Rays' Maddon acknowledges error, knocks rule

TORONTO — Rays manager Joe Maddon acknowledged Tuesday that he was wrong about MLB's replay rules, but he said the current procedure "makes no sense whatsoever" and opens a "Pandora's Box" for future issues.

Current rules allow replay only for boundary calls on whether a ball is a home run. At issue is whether umpires, in using it for those purposes, can make other revisions, such as a ball that wasn't a home run being foul. Maddon had maintained they could not, but he found out Tuesday from executive vice president Andrew Friedman that it is allowed.

"I was wrong, apparently," Maddon said. "So at the point that you want a home run challenged then everything else is open for review — that to me makes no sense whatsoever."

Maddon cited exaggerated examples to show how little sense he thought it made, suggesting Detroit's Jim Leyland could have asked for a home run review so the umps could reverse the famously missed 2010 call at first base that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game.

Or, Maddon said, he could have asked for a review Monday on the ball Toronto's Henry Blanco hit to left before being incorrectly called safe sliding into second.

"I could have said … I thought it was a home run, I want that play at second reviewed," Maddon said. "Come on. You have to draw the lines somewhere."

In essence, Maddon said, there already is expanded replay in place. "It already exists, you didn't even know it," he said. "Other things are reviewable. You didn't even know that because once you ask for the home run to be reviewed then everything else is reviewable."

Marc Topkin, Times staff writer