Davey Johnson watched Game 4 of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers from the comfort of his Florida home.
But after he saw Robinson Cano’s second-inning long fly ball ruled a home run — even though still photography evidence indicated it was fan interference — Johnson was right back at old Yankee Stadium for Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS between his Orioles and the Yankees.
“It brought back some bad memories,” Johnson said.
It was almost a carbon copy of arguably the most publicized incident of fan interference in baseball history, when 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier reached over the right-field wall and interfered with a Derek Jeter fly ball that Baltimore outfielder Tony Tarasco clearly thought he was about to catch.
“It was definitely interference, although it was probably going to go out,” Johnson said of the ball hit by Cano that Rangers right fielder Nelson Cruz argued was interfered with by fans reaching over the wall. “But it wasn’t even close to what happened to me.”
No, fortunately for baseball, Cano’s home run call, which gave New York a 1-0 lead, did not impact the outcome of the game — unlike Jeter’s home run, which came in the eighth inning with Baltimore leading 4-3. Jeter’s home run tied the game, and Bernie Williams won it for the Yankees with a 11th-inning leadoff home run. New York would go on to win the series in five games.
Cano’s home run was buried in an avalanche of Rangers offense in a 10-3 Texas win. But the controversy was not, because umpire Jim Reynolds had a tool available to him that Rich Garcia, who blew the Tarasco call, did not: replay.
Reynolds chose not to use it and told Rangers manager Ron Washington the fan had not “impeded” Cruz. Replays, though, show otherwise, and this blown call was far worse than Garcia’s, even if the implications weren’t the same, because the crew arrogantly refused to use replay.
Then, two batters later, Lance Berkman hit a fly ball down the right-field line that Reynolds called another home run. This time, after Washington argued the call, the umpires looked at replays, which showed the ball went foul, and reversed it.
It was a bizarre and embarrassing sequence of events for baseball commissioner Bud Selig and added to the evidence of the need for replay in baseball (and then, of course, getting the umpires to use it).
After the Maier incident, Johnson said that perhaps MLB needs to use nine umpires in the postseason (it goes from four in the regular season to six in postseason), one for each player.
“I was 330 feet away, and I can see my fielder, and the kid is leaning over to catch the ball,” Johnson said with a vivid memory of the game 14 years later, “I see it right there. I said to Garcia, ‘You’re right under that and you can’t see it? I can see it from 330 feet away. How can you miss it?’?”
Garcia did miss it, and maybe Jim Reynolds did as well. Fourteen years from now, though, it will be an afterthought for Washington. It is still very much a part of Davey Johnson’s life.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected]
