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Sports Seriously
BALTIMORE – Pete Alonso struck the ball so high and so far, the foul pole wasn’t high enough to stop it. It exited so quickly, third base umpire Will Little was reduced to guesswork as he hustled down the line to make a snap decision.
Yet the Baltimore Orioles will tell you the most important factor in the most pivotal point in this game was what wasn’t there: The technology to make a definitive call rather than rely on guesswork and inconsistent television replays.
They lost a 5-3 game to the division rival New York Yankees Wednesday, Aug. 19 at Camden Yards, yet it was a 3-3 game, bottom of the seventh, two outs and the Yankees hoping that lefty reliever Brent Headrick could hang on and retire one of the most feared right-handed sluggers in the game.
Alonso ambushed him.
He clocked a first-pitch slider far over the left field fence some 333 feet from home plate, sauntered a few feet down the first base line and tried his best body English to will it fair. Headrick popped off the mound and crept toward the third base line.
Players in both dugouts hung over the railings to get a better look.
Foul ball.
Orioles manager Craig Albernaz asked for a crew chief review. Little complied. Alonso stood with his bat in foul territory, watched the replays along with the 26,453 fans on hand and believed vindication would come.
Instead, the verdict from New York confirmed what Little saw – yet what a replay from a down-the-line camera seemed to contradict.
Foul ball. Still.
The Orioles soon fell apart, yielding go-ahead runs in the top of the eighth. But their frustration was only beginning, as Albernaz, Alonso and starting pitcher Chris Bassitt all believe the technology exists to avoid potential error.
And Bassitt believes Major League Baseball is simply too cheap to utilize it.
“Obviously, I think it was fair. But after the call, it’s just crazy we still have this issue,” Bassitt said in the Orioles clubhouse. “We might be the only major sport with an issue like this. It’s been years that we have technology they can easily use to say, ‘This is exactly the right thing or wrong thing.’ The fact we don’t have it in 2026 is crazy. That’s my take.
“It’s not so much that they got the right call or wrong call. You’ll ask the general public and get a 50-50 answer. It’s just the fact we don’t have the technology in play to actually say ‘hey, this was fair or foul’ is literally crazy in 2026. It’s crazy.”
And why does it not exist?
“It costs money. That’s it. That’s literally it,” says Bassitt, a former member of the MLB Players’ Association executive council. “You ask a fan of the game who’s a true fan of the game, they’d want those cameras. You’d ask every player. Every coach.
“It costs money. That’s it. That’s literally it.”
Alonso cites the Hawk-Eye technology that is used to power the automated ball-strike system and believes it can be transferred to fair-foul calls that affect hulking sluggers like him with great frequency.
He said he’s been told the main reason it doesn’t exist is because all 30 major league ballparks have different dimensions from the plate to the outfield fences.
“We have Hawk-Eye. I think a simple fix, you have football, you have the pylon camera with the (goal line) plane, it shoots right across the goal line. I feel like we could easily have a laser, or a camera that shoots straight up.
“I think having a camera or laser shooting straight up – we have all the cameras and analytics and funds. I don’t see why we couldn’t do it. The reason I’m told we can’t is because every ballpark is unique. That’s my understanding. It sucks.”
In the Yankees’ clubhouse, the mood was, well, different. Manager Aaron Boone said longtime Yankees replay specialist Brett Weber saw the myriad angles – the one directly above home plate did sow significant doubt – and then walked out to the playing surface later.
“Webby went out and looked after the game. He wanted to look at the line,” Boone said. “So, he’s got it foul.”
Good break there, eh?
“No. I think it was foul,” Boone said.
Headrick and Alonso both had to get their heart rates back to normal and the Yankee lefty, appearing in his 65th game of the year, won the battle. He whiffed Alonso on a 94-mph fastball to end the frame.
“I’m a pitcher, right? So from my vantage point, I thought it was foul,” Headrick said. “But I think it could’ve went either way. It went in my favor.
“Once that happens, you gotta really bear down, buckle down. You’re just trying to stay locked in, regardless. It’s just my job to execute the next pitch.”
Umpires typically discuss controversial calls with a pool reporter. But MLB’s replay center released a statement on behalf of the judgment, which said: “After viewing all relevant angles, the Replay Official could not definitively determine that the ball left the playing field in fair territory.
“The call stands, and it is a foul ball.”
From their tablets in the dugout, the Orioles believed different, and probably always will on a night they fell 1½ games back in the chase for the final AL wild card.
“It’s really tough to have that come back as ‘stands,’ and have that visual in the dugout,” Albernaz told reporters in his postgame press conference. “It’s 2026. Technology has advanced pretty good. I don’t know why we don’t use it.”