Yankees’ would-be home run screams for a human touch

As of this writing, the entire island of Manhattan has not yet turned on the fan who may or may not have cost the Yankees their season on Wednesday night.

That’s helped by the fact that he has yet to be publicly identified, though that’s coming. When it does, it may be a good idea to move temporarily to solidly Mets territory, and while there find a plastic surgeon who can give you a new head.

How delighted that fellow must have been to get seats directly over the left-field wall. And how amazed to see an Anthony Volpe fly ball sailing right toward him. And how natural to reach a few inches over the wall to grab himself a historic trophy. And how ecstatic he looks to be celebrating Volpe’s game-tying home run with his Yankees-loving pals.

Then how conflicted he must have felt when it became clear that home run was subject to more than the usual, pro forma video review. And how chilled as that review stretched on for what felt like hours. And how forlorn when it was announced that the home run was being recalled for fan interference. And how much like heading straight to the bus station to buy a ticket for whatever bus going wherever as he was being frogmarched out of the stadium by police.

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Someone should write a book about it – just that half hour. Don DeLillo’s almost 90, but I believe he’s got one good one left in him.

It’s true that it wouldn’t have been a home run without our still-anonymous anti-hero. The ball was headed straight down, and clearly falling a few inches short of the top of the wall. With that in mind, this guy’s no Steve Bartman. He isn’t personally responsible for punching a couple of million of his neighbours in the crotch.

However, that’s not to say that the ball wouldn’t have hit the top of said wall, and skittered away from Tampa left-fielder Victor Mesa Jr., who was under it at full, leaping stretch. If the bounce was right, that shot had inside-the-park home run written all over it.

In one world, the Yankees win a ‘where were you when you saw it?’ game. New York is now living in the other world.

The upshot is twofold. First, on the Yankees losing in this way – ha ha.

Second, on the video replay ensuring that a fair and correct second thought was applied to the play – what a disappointment.

This is why video replay doesn’t work – because it works. It eliminates the intervention of fate. It robs us of mythology.

Volpe’s home run was immediately reminiscent of another – Derek Jeter’s winner in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS. Same situation – a ball hit high, headed toward a clutch of outfield fans in the Bronx.

In that instance, it was a 12-year-old kid, Jeffrey Maier, who reached over the wall and caught the ball. There are fewer camera angles of the Jeter/Maier home run than of Volpe’s, but it looks worse. Maier is out over the field up to his elbow, plus he’s wearing a baseball glove. Like our temporarily nameless friend on Wednesday night, Maier also celebrated like he was the one who’d hit the ball, rather than the one who’d gotten in the way of it.

After Volpe’s ‘home run,’ the outfielder underneath it, Mesa, looked bemused. After Jeter’s home run, no ironic quotes required, the outfielder, Tony Tarasco, was apoplectic. Tarasco was absolutely certain it was interference. But there was no video review in ‘96, and so no recourse.

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The Yankees won the World Series that year. They started winning a ton of them then. One of those championships is like another. The main thing that differentiates that run from the others is Jeffrey Maier, celebrity twerp, terror of the seventh grade.

In 2012, the Baltimore Sun did a story about Maier. Its lede: “The most despised child in the history of Baltimore sports is all grown up.” That piece is a sort of closing of the books on The Jeffrey Maier Incident (which is what Wikipedia calls it).

In the Sun article, Maier comes off as a very likeable and self-aware guy. In order for any sports story to qualify as a legend, the circle must eventually be closed. The conciliatory piece in Baltimore’s main organ did that.

Another must – a valuable lesson was learned. Maier’s completed cycle reminds us that sports aren’t real life. They don’t actually matter. Being angry about them is part of enjoying them. Always remember that. Jeffrey does.

What will be learned from The John Doe Incident? Nothing. Once the shnook who caught the ball has his life run through by the tabloid press, people will forget it happened. Because it didn’t happen. Replay killed it.

What a terrible waste of a scandal. Lots of scandals to choose from these days, but most of them are clinically depressing. We can’t afford to waste the fun ones.

Were I made arbiter of sports, the first thing I’d do is less arbitrating. Leave the technology out of it. Let the human official in place decide.

Let her do it based on one look, in real time, as she’s moving in one direction and the play is moving away from her, through a thicket of bodies. In other words, let her guess. The average professional sports official is probably good for a 60, 70 per cent success rate at guessing, which is about right.

Then let’s argue about it for the next 10 or 20 years. The downside to this is that the Yankees may occasionally win. But in sports, as in all things, sacrifices must be made for the common good.