Instead of the usual Notes, I am going to describe some of the mechanics behind changing and reversing calls, to try to explain why the umpiring crew last night blew their decision.
The facts are as follows. It's the bottom of the second inning, 1-0 St. Louis. There are no outs. Eduardo Perez is on second, Tino Martinez on first, Mike Matheny is at the plate.
Matheny hits a flare into LF, Frank Catalanotto comes running in and appears to trap the ball (replay showed it was very close). 3B umpire Kerwin Danley makes the call - "out". Catalanotto sees the runners have advanced, and tosses to Orlando Hudson at second who steps on the bag (2B umpire Bill Welke then points at Perez and makes the "out" sign) and tags Martinez, who is still standing vacantly on second base, like a man who had just wandered onto the field accidentally while looking for a peanut vendor. Welke makes another out call.
All very clear and unambiguous. Tony LaRussa then comes out of the dugout, waves his [deleted] at the umpires, and ten minutes later they go over to talk to the Jays dugout... they reversed their call, all hands were safe. Carlos Tosca gave four umpires a blast of sulphurous hell for about 15 minutes, and finally Danley was the poor sap left hung out to dry... he had to eject Tosca.
Generally, as every fan knows, the umpire's call is final. There are two circumstances in which two different calls can legally be issued on the same play. The first, is known as a "corrected" call. This is one where the umpire immediately reverses himself ("he's out!" "no, wait, he's safe!"). ANY call can be corrected. It is very poor mechanics, but it's entirely legal.
The second circumstance is usually known as a "changed" or "reversed" call. This is where a call is changed, but only after time has elapsed. It is not immediate. There is a tightly restricted set of calls which can be reversed. Author, umpire, and expert Carl Childress has set out what he calls the "Fab Five". These are calls which are capable of being reversed. They are:
1. Where a half swing that is called a ball, is changed to a strike. (See Rule 9.02(c)).
2. Where two umpires make opposite calls on the same play (since only one can be accepted, one of the calls must be changed).
3. Where an umpire misapplies a rule (See Rule 9.02(b) and (c)).
4. Where a home run is changed to a double (or vice versa), or a "foul" call is changed to "fair", on (a) balls hit out of the park; or (b) where no one reacted to the call of "foul" . (This is as a result of longstanding professional practice, and now the PBUC has ruled twice that these are legally changeable).
5. Where an "out" call is made on a tag play, but the ball comes free, and another umpire observes it. (See Jim Evans' Official Rules Annotated 9:15-16).
And that's it.
Now we've all seen umpires in various places, reversed calls that don't appear on this list. And that's fine. There is a legitimate difference of opinion in the umpiring community about whether reversing such calls is actually illegal (the best evidence appears to be that it is) or merely incredibly bad form for the umpire crew. There are three calls which are frequently reversed in this way... Childress calls them the "Terrible Three". These are (1) where the first baseman pulls his foot off the bag; (2) where a swipe tag is made; and (3) where a ball is dropped on a force play. Childress says that changing those calls is illegal, but that umpires do so anyway, all the way up to MLB.
So far, so good. The best interpretation of the rules is that a trapped/caught fair ball judged to be caught (and the consequent "out" call) cannot be reversed. But why doesn't such a call appear on the "Terrible Three" list?
The answer is simple... because no umpire in their right mind would EVER reverse such a call. It is simply inconceivable that an umpire could reverse that call... because the call of "out" changes the rest of the play, forever. The call of "out" occurred in what is known as a "continuous action situation". In such a situation, changing a call is totally inconceivable, because the rest of the action of the live-ball play depends entirely on whether the batter was out or not. I have never once seen an umpire advocate that you can go back and undo a play completely, in order to correct what may be a legitimate mistake on a call that was not immediately corrected.
There was a well-known incident from an Orioles-Yankees game in July of 1999. Derek Jeter hit a fly ball down the right field line that Albert Belle juggled. The ball bounced off Belle's glove and was trapped between his body and the wall before he grabbed it with his bare hand. First base umpire Larry Barnett initially called Jeter out but after an umpires' conference, Jeter was given a double. Why could this stand? The difference (and it is my opinion that the reversal was illegal, though defensible) is that there was nobody on base and the play had continued. The changed call, like the change of a call of "foul" where no one reacted to the call, didn't change the futher action in the play. But in this particular situation the call of "out" changes everything that happens thereafter... in particular, it caused Cat to throw to second base to attempt to double off the runner from second (and led to the triple play when the runner from first walked right into a tag). It would have caused Martinez to hustle back to first if he had the brains of a grapefruit. And so on.
This situation was so badly blown by the umpires, that there is no possible interpretation of the rules that could explain what happened and let the umpires off the hook. The "out" calls cannot be changed, it was a triple play, and the protest should be upheld and the game resumed. MLB will not do this; they will never do this, they are much too craven... (I think it's most likely that the protest will be denied because it will be interpreted as "protesting a safe/out call." You cannot protest a safe/out call because it's a judgment call.) But right is right, and wrong is wrong. Cat might have trapped the ball, but the right (bad) call is for the triple play to stand as called.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030606012132999