The use of technology to review umpiring decisions has become a part of most of world sport now. I’m watching cricket’s The Ashes now, and I think the use of DRS in cricket is probably is the most impactful system in all team sports, in terms of its potential to change a game’s outcome. For individual sports, I think tennis’s line review system is also right up there.
But most teams sports now, including soccer, basketball, American football, and to a lesser degree, baseball (bring on the robot umps, please!) have forms of video review.
That always makes me wonder what outcomes in the history of sports would have been different had they had the technology and used replay. I assume there will be some degree of opinion in some of the responses here, but also some with absolute certainty, such as this one, (and please link videos if there is one):
A real shame to lose a perfect game that way, although Galarraga might be more famous due to being a robbed of a perfect game than he would be if the call was actually made correctly.
That was just one regular season game, but I’m actually more interested in championships or major games that would have, or potentially could have, had a different result with the use of technological replay.
Yup, that 1966 World Cup final might have had a very different outcome.
The 2010 World Cup (also, befittingly enough, England-Germany) Round of Sixteen might have been different if FIFA had allowed replay to overturn things and award the goal to Lampard.
1999 Stanley Cup final, the Dallas player was in the crease when he scored the game-winner against Buffalo.
1986 World Cup quarterfinal, Maradona’s handball against England.
Don Denkinger’s safe call at first base in the bottom of the ninth in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series. If that call is successfully overturned, the Cards likely win the game and the Series.
Brett Hull. Replays clearly showed his skate in the crease which was against the rules. I guess they just wanted the series to be over. NHL admits mistake years later.
2004 Stanley Cup finals, game six. It was in. Martin Gelinas appears to score the go ahead goal in the third period. Flamesnation.ca (15 years ago, the Flames probably scored on Tampa Bay in Game 6): “At the time the league didn’t have the ability to whistle down the play and conduct a thorough review. Nor did they have the many, many camera angles that they do now. It has been oft-discussed that Flames ownership recommended to the Board of Governors that video review be re-examined in the years that followed. Whether they did or not, video review resources were expanded in the years that followed.” NHL admits years later that that should have been a goal.
The “Immaculate Reception” in the 1972 NFL playoffs. Under the rules at that that time, if the deflected pass had not touched a defender (in this case, Raiders DB Jack Tatum), Franco Harris would not have been able to legally catch the pass.
The on-field ruling (and that’s all that was available, at that time) was that Tatum had touched the ball; Tatum insisted for many years that he had not, while the Steelers’ Frenchy Fuqua (the play’s original intended receiver) always played coy about it. The film and video from that time didn’t give a clear view, either; I suspect that modern HD video quality, as well as the availability of instant replay to the game officials, might well have led to a reversal – or, at least, settled the issue once and for all.
Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS. Orioles up 4-3 over the Yankees. Jeter hits a solo homerun to tie it up. Except… there is clearly, obviously fan interference. A young Yankees fan (I can’t even say his name without spitting) reaches over the outfield fence and grabs the ball as it’s falling toward the waiting glove of Tony Tarasco. Plainly fan interference and not a homerun. But not ruled as such. And no replay at the time. The Yankees go on to win the game. After the game, the umpire who ruled it a homerun watched the replay and admitted there was fan interference, but maintained the ball was catchable, but he was clearly trying to save face. No one who watches this, not even the biggest Yankees fan, can contend this wasn’t fan interference, and that it was still catchable even with it.
The Yankees go on to win the series 4 games to 1. So… maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference in the long run. But, momentum can do a lot in sports. So who’s to say.
Well, maybe. The Cardinals never got a second out in that inning; the Royals might well have at least tied the game anyway.
In addition the the homer-that-wasn’t-a-homer call the Yankees got, in the 2009 ALDS, Joe Mauer was robbed of a double against the Yankees in extra innings when a ball that technically was fair TWICE - it hit the outfielder’s glove in fair territory, and then landed in fair territory - was called foul by an ump just thirty feet away. It entirely changed the inning.
2002 WC Germany vs US. Frings kept a goal out with a handball. For the latter, the rule at the time was that a handball had to be deliberate, but with the caveat that your arm extended was implied to be deliberate so I guess you could argue against it even though the player said he should have been sent off for it.
