique umpires' calls, as well as explaining rule violations not announced in the park. But today fans packing radios are much less common than those with cellphones. As Mr. Olsen notes of the play on Mr. Ortiz at Fenway, "even though we couldn't see it, we had near real-time information."

Throw in the ever-evolving capabilities of cellphones and things get even more interesting. A number of companies already offer live TV for cellphones. Right now, such services aren't ready for prime time, resembling the early days of Web video. But they'll inevitably get better as technology marches on -- in Europe, today's subscribers to 3G services can get video highlights of soccer goals sent to their phones. A few baseball postseasons hence, fans wondering what just happened on the field may well pull out their cellphones and flip over to Fox -- or have video of the disputed play pop up in their phone's e-mail. Could that change things?

In the spring of 1999, veteran umpire Frank Pulli stunned fans at Miami's Pro Player Stadium by ending an interminable argument about whether a ball had been a double or a home run by walking over to a TV camera and peeking at the replay. But league officials were quick to say that wasn't acceptable -- and such oddities aside, baseball is the only major North American sport that doesn't use instant replay in any situation. (NBA officials have looked at monitors to see if the game clock is running correctly, and NHL officials use instant replay when the legitimacy of a goal is in question. The NFL, of course, has turned replay into an exercise in bureaucracy, complete with the oddly peepshow-esque spectacle of a zebra staring down into a monitor for what seems like years, after which his microphone generally refuses to work.)

Baseball officials maintain the sport has no intention of considering instant replay, seeing the human element of the game as one of its strengths, an occasional mistake included. It also must be noted that Game 6's umpires correctly reversed both of the calls they huddled to discuss. But for better or worse, when fans routinely get a decent TV feed on their cellphones, baseball may have to reconsider instant replay. Otherwise, the sport will have to explain why it makes sense for 55,000 people in the park -- not to mention millions at home -- to look at replays while those going toe to toe with a furious manager can't.

(Tip of the never-before-used Real Time cap to Jace's Daily Fix co-writer, Carl Bialik, and to the Daily Fix readers quoted above.)

Should baseball adopt instant replay once fans in the park can see replays? Are there are other examples of technology in fans' hands changing spectator sports? Write to us at realtime@wsj.com¹, and we'll post selected comments this Thursday. If you want to share your thoughts but don't want your letter published, please make that clear. Also, a quick thanks to reader who noted that the author's name was L. Frank Baum, not Frank L. Baum, as we incorrectly stated last week.