During a recent Liga de Béisbol Profesional Nacional game between Tren del Norte de Real Estelí and Bóer Juan Montes was thrown out at home. For the Tren del Norte star it wasn’t his glorious mustache that ended up being the talk of the game. This time it was his play at home. It was a close play, but Montes very clearly executed a great hand-switch slide and beat the tag. Montes was ejected from the game while arguing the call and since there is no replay in LBPN that was that and the game moved on. What if the LBPN did have replay, what would have happened then?
Maybe the game would have continued on with the run having scored but Montes having been ejected. That makes some sense if you’re like a fan of umpires or something crazy like that. This site, however, is a no-fly zone for umpire loving. If the call was reversed then clearly Montes and his stache should have found their way back into the game as well. That makes the most sense, but baseball doesn’t always make a lot of sense.
The Montes play got me to thinking if I had ever seen such a play happen in a league with instant replay? I couldn’t think of such an occurrence. I turned to the internet and in my talks with a few different folks, they couldn’t think of it ever happening either. This is one time where baseball does make sense. Players have gotten more reserved in their protestations immediately following a close play in leagues with instant replay. If the play was close enough to warrant review then just keep your cool and let the review take place. If said review doesn’t go your way then get mad and get ejected.
Maybe the hypothetical Montes ejection reversal happened in the early days of replay? I really hope it did and I hope that one day I get to see footage of that sequence of events. For now, I’ll just have to contend with wondering about a hypothetical what-if? It is quite the what-if though, the type that baseball fans love to entertain in our always overworking baseball minds.
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Unknown
