Baseball to use instant replay on 'boundary calls'

NEW YORK -- Replay ball!

Umpires will be allowed to check video on home run calls starting Thursday after Major League Baseball, guardian of America's most traditional sport, reversed its decades-long opposition to instant replay.

"Like everything else in life, there are times that you have to make an adjustment," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said following Tuesday's announcement. "My opposition to unlimited instant replay is still very much in play. I really think that the game has prospered for well over a century now doing things the way we did it."

The 74-year-old Selig, who described himself as "old fashioned" and an admirer of baseball's "human element," softened his opposition following a rash of blown calls this year.

For now, video will be used only on so-called "boundary calls," such as determining whether fly balls went over the fence, whether potential home runs were fair or foul and whether there was fan interference on potential home runs.

Replay will go into use with three series scheduled to open Thursday: Philadelphia at the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota at Oakland and Texas at the Los Angeles Angels. For other games, replays will be available to umpires starting Friday.

The NFL first used replay to aid officials in 1986, the NHL in 1991 and the NBA in 2002. Even at stuffy old Wimbledon, technology has been used on line calls since 2006. Replay equipment to help determine calls was in place at this year's Little League World Series.

Baseball general managers voted 25-5 last November to recommend use of the technology, and baseball's lawyers spent recent weeks finalizing agreements with the unions for umpires and for players.

"I find it very strange that, with 30 games to go in the season, that they would start it now. I find that very peculiar," Baltimore Orioles manager Dave Trembley said. "If they wanted it so bad, what took them so long to get it going and why wait until this particular point in time?"

Baseball officials wanted to avoid having a situation in the postseason where fans with access to televisions and viewers at home knew what the correct call was, but the umpires did not.

"Some people thought that we ought to wait until the postseason," Selig said. "I'd rather go into the postseason knowing that we've already used it."

Video from available broadcast feeds -- not every team televises every game -- will be collected at the office of Major League Baseball Advanced Media in New York, where it will be monitored by a technician and either an umpire supervisor or a retired umpire. If the crew chief at a game decides replay needs to be checked, umpires will leave the field, technicians at MLBAM will show umpires the video and the crew chief will make the call, overturning the original decision only if there is "clear and convincing evidence."

Leaving the dugout to argue a call following a replay will result in an automatic ejection.