October 25, 2004
Dialing for Instant Replay
Did cellphones prevent an ugly situation at Yankee Stadium from getting uglier?
At a recent ballgame, in a disputed play - where no announcement explaining what had happened was made and no replay was shown on the scoreboard -- (Major League Baseball forbids teams from showing close or disputed calls) - fans immediately began dialing up friends and family to find out what had happened - who gave them a verbal rundown of the replay seen on TV.
Fans at the park have long had access to more than just their eyes and ears. Many dedicated fans bring radios with them, and the radio commentators routinely look at instant replays and critique umpires' calls, as well as explaining rule violations not announced in the park.
But today fans packing radios are much less common than those with cellphones. As Mr. Olsen notes of the play on Mr. Ortiz at Fenway, "even though we couldn't see it, we had near real-time information." [ via the WSJ ]
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