Pete Alonso’s bat sparked the kind of replay mess MLB has spent all season trying to avoid.
In Wednesday’s Yankees-Orioles game at Camden Yards, Alonso launched a towering shot to left field in the seventh inning that looked for a moment like it might flip the game for Baltimore. Instead, the play turned into a long review, a disputed ruling and another fresh complaint about how baseball handles fair-or-foul calls.
The Orioles lost 5-3, but the bigger issue afterward was the ball itself. Alonso had already homered once earlier in the night, then jumped on a first pitch from reliever Brent Headrick and sent it high and deep.
Because the ball traveled above the foul pole, the call was never going to be simple. On the field, it was ruled foul, and Alonso stood near first base waiting for the verdict.
Craig Albernaz asked for a crew chief review, and the umpires went to the monitors. Even with fans getting multiple looks at the flight of the ball, the call came back the same: no home run. The replay center later explained why.
“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.”
That didn’t settle much in Baltimore. One down-the-line angle appeared to show the ball sneaking inside the foul pole, while other views left more room for doubt. Orioles fans let the umpires hear it.
Chris Bassitt didn’t hide how he felt after the game, and he aimed his frustration at MLB’s technology setup.
“Obviously, I think it was fair. But after the call, it’s just crazy we still have this issue,” Bassitt said, per USA Today.
“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.”
Bassitt added that the fix is simple in his mind.
“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 also questioned why the league can’t use the Hawk-Eye system already in place for the ABS setup to settle fair-or-foul calls. He said he has “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," Alonso said, per USA Today. “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.”
From the Yankees’ side, Brent Headrick and Aaron Boone saw it differently. Headrick said he thought the ball was foul, though he admitted the call was close.
“I’m a pitcher, right? So from my vantage point, I thought it was foul,” Headrick said, per USA Today.
“But I think it could’ve went either way. It went in my favor."
MLB currently uses high-definition instant replay cameras around each stadium to sort out home run calls, with New York video coordinators and replay umpires reviewing the angles in real time. The Hawk-Eye system used for ABS is not set up to decide fair-or-foul home run calls.
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